L34 or L78...the great debate

[Jeff H]

Detune the 454 and make it look like an L34. Put a nice hydraulic cam in it and you'll love the car. I've put 3800 miles on my 70 L78 car in the last 22 months and if it had a solid lifter cam I would probably be hating it big time. If it's not fun/comfortable to drive then you probably won't enjoy it. Make it fun and keep it looking correct and you'll love it and get compliments too!

[Chris_69_SS]

Thanks again for all of the replies.

[Keith Tedford]

Our L78 Chevelle with its 163 cam is pretty docile to drive. Setting the lifters is a non-issue. I've driven the car over 30K miles and set the lifters once. They were so close that it didn't really matter. Our 427 was much the same. Back in '67 I had an L34 Beaumon and L78 cam. It woke the car up but was easy to drive. Original seems to be where the money is, but tweaked is where the fun is. The choice is yours.

[Chris_69_SS]

[ QUOTE ]
Our L78 Chevelle with its 163 cam is pretty docile to drive. Setting the lifters is a non-issue. I've driven the car over 30K miles and set the lifters once. They were so close that it didn't really matter. Our 427 was much the same. Back in '67 I had an L34 Beaumon and L78 cam. It woke the car up but was easy to drive. Original seems to be where the money is, but tweaked is where the fun is. The choice is yours.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the issue I have is swapping cams in my existing 454 to something with less duration could get me into fuel issues as I am at 10.5 comp and a 230* at .050 cam will probably give me too much cranking pressure.... Might be a piston swap issue...

Like the idea of the L34 as I am taking a real shine to an all orange engine, esp. with a qjet. and manifolds.

I will probably end up with a mix of the 2. Fun and Stock...I mean, an 9-1comp. L34 clone with a hyd 280 cam, manual trans will be a blast.

Hell I may as well do a M20 to keep the flavor....