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69 Chevelle - recent drivetrain upgrade pics

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  • 69 Chevelle - recent drivetrain upgrade pics

    I put a write-up together for a friend and thought others might get some entertainment from it. I also posted this on the chevelles.com site.

    Here’s my ride – a 69 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe. It should be good for near 120mph and mid-11s w/o using any juice (if I can learn to drive! :-[). I got it in ’86 with 30,000mi and now it’s got 260,000mi. It looks good in the pic, but it hasn’t been painted since ’89, so it’s due for a freshening. This is the 3rd motor I’ve built for it (5th motor it’s had), and I almost know what I’m doing now (at least with small block chevy’s, although I also have experience with an early-90’s turbo Supra, 66 Chrysler NYkr 440, LS motor (and everything else) for a 67 Firebird, and a 455 for a friend’s 70 440 W30 convertible). I got this Chevelle with a 250ci straight 6 (still wears the 250 badges), but that and the powerglide were on the curb within a week. It’s got a hood off a ’69 396 SS. That front lower spoiler is pretty beefy and fixed a problem with the front wanting to go airborne at 140+mph. Now it bashes right into the 6800rpm rev limiter at just under 160. The wheels look like stock SS-style rims, but they’re 15”x10” (Wheel Vintiques) with 255 60R15 BFG TA radials on the front and 275 60R15 Nitto 555R drag radials on the back. The front has been lowered about 1.5” with a Hotchkis suspension kit. It’s got adjustable Koni shocks on the front and KYBs on the back. Much of the frame has been boxed, including the rear control arms. There’s about 100-200lbs of added metal reinforcement scattered around (but no cage … yet).


    Here’s what I started with. This pic is during a Chicago-Altoona roadtrip. I’ve changed the engine, hood, wheels, and added dual exhaust at this point, but little else. This is in 1989, just before getting sprayed the blue it is now. Sometimes I miss the original color, but I hated it when I had it.


    This is how my wife still feels about it (the long road trip w/o AC didn’t help).


    Here’s the new motor installed. It’s a 10.7:1 427ci small block chevy. Started with a 400ci Dart racing block, added a 4” 4340 Eagle crank and 6” 4340 H-beam rods, and JE heavy duty flat-top pistons (with only 1” CH due to the big stroke and long rods). It has Speed Pro rings gapped for nitrous. All the bottom-half machine work and prep was done by an awesome shop in the Chicago area (Fast Times), which also did my brother’s complete engine. The intake is something I fabbed that grabs cold air from inside the firewall instead of the hot underhood heat here in FL. I’ve got a Zoops serpentine belt setup, modern AC (Classic Auto Air) that uses my old original controls, Hooker SuperComp headers, RPM Air Gap manifold, and AFR 210 Eliminator heads. Too many other doodads to list them all.


    The car has run a best of 11.8/114 and 11.0/125 (w/ 100hp spray). That was before adding some adjustable Strange shocks up front, switching from a 750 Speed Demon VE to a 800 Mighty Demon dp, and fixing the trans. I’m expecting a few mph faster. Also, times should improve since I was lamely 60’ at 2.0-2.2 sec.

    The heads are awesome (AFR 210 Eliminators). AFR does a great full CNC job and fits them with more modern light-weight LS-engine style valves, springs, and titanium retainers. Even with a hydraulic roller cam, this thing will rev to whatever you’ll let it without ever feeling like it’s dropping off. These have a 210cc intake runner, 75cc combustion chamber (measured), and 2.08/1.6 intake/exhaust valves.



    It’s hard to tell from the pics, but the cam is pretty big. It’s a custom Comp Cams hydraulic roller – 248/254 deg @ 0.050” duration, 0.600”/0.619” lift, 112 LSA, and installed on a 106 LCA. You can see the lobe base is about the same size as the core. A pushrod length of 7.475” seemed to give the best pattern (I used beefy Comp Cams Hitech pushrods). I topped it off with Comp Cam Pro Magnum 1.6 rockers and their Pro Magnum retrofit hydraulic lifters.




    To feed all this, I have an 800 Mighty Demon w/ annular boosters. I think this thing flows closer to a 900 cfm due to the different way Barry Grant rates his carb’s flow. There’s no choke, so when it’s cold it might take a few minutes before it’ll idle in gear. I also have a Top Shot nitrous system under the lid. It’s adjustable from 75-150hp and I’ve been running it at 100hp with the new setup. I have a dial in the car to retard the timing before I hit the juice.


    Here’s the trunk-end of the nitrous. I’ve got a thermostatically-controlled bottle heater that helps maintain consistent pressure. There’s also a solenoid on the end of the bottle so I can turn it on and off from the car. The nitrous purge goes through the firewall and is aim out the hood vents near the windshield.



    The tank has been modified to add a rear sump in the back with 2 8AN lines merging to one going up front. The pump is a mechanical (from Race Pumps) piston-style (no diaphragm). It feeds the engine and nitrous.



