Nothing makes a statement on the street like a supercharger sticking through the hood of a street machine. To this end, we’ve created a Supercharged (Blown) and Injected 1963 Corvette Coupe. Our Corvette Corvette is commonly known as a “split-window” coupe due to the unique design of the rear window that was only available in the 1963 model year. Our car has recently been featured in Vette Magazine (click here to read the article).
The car was fully restored in the early 1980s and fitted with a Blown 350 c.i. Small Block Chevy motor utilizing dual 4-barrel carburetors. The following are some additional pictures of the car taken at the time that the initial restoration was completed:
As you can see, the restoration was a complete one, including the interior:
We have undertaken a project to build a new motor for this car and updated the drive train to handle more power. The suspension and brakes are also being updated to modernize and improve performance. The new motor is shown below:
The new motor is a 383 c.i. Small Block Chevy with a 6-71 Supercharger and Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI). The Blown and Injected combination produces tremendous power and torque, while the associated computer-controlled fuel injection system results in excellent drivability on the street. The components that went into the latest motor include:
- A late model 350 c.i. GM Performance short block with 4-bolt mains set up for a factory hydraulic roller cam and lifters.
- An Eagle 4340 stroker crank, eagle H-beam 4340 rods, and Sportsman Racing Products (JE) inverted dome forged pistons. The resulting displacement is 383 c.i. with an 8.8:1 static compression ratio.
- Air Flow Research CNC ported aluminum cylinder heads fitted with Ferra 2.05” Intake and 1.60” Exhaust Hi-Performance valves.
- A Competition CAMs Xtreme Energy XR288HR Hydraulic Roller camshaft (this is a dual-pattern CAM with 288/294 adv. duration and .520/.540 lift).
- Competition CAMs springs, retainers, roller lifters, etc., and a Jessel shaft mounted roller rocker system, 1.6 ratio.
- A Blower Drive Service High Efficiency (air-locs rotors) 6-71 Supercharger and intake. This kit features fully polished components and an 8 mm 3” drive. The supercharger is 3% under-driven, resulting in a peak boost of about 9.5 psi at 6500 RPM.
- An Enderle Bugcatcher injector hat converted to electronic fuel injection by Blower Drive Service. The conversion uses 8 flow-matched injectors firing in batch mode.
- A Big Stuff Gen 3 Electronic Fuel Injection Control System. This system uses a wide-band O2 sensor for superior performance during closed-loop operation.
- An MSD Billet Distributor. Digital-6 Ignition System, Blaster Coil, and 8.5 mm wires.
- A Moroso oiling system (pan, pump, and pickup) with a Star Machine vacuum pump system (this adds about 20 – 30 additional HP and prevents crankcase pressure buildup problems common to supercharged applications).
- A March Performance serpentine accessory drive system with an Edelbrock high-volume water pump and a 140A Powermaster alternator. The high-output alternator provides plenty of electrical power for the EFI system and the MSD ignition.
- A set of Hooker Super-Comp Headers (1 3/4″ primaries, 3″ collectors). The rest of the exhaust system consists of a Stainless Works stainless steel system utilizing 2.5″ stainless steel pipes and dual turbo-style stainless steel mufflers.
- Aeroquip braided lines and AN hose ends and fittings. Earl’s Performance Products and Performance Stainless Steel also supplied hard-to-find plumbing parts.
The engine was professionally tuned by Quest Racing in Worchester, MA. Mike and Charlene at Quest Racing specialize in supercharged and fuel-injected engines and have excellent facilities, including an engine Dynamometer. The final combination runs on 93 octane pump gas, made 625+ HP, and just shy of 600 ft-lbs of torque on Quest’s dyno. While these peak numbers are pretty impressive, the real plus for this motor on the street is that it makes over 500 ft-lbs of torque from 3,000 RPM all the way up to 6,500 RPM. Click here to see the details of the dyno test output.
Click on the picture below to see a video of the dyno test of the new motor.
Dyno Test where motor made over 600 hp!
At this stage, the new motor and drive train are in the car, and the motor is running. The following are some pictures of the new motor in the car:
As you can see, many plumbing and electrical connections are associated with the conversion to electronic fuel injection. The gauges on the back of the injector are liquid-filled Pro Comp Series from Auto Meter, which monitors oil pressure, supercharger boost, and fuel pressure.
