[Chevy454]

I tell ya, there's a lot to be said for sweating the little stuff, but Dan's stuff is for sure "Pure Stock". His LS-6 is nothing trick by normal racing standards, just a "blue printed" LS-6...much like the L-72 we're putting together. When you blue print these big blocks to factory specs, you put 'em up in the 12:1 neighborhood compression-wise, which really seems to wake them up. But the key to the whole deal is the cam...and I don't mean a trick grind. Just the stock GM cam, but retarded. What people don't relize is the stock cams are ground 6 degrees advances...good for bottom end power, but makes it a booger to launch on skinny tires. Also, in a "from the factory" engine there isn't enough compression to work "well" with the cam. I've seen 9.8-10.2 compression ratios on stock L-72s! That was the norm, not the "11:1" advertised ratio we'd all like to believe we have. So, when you retard the cam, you basically put it back to "straight up", which kills a little bit of the bottom end (better for launches), but more importantly puts the IVC right where it needs to be with the higher compression (12:1) of the blue printed engine. Simple stuff, but it makes HUGE gains!

(Note: to read more about the IVC & compression, do a search on "comression mapping" on this forum. Some good info posted there.)