I just bought a 1985 Camaro Z28 Carbuerated w/92000 miles on it. How many horses and torque does this engine make and also how can i get it to make it go faster. I want to run at least high 14's with boltons and some engine work?

Thanks
Jimmy

 

My friend 's brother had an '82 Z with the HO motor. He bought a kit from summit consisting of a holley 600 carb, your choice of intake, and headers for like $300 or so. A couple years later I bought the car for $150 for the parts on it (the body was really rusted out). But anyway, I decided to have some fun with it before tearing it apart, and it beat the snot out of a late model rustang GT. I really think it was a high 14 second car. See if you can still get that kit from scummit.

 

Stock, you are lookin' at around 155HP and 255lb/ft of torque.

If your lookin for some extra boost, here are some things to consider doing, more or less in this order:

1) Before you do ANYTHING I would suggest a full tune-up on your car....

2) You can alwasy advance the timing a little to gain some extra horses

4) Replace stock exhaust with full 3" exhaust, high-flowing cat-convertor and muffler.

5) Headers. I may as well say it now, because I know very shortly Mark will come in here and say "Hooker" lol, so Hooker I guess will work. There are many diff headers available, me I personally just got a set of Heddman, lots cheaper.

6) Do all the free mods you can from the tech articals on this site. Range from lower thermostat, slight weight reduction, tuning your q-jet carb for performance.

7) Your gonna want to get rid of or modify your existing air intake. Go with the 5.0 HO dual snorkel air intake (from the L69 motors, '83 and '84 Camaros). The stock one wont breathe very good. Before this even, your going to want to replace your stock filter with a K&N.

8) A new cam. Again, many different cams out there, I'm not a big expert on cams, so maybe someone will come by and give you a better idea from personal experience.

9) If you go with a bigger cam, you might consider getting a higher-performance intake manifold. RPM makes good ones I believe.

10) Porting and polishing your heads make quite a difference I hear. Sitting Bull has done it and claims a huge gain. Do a search for him, it's sure to come up.

11) Not sure what your car came with, but if it was 2.73 or 3.08 rear-end ratios, I suggest upgrading to a 3.42 or 3.73 posi/disc rear.


After these mods, I would venture to say you should be very close or in the 14's.

I may have forgotten some things, anyone add anything to this?