Alden's Corvette Page

My 1979 L48

 I upped some pictures I took over the weekend  New Pictures

Engine - 405 SBC, balanced and bored .020 over.  5.56" rods, hypereutectic pistons. Clevite 77 bearings, standard moroso oil pump.  Redline/revlimiter set at 6000.

Holley Commander 950 EFI with Stealthram manifold - More pictures and install information to be posted when I have time.  The stealthram fits under the stock hood with no modifications.

AEM Wideband/controller.  Closed loop under full throttle using the new Holley firmware.

Ported AFR 195 aluminum heads - Street port from AFR, hand ported professionally to optimize flow.  Valves 30 degree back cut.

crane hydraulic roller cam/lifters 230/238 @.05", 560/580 lift - This cam makes great power, all the way to the 6000 revlimiter.  It makes around 16" of vacuum, and idles very nicely.  Just a little vibration at 800rpm idle.  I am able to control it very well with the EFI, it ran slightly rougher with a carb.

 Comp roller tipped rockers 1.52 ratio - I would like to replace these with full roller rockers eventually.

Dynomax  1 5/8 headers - These were a rather nice improvement from some smaller and poorly designed tri-Y headers.  I should be upgrading to 1 3/4 primary headers this summer, I am hoping for an all around increase in torque/horsepower.

straight dual exhaust 2.5" with H-pipe and dynomax super turbo mufflers - Mufflers provide a healthy sounding engine, little or no resonance.  Quiet and rumbily at idle, gets mean sounding at higher rpms and throttle positions.  I have tried magnaflow straight through glasspacks, which were excessively loud.  Also flowmaster 40 series, which were too loud, and had a ridiculous amount of interior resonance.

 MSD 6AL, HEI -

 Doug & Nash 4+3 transmission,1 1/4 front 3/4 rear swaybars

 Dunlop sp Sport 8000 245/50-ZR15

Bilstein sport shocks

Northern aluminum radiator - From summit, required minor modification.  Removed exit tube and rewelded an angled tube like stock.  Fins on the top and bottom of the core must be flattened to fit under the stock radiator clamps.  Total cost 240$.  Even a brand new corvette brass/copper radiator was insufficient to cool the 405 when not moving.  This with a properly working clutch fan with shroud.  The aluminum radiator has completely solved all the cooling problems, now the car sits at 177 degrees, below even the 180 degree thermostat.  Apparently enough water bypasses the thermostat through the small bypass holes I drilled to cool the engine under normal conditions.

Wishlist:

New seats and door panels.

Bodywork including 80 rear bumper and new front spoiler. Black paint.  Boyd Coddington Timeless 5 wheels (17").