Had quite an entertaining experience today!

Ran into a guy while taking the car out for a ride.....as often happens, other Corvette owners past and present love to chat when they see another "member of the club".

Anyway, this guy was also out for a ride in his C3, a 1976 L82 coupe. A very pretty car, red with vintage 70's cragers. The guy had just finished a tuneup and wanted to run the car a while, and was quite pleased with how it was performing.

That good feeling was NOT to last.

He was a nice guy, and after chatting a few minutes challenged me to a little race! Now, I am not that kind of guy anymore. Back in the very early 70's it was what we did for fun, with the guy who had a lot more nerve than me sometimes racing for "pink slips". (Their titles!)

He knew a nearby country road that he and I agreed was a little over a mile long with no cross-streets and had little to no traffic most of the time. I figured he was gonna beat me but since it's probably been maybe 30 years since I raced anyone I thought to myself "Sure, let's do this!"


I'm gonna jump right to the punchline.

We followed each other over to the right road and agreed that about 1/2 way down the road there was a signpost that would mark the end of the race, so after using our phones to measure the distance we discovered the race was going to be a hair short of a 1/2 mile long.

We laughed at the fact we both had full gas tanks so it was even more important not to crash our old cars, and pulled up next to each other.

At the count of three, we launched!

No dramatic rubber burning, no smoking tires, but a 1/2 mile later I had blown the doors off that very pretty little red corvette!

We were both more than a little shocked. His car was in beautiful, very well-cared for condition, right off a brand new tuneup besides all the usual stuff including new spark plug wires, distributor cap, and all fresh fluids. His car ran as smooth as silk.

We tried again three times, and each time the same result......I beat him by about three car lengths in a 1/2 mile race, and I don't have to tell you that is a LOT in such a short race!

Anyway, he said he had a hard time believing my car was a stock L48, even after looking under the hood himself, and we shook hands and parted company.
(I told him about this forum and invited him to join, I hope he will!)

My question to all of you guys!!!

HOW did this happen??

Shouldn't his L82 in tip-top shape been able to easily best my car? Yes, my car runs well. But NO, it doesn't have the benefit of a fresh tuneup and in fact my guess is it hasn't had one in 10 years although I could be wrong. Besides oil changes I don't think the prior owner of my car changed much else under the hood. She only drove it about one thousand miles in 12+ years of ownership.

What do you guys think? Really curious!!

 

By the way, if you think my front bumper cover looks bad, the back one makes the front look like it's concours pristine perfect! Can't wait to get them both done!

 

OH!! Forgot to add something to my story!!!

Some of you guys might remember when I first posted some questions about the car, I mentioned how much more pressure the car seemed to need to stop it!
I was under the impression the power brakes either had a problem or maybe I just had forgotten (sice it has been many years since I owned a C3) how much different vintage brake feel is from modern cars.
Comparing the brake performance on my everyday driver (Genesis G90) and my wife's (Lexus SC430) made the '74 C3 seem like I had to stand on the pedal with both feet by comparison!

The guy I raced today, when looking under the hood, said "How do you like driving one of these without power brakes?"

LOL! Why didn't I notice there is no power brake booster on my car?? THAT is why the brakes seem to have no power! It's because they DON'T!!

Guess I can stop making unfair comparisons to other cars now as far as the brakes go, huh? Boy do I feel dumb!

 

I may have asked whether you had power brakes earlier....
But, let's get to the fun stuff! So if both cars are basically stock, for starters you have a much better free flowing exhaust. No catalytic converter! Tire size makes a difference too. The difference between a L48&L82 are not tremendous. You may have a better gear ratio as well.

 

Great story, you can take two identical cars off the assembly line in series and they won't run exactly the same, You can check your engine components numbers and see if they fall into that year category, I think you said it had matching engine numbers. Check the symbols on the ends of the heads for matching shapes for that year. It's possible over the years the camshaft could have been changed, it's hard to tell on that without a visual inspection. Root Beer Racer good title.

 

You DID ask if I had power brakes or not and I neglected to actually look, assuming I had them, when in fact it's as clear as day that I don't! (No brake booster!!)

As for the fun stuff.....yeah, you're certainly right (again!) about the differences in the builds between those years regarding smog gear, but I guess I was hung up on having the so called "anemic" L48, since the first question everyone who might be interested in buying the car or trading for it asks is "It's not an L48, right? Does it have a 454??? (They never realize how few drop top BB's there were relative to the rest) "Or at LEAST an L82??"

So I kind of accepted that while I feel my car is super pretty it wasn't going to win any races, especially with it's own more powerfully equipped cousins! And don't get me wrong! I'm ok with that! I never expected to show off this car's "raw speed" since we all know that's not why we love them in the first place! (My PICKUP TRUCK will beat our L48's handlily! LOL!)
Still, it was really surprising (and broke the other guy's heart just a little I think) to beat a well-tuned very (VERY!) nicely restored/maintained L82!

Not sure how to check those other factors you mentioned, but would like to try! I'd love to know if my car is not as stock as it looks and I believed it to be!

 

On used cars you don't know what you have for sure until it's torn down. I thought I had a stock L48 until l checked the block serial number and that came back as a 76 Corvette not 77, oh well maybe a 76 carry over engine from 76?, the heads were correct. 180 HP vin number. After I sold the engine to a friend he tore it down because I told him it had developed a miss, and that I had not checked it out to know why. He said it had a hole in one of the .040K over pistons, why I don't know. (it had no issues before that time) It ran good. I was building a 402 BB farm truck engine to replace it so it didn't matter, so it was not what I thought it was when I bought the car from a used car lot at 75K miles, I believed it had been ridden hard and put away wet often. So I was not what I thought it was until it was torn down. It sounds as if you could have a good running stock engine, in that case maintain it and enjoy it. I will look and see what heads the engine came with there is only one or two heads they used, there symbols casted on the ends of the heads and casting numbers on the heads under the valve covers.

 

Another thing to remember, these cars are always berated about their low horsepower numbers. But nobody seems to remember that a very significant change occurred in 1972. It was not the engines, it was how they were tested. Power ratings went from gross to net. Example, a 1971 Ls5 454 put out 365hp. A 1972 Ls5 puts out 270hp. There's no change in the engine from '71 to '72. Gross rating means that when put on a Dyno the engine is tested with no belts and unrestricted exhaust, power is measured at the flywheel.
Net power is measured with all accessories installed and running with a restricted exhaust. Cast manifolds and mufflers. Some engines were even advertised as slightly lower to accommodate insurance and EPA regulations.
When I worked at an engine remanufacturer the bottom barrel 350 would pull 270hp on our Dyno. It was basically gross hp.

 

Early 70 were confusing times with emissions also, like the 396 becoming a 402 for different emissions standards over 400 ci. Lower compression, air pumps, EGR valves, catalytic converters, no power good times for new cars.

 

You also have to remember that the mid-70s were the low point in horsepower due to the implementation of catalytic converters.

The '76 L-82 was rated at 210 while the '74 L-48 was rated at 195. That's a pretty small difference and I suspect that the torque was probably almost identical on both of them.

The '70 LS-5 was rated at 390 horsepower which dropped to 365 in '71 due to the implementation of no-lead gasoline and the subsequent compression ratio reduction.