After first laying eyes on this gorgeous 65 Vette we couldn't wait to start working on it. It has a 327 small block chev backed by a 4 speed Muncie M20 with a 2.54:1 first gear and 10 bolt rear end running 3.08:1 gears. In its original form the car made just over 200 rwhp, not bad for a 327 we thought.
Still running a points distributor, the first thing we did was upgrade the dizzy with a Crane optical sensor and MSD 6AL control module which Peter has hidden very well to keep the car looking as original as possible.
Liverpool exhaust removed the cast iron headers and fitted hand made, tuned length extractors to let the engine breathe. We tested and tuned the car again and made a healthy 230 rwhp.
Slowly we continued to work on the car piece by piece. Replacing the mechanical fan with twin electric thermo fans bolted to a heavy-duty 4-core radiator.
Finally after a few months the owner bit the bullet and decided to rebuild the engine, gearbox and diff. The bottom end was already built with 11.0:1 forged pistons and a steel crank, so we decided that a new cam and top end would really wake this corvette up.
The combination was a comp cams solid flat tappet cam, AFR alloy heads which were specially ordered with a high tappet cover boss so we could fit the original rocker covers over the new Comp Cams gold series roller rockers. We fitted a performer RPM manifold topped with a 650 Holley ultra double pumper. The manifold was machined by peter to fit the oil filler snout at the front of the engine to keep its originality.
The gearbox we rebuilt with new bearings, seals and syncro rings and we replaced a worn out 3rd gear and reverse idler gear and fitted a new clutch and pressure plate. We also rebuilt the Hurst shifter to finish it off nicely.
The Diff was removed and rebuilt with new Auburn center and 3.5:1 gears to get the car to snap off the line and really finish the whole car off.
After all this work, we let the cam run in and after readjusting tappets and tuning the car made 295 rwhp and goes like a rocket. We were very happy with the way the car idled, sounded and drove on the road.
