Quote:
Originally Posted by wayne watson
I knew a guy that worked at the plant where copo camaros were built in 69
He said they were all alum blocks and entire car was hand built. I have no reason not to believe it because they were very rare then too
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Well the ZL-1's big deal was the aluminum block. In 1969 that was a major thing for a large V8. GM had done it before, but with the 215 V8, hardly the same clambake. The ZL-1s also had aluminum heads. Hand built, well sure as much as any low-number production Chevy was hand built in the era before robotic construction. In the same manner, my '73 block 455 was "hand built" by Buick, because it has one oversize lifter bore requiring a factory oversize lifter. But these things weren't "hand built" the way we use the term today.
The odd things is that while the '69 COPO/ZL-1 Camaros were made to be dragstrip fighters, ultimately problems with things like heat transfer could be as much of a downside as the weight of an iron block engine. Still, they were churning out around 500 gross hp when the factory exhausts were changed to tubular headers