I just bought a low mileage 74 Corvette"cheap. I've been doing a little digging and it seems this L-82 had a very low HP rating 240hp. Yet all of the info Ive dug up seems to show that GM did put some nice goodies into this engine. What can I do to get some more power out of this sucker???
Not thirdgen I know, but I dont plan on keeping this car for more then a few months " I dont like my legs smashed against the dash" But I do wanna have a little fun. All emmisions equiptment "if it had any" were removed before I got it so no real restrictions there.

 

By 72 or 73 you had hit the very beginning stages of the 'smog era' cars that were detuned and had less power than earlier cars. It being a 74, it also got hit with the current SAE net power rating rather than SAE gross, so the combined effect looked pretty bad.

 

74 was the first year I think for the 882 heads. They have thin castings, and drop compression. I'd lose them and get better heads for a start. A better cam, cooler stat, and some headers would help too. They really have it tuned for better emmisions, so unless you are familiar with the Q-junk carb, I'd go with a holley, and recurve the distributor. Start with the distributor, and you'll see a noticable difference there. If it was me, I'd just drop a ZZ4 in and call it a day, but that's because I'm getting lazy in my old age.

 

Thanks for the replies guys!
I realy dont want to put more then I have to into it so the heads will probably be where I need to work. The cam profile is still fairly agressive simililar to the C-270H, too bad cause Ive got 3, 270H's sitting around. I'll see what kinda heads I can dig up.

Thanks!