All Done?

The good news is that the work completed yesterday on my Z06 increased horsepower at the rear wheels by 11 percent and torque by nine and a half percent. The bad news is that the work previously done in the mid-Atlantic didn’t increase power anywhere near as much as advertised.

It was exciting to look at a dyno sheet for the first time on any of my cars. Thanks to Cordes Performance Racing. Speaking of Cordes…the power outage of last week made our dryer unable to function properly. The company from which we purchased the dryer sent two techs yesterday to look at it.

We began chatting and the lead tech is quite the car guy. I told him my car was at Cordes and he showed me a picture on his phone of my car in an Instagram post by Cordes. Small world!

Based on the dyno figures I would say that Chevrolet understates the stock torque figure for the LT4 engine. Remember that Chevrolet introduced fuel injection in 1957 and advertised the car as having 283 HP from 283 cubic inches. In reality, the average fuelie engine produced 291 HP on the dyno, but the Chevy marketing people liked 283/283.

Fast forward to 2015–the year the LT4 was introduced–and I think the same dynamic was at work. The LT4 was advertised at 650 HP/650 LB-FT of torque. However, as best as I can figure, my Z06 now has more torque at the rear wheels than the claimed torque at the crankshaft out of the factory. Since HP didn’t show that kind of overall improvement from stock, I’m a little skeptical of the stated torque output. Perhaps someone more versed in these types of calculations/estimates can chime in.

When Joe Cordes handed me the key to my car, he said that if I ever wanted to do more to the engine he would be happy to oblige. I just told him that I have learned to never say never. By the way, with the racing headers (beautifully ceramic-coated), the car is really loud now.

I was embarrassed after we returned home. Joe Cordes had opened the hood to show me the headers and the new heat exchanger for the supercharger. All I could talk about was how awful the engine cover looked. I did mention it to him and he suggested powder-coating instead of paint. I guess you can powder-coat plastic. If I were braver, I might try to freshen the engine cover myself with some red epoxy paint to match the exterior. If my aunt had had balls, she would have been my uncle.

While I once again will not say never, I think that for the near future I am finished with Z06 improvements, unless I stumble into a lot of money.