Anita has helped a great deal on this project from start to finish. One unique thing that she contributed was a custom-made embroidered cover for the injector, which is shown in the picture below:
We had to modify a spare hood and add a pin-on system to get the hood to fit. Getting a good fit requires a lot of trial and error, fitting and cutting a little bit at a time. With a little care, the result can turn out quite good. Ron and Renee, Randall at Metal-Morphous, did the paintwork on the car. Ron does excellent work with fiberglass, and he and Renee are a real joy to work with!
The following shot shows a close-up of the supercharger and injector with the hood on. As you can see, trimming the hood to fit tightly around all the linkage and plumbing required a lot of effort.
The interior of the car has been outfitted with a tach/shift light from Stewart Warner, some new Auto Meter gauges (to monitor charging system voltage and engine temperature), and a custom stereo/CD changer combination from Custom Auto Sound that looks like the original Corvette vertical radio. The pedals and associated cable-actuated throttle system are from Lokar Engineering.
The other major modifications required to install the EFI system in the car were the fuel tank and fuel delivery system. This was done by modifying a new C2 Corvette gas tank to outfit it with a pickup sump, a return line connection, a tube, and a vent. This combination was coupled with a high-volume electric fuel pump, pre/post-filters, and a boost-referenced regulator system from Weldon. This was installed with custom-made powder-coated bracketry instead of the original gas tank. The translucent red powder coating was done by Sumax.
Just for fun, we created an “off-road” exhaust system option. This allows for more power and noise with a simple change of the collector hookups and associated head pipes.
BSM Exhaust Works of Lowell, MA, fabricated custom hookups to adapt the headers to the Stainless Works stainless steel exhaust system. The folks at BSM do excellent work, and we highly recommend them for custom projects of this type.
Finally, the cooling system was improved to handle the extra heat from the new power plant using an Aluminum Radiator and high-performance electric fan combination from Be-Cool.
The new drive train also includes a 5-speed overdrive TREMEC TKO-600 transmission from Keisler Engineering. This transmission is designed to handle about 650 HP and matches the car’s new power plant. Keisler provides a great kit that allows the installation of this transmission in early Corvettes with no modifications to the car! The overdrive ratio on this transmission is 0.64 ratio, which should allow the car to cruise on the highway at a reasonable RPM. Keisler has a handy speed/RPM calculator, which can be found here (a more sophisticated calculator can be found here). The car will use a highly modified version of the original C2 Corvette Independent Rear Suspension (IRS) from Tom’s Differentials and will sport 3.70 gears. This makes a great combination on the street with the overdrive transmission. Tom’s modifies the original Corvette center section to take an aftermarket 12-bolt fully massaged posi-unit from Eaton and also provides much stronger components and mounting systems for the rest of the IRS. Tom’s has built 9-second drag Corvettes based upon these components, which indicates the strength of their setup! Finally, the car is being completely upgraded to 4-wheel disc brakes from Stainless Steel Brakes and will use a set of custom Torq-Thrust II 16″ Wheels from American Racing.
During both the previous and current restorations, we have used the following Corvette parts distributors:
We have also relied almost exclusively on Summit Racing Equipment as a source for performance parts. They provide great prices, a wide selection, and fast delivery. We have used a combination of MAD Enterprises and Sherco Auto Supply for electrical supplies. Also, Sherco Auto Supply, Bolt Depot, Aircraft Spruce and Specialty Company, American Street Rod Performance Products, The Eastwood Company, and Speedway Motors are great sources for the many odds and ends that are useful when undertaking a project such as this one. Finally, we used Rapid Finishing for the bulk of the powder coating on this project.
At this point, we have completed the first of two major stages for our project—the installation of the new engine/transmission combination and the updated restoration of the engine bay and interior. The following are some pictures of the car at its current level of completion.
The second and final stage will include installing the suspension updates and the stronger rear IRS.
As you can see, the car is drivable at its current level of completion. I will have to learn new driving techniques as the car has tremendous torque and is a handful to drive! Without careful throttle handling, the car will spin the tires in almost any gear. Click on the following video for some “action shots” demonstrating the “traction problem”. This is a good problem to have!
Demonstration of the “Traction Problem”