In The Beginning

[ZiggyL78]

So after I bought the Vette I planned a trip to Gainsville to meet some friends. I had been waiting for "Ghost Rider" to come out and it started the day I was leaving for Gainsville. I decided to go that night. Even though the movie was a little corny I really enjoyed it. I came out of the show and it was a perfect Florida night. I got on #75 with the tops off and I was off. I'm doing about 75 or 80 and these two guys go by on a pair of fast bikes and they're flying. I had been driving Buick GNs for quite a while and normally I wouldn't chase anything in high gear. These cars are really fast but they are not that quick on the top end without all the good stuff. Wait a minute. I'm not in a GN I'm in a LS1 Vette. These cars can go 180 with just a tune. I nail it and here we go! I can barely see their tail lights but soon I start to real them in. I passed them at 162 MPH!!! I came to my senses and slowed down and they caught up to me. They slowed down and looked the car over and gave me the thumbs up and took off again. I said to myself "you f**king idiot". You're in the US chasing 2 bikes at over 150 in a car you have only owned for less then a week!" Just as I'm contemplating what could have happened, out of nowhere this State Trooper pulls up behind me with the welcome lights flashing. Oh. I guess he wants to congratulate me on nailing those 2 bikes Geez! Now I'm done. He comes up to the car and says Mr Ziggy . How are you tonight? How does this guy know my name? How is Jane ? How does this guy know all this information? He tells me my GF had called the cops to pull me over as I forgot my pills. Wew! What a relief! I told him I just grabbed a few for the trip. He says OK. You take it easy. I thank him and then I do a smoking burn out as I disappear down the highway. Kidding. lol.

After going home a few weeks later I decide the car is not quick enough. Strange EH? I buy a used Cierra single turbo kit from a guy on the Corvette forum. Pretty easy install, but I am sure glad I had a hoist in the shop. Actually installing the new fuel system was the hardest part of the job. After everything was installed I programmed the stock ECM. I had a little experience tuning the GNs which helped a lot. I took the car out for a few shakedown runs to get the car set up. A buddy comes along to monitor the ecm. We set the boost and check the O2s. I also perked up the gas with some C16 just for some extra protection while testing.

[useless tony]

I believe I may have occasionally seen this car in Ajax.

I remember hearing it (at idle) and thinking "that is one hell of a cam for a car that needs to pass emissions" (there was no question in my mind that this was not just a "cat back" exhaust I was hearing).

I am guessing, based on the pic you posted of the engine completely out of the car, that the modifications didn't end with a bolt-on turbo

[ZiggyL78]

Single turbo motor sounded stock until you whacked it. The motor you heard was a 408 stroker. LQ9 with stock truck heads and twin turbos. It made 711 RWHP and went 9.90@145 3rd pass down the track. Too bad I sold it. It was an easy 9.40 car with better tires and some suspension work. My wife wouldn't get in the car after that. LOL.

[useless tony]

WOW

Keep the stories coming please

[ZiggyL78]

My first L78 was a grey Nova SS. I found the car in the Auto Trader magazine. I still have the ad. The car had well-faded grey paint and needed lower quarters. I let a buddy of mine buy it as I had my Vega and a 454 Chevelle. He had also owned an L78 Nova back in the day. He took the car to a friend of ours who painted most of our cars. It turned out great. He also added headers, a Tarantula intake and a 750 DP Holley. The car was a rocket right from the start. He had the car for about a year and then I bought it off him. I added 9.00 x 27 slicks, a shift kit and true dual exhaust, and a 4.56 gear. It ran 12.40s all day and a best of 12.20 during a funny car meet with Rosin on the track for extra hook. I'm sure the car would have ran a 12.0 with a little more tuning in the right air.

I did well at the track beating some fast cars. Hemis,440 SIX PACKs, 428 CJs were a joke. I'm not saying I never lost, as I did. But on the street where I could pick and choose my runs, I never lost. I ran L78 x 15 tires to knock down the 4.56 gear. Believe it or not, they were regular street tires and hooked very well most of the time.

One of the best times I had with this car was on a weekend when a group of guys from our Harveys at Brimley and Eglinton took a trip to the Harveys at Jane and Wilson. Jane and Wilson was at the time the most famous hangout for fast cars in Toronto. It was also about 1 mile from Belmont Chev Olds, one of Toronto's largest GM performance dealers in the GTA.

