Valigrunt Performance

Putting the Muscle back into Classic Cars

Project 488

December 24, 2024

Peter came to us with his Firebird because he wasn't happy with the performance of his motor and he wanted a bit more grunt under the hood. It was imperative that he keep the block as it is a matching numbers car and he decided as parts would take a few months to arrive he wanted it to remain on the road until his go fast bits had landed from the States. Although he was assured by the previous owner that the motor was not oversized he got a nasty surprise when it went to the machinist as the block was over bored by 120. As we were definitely keeping the block it had to be sleeved, but not to worry this did give us a block with 100% accurate race tolerances. The block then received a 488 stroker kit, 4 1/2 inch stroke with all state of the art internals. Shane also proceeded to clean up the oil galleries and remove the casting dags in the block to allow oil to flow more smoothly through the block. As we were sticking to the original look of the car it was decided to keep the cast iron heads instead of going aluminium. Not wanting the heads to let the motor down the original heads were ported, received new valve seats and guides and new springs. Roller Rockers were also run and the motor was blue printed and the cam dialled in.