Greetings from WV. Just swapped my 07 Dakota Club cab for this 96 Z28 on 5/18/16. Other than it had a supercharger and ran good the seller didn't know too much about the car. I kind of got a pig in a poke.

The guy met me halfway between our homes, 2 hours, and he trailered the Z. That, of course made me very leery, until he started the sum***** up and backed it off the trailer. It wasn't cleaned up and had no tags. There were dents, chips, scratches, headliner sagging (I'm 6'1 so I noticed this right away) mirrors jiggled, console door hinge broken. Cloth seats are good, carpet ok, dash not cracked, air is cold. I let it sit a minute, running, to see if it would overheat but it stayed cool. I pushed the stiff clutch in, shoved it in 1st and eased it onto the road. I gave it just a little gas and the rear started to get loose. 2nd gear was even more loose, 3rd too. I could already tell it had massive torque and a healthy gear. I got on it a little bit just out of town and drove it 10 miles when the seller told me we were almost out of gas so I turned it around and did a 1/4 mile at about half throttle. I was smiling ear to ear when I pulled it into the parking lot. I asked him a few more questions about the car, which he didn't have answers to. I told him if he liked the Dakota we could trade. He didn't even start the dam truck up. We shook hands signed titles and I drove 2 hours to home.

I've had a few fast cars but never one with a supercharger. I'm sold on them. Power from idle till I let off. Anyone have a discount source for slicks?

 

Welcome to the site and congrats on your Z28! The car looks beautiful and you're doing great job on it. This forum really is a ton of help. With a little bit of research you can find an answer to all your questions. Enjoy your time here!

 

Can we see a pics of the supercharger setup. How is the boost controlled? Any paper work on who tuned it or if anything was done to strengthen the engine?

I ask these question because installing a supercharger is easy. Building a dependable supercharged LT1 car correctly is not. Making corrections in the tune and head gasket and the boost control is much easier then fixing the motor down the road. When tuning any car with boost the tune can get every ounce of power out of it or you can tune it conservative with not damaging the engines as the number one priority and added power as number two. It is kind of a scary situation if you know nothing about the engine. Did someone tune a stock engine for max HP and you have a grenade waiting for someone to pull the pin or was the engine upgraded and the tune is conservative and it is now more reliable then it was in 1996.

 

As I stated above, the seller knew nothing about the car. IMO he bought it because he thought he could flip it for a nice profit. The car runs great with no missing, pinging or any noise that would scare me away. It doesn't appear to have an intercooler. It does have a waste gate and an electric fuel pump. I can't tell by looking at it if the intake/fuel rails/injectors have been changed. It has "factory" exhaust manifolds with a custom, single, 3in(?) exhaust. I got a Hypertech Power Programmer Plus. I have not plugged it in to check the tune yet. Idle is very smooth which makes me think it is not cammed.


I just got the car on the 18th so I'm still trying to find out exactly what I have.

 

I would try to find someone that works with boosted Lt1s. If the exhaust is stock I would assume then entire engine is stock. A few degrees in timing can mean the difference between safe and ready to blow. If you can find an expert he may already have a safe basic tune for this situation.

Any hand held tuner in learn mode will make the idle fine and pinging is something out of the old school world. Even with performance knock sensors, which are not as sensitive as the stock ones the sensor will stop pinging long before a human can hear it.

 

It has stock manifolds with at least a 3" single, custom exhaust system. Not stock. I have already had a trusted mechanic look it over and he said "whomever built this car did it right". It was just a visual inspection but if he was impressed then so am I. I'm making an appointment with another shop I trust to get it on a lift and have any work that needs done to it, done. They have had several race cars and know a lot about tuning. They should be able to give me a better idea of what I have.

Here are a few pics of the SC and top of engine. It is tight!

PS- I found the air cleaner in the front bumper, under the driver side headlights. I'll be cleaning or replacing that while it is on the lift.

 

I've had my Z for several months now and I have been very impressed with how easy this car is car is to drive on the street. I drive it every chance I get. It will hold it's own in a drag race. I am still on street tires and traction is an issue. I bought a new set of 17x9.5 wheels and some MT Street SS tires. I was having trouble hitting 3rd gear with the factory Hurst shifter so I got the Hawks Sinister precision shifter. I blew out a head gasket so I took the opportunity to pull the engine and replace all the gaskets and take a look at the internals to see exactly what I have. This engine is completely stock. That is very surprising considering how strong it runs. Everything looked brand new so I didn't change anything except to add a bolt in Comp Cams bump stick for supercharger applications, 218/230 495/510 114. Interesting not on the camshaft. Summit, JEGS and Comp Cams does not have a SC grind cam for a stock engine. Comp Cams told me if I gave them the specs that they could make a custom grind for me. I started Googling more and found Hawks Motorsports had the one I ended up purchasing. Kind of weird that Hawks has this (and another more radical) in stock but Comp Cams does not. I also got a Grant 4 spoke steering wheel just for looks. All of the parts are not on the car yet but will be very soon. Really excited to see what difference the cam and drag radials make.

 

the lt1 is a strong engine like any engine its the seals that get old over time an said to handle 500hp stock some think the stock 275hp 330tlbs is closer to 300hp an 350tlbs,an some get old faster,by letting the rmps get high when they are older ,mine took a good pounding before the gaskets went,welcome to the forum dont know if you talked headers but that would allow much more air an hp outi know redlining mine ,as well as a burn out did mine in ,at 99k,but it was a small leak tough engines for sure

 

Nice ride.
Love the wheel in the box - three more to keep it company?

 

I do have 4 new wheels. I am planning on headers later this year. Between my road Glide and the Z I have spent way too much money lately. Cam was cheaper than a full exhaust so I went with that for now. The old school Powerdyne 11A is rated @8lbs, and 12 lbs with a bearing and Kevlar belt upgrade. I believe mine is 8lbs as it doesn't look like it has ever been cracked open. I'm thinking my Z is right at 400 hp with somewhat more torque. This car pulls hard off the bottom. Roll on power on the freeway is much better than stock but performance wise, weaker than a quarter mile run.