Long story short. I set up a run with a guy named Tony who had a fast LS6 Chevelle. He now drives Pro Mods. Really nice guy. Tony asked me what gear I had. He wouldn't run anyone who had more gear than he did. He had 4.10s. I had 4.56. I told him 4.10s. Little white lies were OK as long as you didn't take a guy's money Emoji I remember when we got back from the race he said to me. It sure sounded like you were revving awfully high on the highway for 4.10s. I told him I was in 2nd gear just to shake him up. While we were talking a guy named Ralph was listening. There were always some sarcastic remarks which was all part of the deal. I finally said to Tony that next time I will have to give him a couple of lengths. Everyone was laughing except Ralph. He said f*ck this, let's go. I asked him how many lengths he wanted. That just pissed him off even more. Ralph is one of the best Mopar mechanics in the country. He had a 340 Challenger at that time which I thought was going to be a waste of time. No one as far as I knew had a fast 340. When we went out with a bunch of cars to the country at 3 AM the preliminaries were usually 340s, 383s,302s,327s, and 390 Fords.

Back then races were more exciting because we didn't have drag radials and the technology we have today. If a slower car hooked because it had less power or the more powerful car spun it was a whole new race. I remember one night there was a 427/435 Vette that was racing a 440 Cuda Auto. Of course, the Vette was a 4 SPD and he really had to walk it out of the hole in 1ST and 2ND to get the car to hook and lay into it in 3RD. The Cuda would always get 2 or 3 lengths on the Vette and then the Vette would start pulling and catch the Cuda just after the finish line. Like clockwork. Every time. After about 4 runs the Vette gave up and left. He came back about 1 hour later and wanted to go again. I talked to his passenger who told me he went and got a full tank of gas and let some air out of the tires. Rumor has it his fat ass brother was in the back under a blanket. lol.

Everything went about the same as in the previous races. 1ST gear the Vette is all over the road. In 2ND gear, the Vette was still spinning but it wasn't going sideways as before. Now the Cuda barely had a 1/2 car on the Vette going into 3RD gear. The Vette driver powers 3RD into 4th and I thought, OH YA. HERE WE GO. We got a race here. "Like a Freight Train" was the saying back then describing a car catching another car on the high end with big power. Now it was the Vette that put 3 cars on the Cuda. It was an exciting race.

When I ran Ralph we were pretty even out of the hole. When I hit second gear I jumped a 1/2 car ahead and into 3RD the race was over. What a great night.

[EZ Nova]

Originally Posted by ZiggyL78

My first L78 was a grey Nova SS. I found the car in the Auto Trader magazine. I still have the ad. The car had well-faded grey paint and needed lower quarters. I let a buddy of mine buy it as I had my Vega and a 454 Chevelle. He had also owned an L78 Nova back in the day. He took the car to a friend of ours who painted most of our cars. It turned out great. He also added headers, a Tarantula intake and a 750 DP Holley. The car was a rocket right from the start. He had the car for about a year and then I bought it off him. I added 9.00 x 27 slicks, a shift kit and true dual exhaust, and a 4.56 gear. It ran 12.40s all day and a best of 12.20 during a funny car meet with Rosin on the track for extra hook. I'm sure the car would have ran a 12.0 with a little more tuning in the right air.

I did well at the track beating some fast cars. Hemis,440 SIX PACKs, 428 CJs were a joke. I'm not saying I never lost, as I did. But on the street where I could pick and choose my runs, I never lost. I ran L78 x 15 tires to knock down the 4.56 gear. Believe it or not, they were regular street tires and hooked very well most of the time.

One of the best times I had with this car was on a weekend when a group of guys from our Harveys at Brimley and Eglinton took a trip to the Harveys at Jane and Wilson. Jane and Wilson was at the time the most famous hangout for fast cars in Toronto. It was also about 1 mile from Belmont Chev Olds, one of Toronto's largest GM performance dealers in the GTA.

Long story short. I set up a run with a guy named Tony who had a fast LS6 Chevelle. He now drives Pro Mods. Really nice guy. Tony asked me what gear I had. He wouldn't run anyone who had more gear than he did. He had 4.10s. I had 4.56. I told him 4.10s. Little white lies were OK as long as you didn't take a guy's money Emoji I remember when we got back from the race he said to me. It sure sounded like you were revving awfully high on the highway for 4.10s. I told him I was in 2nd gear just to shake him up. While we were talking a guy named Ralph was listening. There were always some sarcastic remarks which was all part of the deal. I finally said to Tony that next time I will have to give him a couple of lengths. Everyone was laughing except Ralph. He said f*ck this, let's go. I asked him how many lengths he wanted. That just pissed him off even more. Ralph is one of the best Mopar mechanics in the country. He had a 340 Challenger at that time which I thought was going to be a waste of time. No one as far as I knew had a fast 340. When we went out with a bunch of cars to the country at 3 AM the preliminaries were usually 340s, 383s,302s,327s, and 390 Fords.

