[markjohnson]

I recently ran across an old Bill Jenkins article where he spoke of running a totally stock L-78 396-375 HP on the dyno and it made a real 430 HP. That's actually pretty believable as people forget that when the L-78 was released in 1965, it was rated at 425 HP. Then naturally, we have the 1966 L-72 427-425 HP that was really 450 HP as shown on early production cars before they were "stickered" down to 425 HP after only a few months. Back to the 427 vs. 454, my own totally stock LS-6 ran 11.80's in an early Camaro I used to own. Through the exhaust with headers and a 4.10 Posi but that was with stock intake, camshaft, rockers, etc. Pick your own poison whether it's an L-78, L-72, or LS-6, they all enjoyed that same camshaft where you could drive to work everyday Monday thru Friday, go to the Dragstrip on Sunday and run 12's or faster with some simple tuning. They did something right becuase we're still driving, racing and talking about these things 40-45 years later!