The C8 Corvette is absolutely dominating the sports car market right now. With its competitively-priced, mid-engine, high horsepower, and an aftermarket now rich with speed parts to make your eighth-generation Corvette the street, strip, and track star that it was destined to be. While some of us prefer to do our own work, a lot of us tend to leave the tinkering up to the professionals, and one avenue in doing so is Florida High Performance.
Based in South Florida, FLHP is manned by long-time GM tuning expert, Erik Bentley. Focusing a very substantial portion of his business on late-model Camaros, Corvettes, and supercharged Cadillacs, Erik is no stranger to the mid-engine American sports car.
Recently, he teamed up with Kooks Headers out of North Carolina, to develop long-tube headers and exhaust systems for the C8 Z06. While the standard LT2 C8 components have been available for some time, the C8Z is a different animal, thanks in large part to its flat-plane crank 5.5L LT6. With its unique horsepower and torque curve, as well as its supercar-style soundtrack, the team at Kooks wanted to ensure not only improved performance, but they also wanted to capture an audibly-pleasing exhaust tone and proper fitment.
Of course, the best and most accurate way to do that, is with performing such R&D on an actual car, and not just utilizing CAD illustrations, and guesstimating. So, FLHP’s own Erik supplied Kooks with an actual C8Z, and flew to North Carolina to get better acquainted with the Kooks team. In the video hosted above, we get to meet Kooks’ Engineering Manager, Jake Fleuridas, and Marketing Manager, Georgia Kryssing.
They give us a tour of the facility, we get a peak to see how their latest headers come together, and we get to hear how the car sounds once the new parts are installed. Unfortunately, dyno numbers weren’t made available as of this writing, but once they’re finalized, you can rest assured that you’ll get to read about them here, at GMEFI Magazine.
Rick Seitz is the owner and founder of GMEFI Magazine, and has a true love and passion for all vehicles. When he isn’t tuning, testing, or competing with the brand’s current crop of project vehicles, he’s busy tinkering and planning the next modifications for his own cars.