Back then races were more exciting because we didn't have drag radials and the technology we have today. If a slower car hooked because it had less power or the more powerful car spun it was a whole new race. I remember one night there was a 427/435 Vette that was racing a 440 Cuda Auto. Of course, the Vette was a 4 SPD and he really had to walk it out of the hole in 1ST and 2ND to get the car to hook and lay into it in 3RD. The Cuda would always get 2 or 3 lengths on the Vette and then the Vette would start pulling and catch the Cuda just after the finish line. Like clockwork. Every time. After about 4 runs the Vette gave up and left. He came back about 1 hour later and wanted to go again. I talked to his passenger who told me he went and got a full tank of gas and let some air out of the tires. Rumor has it his fat ass brother was in the back under a blanket. lol.

Everything went about the same as in the previous races. 1ST gear the Vette is all over the road. In 2ND gear, the Vette was still spinning but it wasn't going sideways as before. Now the Cuda barely had a 1/2 car on the Vette going into 3RD gear. The Vette driver powers 3RD into 4th and I thought, OH YA. HERE WE GO. We got a race here. "Like a Freight Train" was the saying back then describing a car catching another car on the high end with big power. Now it was the Vette that put 3 cars on the Cuda. It was an exciting race.

When I ran Ralph we were pretty even out of the hole. When I hit second gear I jumped a 1/2 car ahead and into 3RD the race was over. What a great night.

Funny, when we were building my '69 Nova back in the '90's, We found one of those "twisted" Edelbrock intake. At the time, my buddy was helping out Barry Paton, IHRA A/FC champ car owner, and he looked at that and said, "I help design those twisted intake YEARS ago?" So not sure if it was that to the torker, or the Tarantula.

Tony with the LS6. Maybe Tony Pontieri?
Ralph, is that RAPID Ralph?
What about Serge Longo's Challenger back then? Or Bla Bla Pontiac?


I did buy, and still have Mike Papadamou's 498" NHRA Pro Stock motor. Mike had sold the heads and intake to Ron Viggiani for his 1966 Nova. That 66 ran through Rolling Thunderz Ned and Serge. I ended up buying the top end of Ron and getting the engine back to NHRA specs. THEN found our the heads hit the firewall on a '69 Nova! So I bought Ron's 66 Nova.

So NOW, my '69 Nova that was mentioned previously from "back-in-the-day" in currently powered by a '69 ZL1 475 incher that make 785Hp. I still have Viggiani's 66 and the Ex Papadamou 498. The car has John Carinci's "converter-driven" Liberty that was from John's 499 A99 Hemi Cuda. But I also acquired Andreachhi's 706 Fulton setting Pro-Mod motor. That deal went 6.32 in Mod Mod, then Lil Ricky bought it and went 6.70 in Outlaw 10.5.

[BJCHEV396]

A great read Ziggy!Hang in there bud.

[ZiggyL78]

Thanks. I'll try to sort out some pics later.

[Bill Pritchard]

Love this thread, Ziggy. Amazing that you took so many pictures back in the day....my friends and I did not, unfortunately.

Regarding the L78 Nova, did you ever try out the "Houdini" shifter, where it would shift itself from first into second gear at full throttle?

[ZiggyL78]

Originally Posted by Bill Pritchard

Love this thread, Ziggy. Amazing that you took so many pictures back in the day....my friends and I did not, unfortunately.

Regarding the L78 Nova, did you ever try out the "Houdini" shifter, where it would shift itself from first into second gear at full throttle?

LOL. Yes, I did. I never heard it called that though. If a TH400 was stock it had a built in safety where it shifted on its own from 1ST to 2ND just before the motors redline. I never tried it on any Muscle Car but it was a riot in my tow car. If a passenger didn't know that a 400 had this function, they would flip out the first time it happened. If you look at the pics I just posted you will see my old blue 67 Olds 98 down the street from the Nova. On the outside it was let's say rough, but on the inside it was rough. LOL. It had a 425 Olds with a TH400. That motor was a stump puller that would not die.

Thanks for posting.