69427

Thanks for linking that old thread. A few items I had forgotten or not noticed before.

It mentioned McLaren running a twin turbo big block (I had only ever heard about Shadow trying out a turbo big block). The McLaren link wasn't working, but if anyone has any indepth info about turbo big blocks in the old Can Am cars, I'd sure enjoy reading about it.

gkull

Like the UOP Shadow that worked on, the ZL1 blocks were far inferior to the Reynolds aluminum big block chevy motors. They were all in the 480 - 495 ci range. So I would do research on the Reynolds aluminum bbc

tt 383

very little to be found on the turbo big block Shadow... it never really was developed and “perfected”. As an aside note I am really surprised the turbo small block Yunick developed for Indy never made its way over to that series, though by that time it was starting to die.
Probably have watched most CanAm relevant YouTube vids concerning BBC cars, and no Historics races I have seen had the turbo car. At best a pit idle/warmup. As fans we are being screwed big time.

My understanding is it was a bit rushed, and they were overextended with F1 Pursuits.

tt 383

about the only clip of it actually “racing” I have seen.

69427

Same here. I've looked at a lot of videos, and this is about the only one that discussed the turbo topic at all.

tt 383

I had read long time ago that Canepa had it and then it changed hands. If that's true it's ashame, I would imagine if his shop took the time they could have gotten sorted, though maybe they tried concluded it wasn’t reliable/feasible with Mech Injection and that's why it was sold lol.

Not much on the Yunick SBC turbo Indy car either or how it was developed and what parts/specs. That engine would have been great to battle the 935 dominance in IMSA GTX when Porche flooded IMSA with tears to change rules, cuz Dekon Monzas were owning them for 2 years straight. The Tubeframe Widebody Vettes may have been competitive with that engine detuned, the Monzas definitely would have been.

69427

Smokey talked in a fair length about the turbo SBC Indy car in his three book memoirs. It sounded like he and his minimal crew about killed themselves with all the work and hours trying to work out the bugs in the fueling system, and replacing pistons that failed due to throttle tip-in leanness.

I liked the looks of those Dekon Monzas. If I had spare time and spare money I'd like to build a Monza track day car.

gkull

Funny that you would want a monza chevy. Mine must be out there somewhere. After seeing the Budweiser and several others being driven in the imsa series around the 1980 time frame. I was getting out of the Navy and decided that I needed one. So about 1981 I found a used 1976 Monza Spyder. 262 ci V-8 and it seems to me that it only had a 4 speed. Low miles and looked nice. I had jointed the las vegas SCCA and talked to them about what I could do to it for class racing. So it got gutted and a local Porsche race shop installed a 8 point cage. I was on the poor side so the motor got a cam, Edl aluminum intake man. with 450 cfm double pumper and headers. Wide radials and went racing. Vegas and Willow Springs. It actually did very well against 240, 260, 280 Z's Mazda's, and lower end Porsches. Well even a hot rodded 262 didn't even make 300 hp on a good day. Stock heads. So with the help of friends it got a .060 over 327 bigger main engine. Mechanical cam and double hump heads 650 double pumper. One of the 5 speeds I think they were called t5's 5 speeds. I raced it a couple of years and drove it around on the street. My wife was driving it one day and the remote dual oil filters sprung a leak and instead of parking the car she tried to drive it home with smoke pouring out from under the hood. Well the motor locked up solid before it caught on fire and that was the end of it and kinda that wife also! Fortunes come and go as all divorced men know.and I got into 750 superbike racing and the Monza got sold to a local racer. Never to be heard from again.


Interesting read.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/unli...-motor-racing/


You might find this interesting.

derekderek

i hope there were other issues with the wifey besides automotive stupidity. cuz otherwise we all should be single!

Jebbysan

The ZL-1 block is a horrible deal.......I would assume max bore size would be 4.310.

Jebby