    The exhaust is a 3” kit from Torque Tech Inc in Valdosta, AL. I welded it together on my daughter’s old bassinet. It has DMH Performance electric cutouts after the x-pipe junction to let me bypass the mufflers and over the axle exhaust with a switch in the car. The mufflers are Flowmaster Super40s. It’s relatively tame sounding idling through the full exhaust (unless you hit the gas). Needless to say, the only time these things are closed is during early morning/late night drives in/out of the neighborhood and whenever I see a cop.


    The trans is a TH400. This is a pic of the CRT unit that died within the first 2000 miles. I had it redone by Fernando at Transmission Physicians, and he seems like he know his stuff. Now it’s a full manual reverse Hipster valvebody with transbrake and has a billet forward clutch hub, Raybestos blue racing clutches, and 34 element intermediate sprag. The pic below the trans is the custom driveshaft loop made by TP. The loop was harder to fab than typical due to the 3” x-pipe exhaust and 3.5” Denny’s driveshaft.



    The back-end was original done up by Strange in the late-80’s and still looks good-as-new. It’s a 12-bolt posi with 3.55 gears. Now it has stronger Strange axles and a super-strong nitrous-ready driveshaft from Denny’s with beefy end joints. This should be good for wheels-up launches, but I view tire spin as a safety feature for keeping the drivetrain alive.





    The back brakes are large 11” cryo-treated drums from Master Power. Front brakes have been switched from drums to discs (ECI kit), although brakes are manual (due to low vacuum from the big cam). All the brake lines are stainless.



    Here’s the day the old engine (383) got pulled and the new one (427) dropped in. It was cool to have a couple helpers (sort of).



    Here’s the interior. It’s got $50 buckets from the junkyard covered in $30 JC Whitney fake leather covers. The Grant steering wheel comes off for security purposes. It’s got a Hurst shifter, a line-loc, nitrous controls for the bottle heater and solenoids, a timing control dial, and a lot of additional gauges. The glove box could barely hold a small thing of tissue since the aftermarket AC stuff takes up space under the dash (instead of in the engine compartment).


    Here’s the backseat. I had to swap in some modern seat-belts (kit from Andover Restraints) to deal with the kids booster seats (3 & 5 yrs old). The Recaros are much nicer than the junkyard specials I plant my butt in and have built-in side impact protection. They’re a bit heavy, but having weight over the back wheels helps traction . The seat belts were more of a pain than I had imagined to replace. It also took some time to get the GM buckle decal off the old ones to put on the new.



    Here’s the destruction that led to the new engine build. This is my brother’s 400 (1973 Camaro) that was fed more nitrous than we ever imagined using. We built it with everything you see below and never planned on more than 150hp of juice. He eventually got a 300 kit and was using it pretty often (and sometimes without timing or spark plug changes). He had a bad noise on the highway and suddenly the engine instantly shut down and the tires locked up. He shoved it into neutral and coasted to the shoulder. He pulled the carb and found a couple valve bottoms!!! I guess one got stuck between the piston and head in the quench area and stopped everything instantly (they couldn’t get it to crank or move at all). Even top-quality forged pistons can’t handle a huge nitrous explosion!




    I first experimented with my engine plans with his rebuild (2005). I know a top shop that is run by someone I went to HS with and talked with him to get Tim’s motor built (Fast Times). It’s basically the same motor, except with a Victor manifold (to deal with the Wilson 350hp nitrous setup) and was dyno’d at 635hp/595fllbs (w/ electric water pump and no accessories). After he started hitting 11.0 in the low 120’s w/o spray, I started planning for a copy for my Chevelle. Even though I almost have the same combo, I’ll never be able to compete with him in a burnout contest (he likes breaking things).






    And all real car garages should have one of these setups. The beer fridge is loaded with one commercial keg for the lightweights and home brew for the rest. The freezer houses frosty mugs, deep dish Chicago pizza, the ice cream maker tub, and room for more.



    Hope you enjoyed this overload. I kind of enjoyed putting it together.

    Tampa, FL

  • #2
    Re: 69 Chevelle - recent drivetrain upgrade pics

    That is one shiny engine, and a very clean car.
    Escaped on a technicality.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: 69 Chevelle - recent drivetrain upgrade pics

      Nice stuff, bro.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: 69 Chevelle - recent drivetrain upgrade pics

        Thanks guys. It's not as clean and shiny as in the pics after getting beat on. I'm not even into the car show scene at all, so I'm not sure why I did it (maybe to get my brother jealous ;)). Lots of the shiny stuff came from 20+ years of the car milking Xmas and Bday gifts.

        This car for me is stuck in limbo. I never like saying its done, but no more go fast stuff until I add the needed safety stuff (roll bar or cage). Since I'm most often driving with 2 kids in the back, the cage thing gets a little more complicated. I'm also struggling with whether I can live with a cage being in a semi-sleeper street car. I'd love to do DW or something like it someday, so the bullet will eventually have to get bitten. I wouldn't care about keeping up with the top guns, just doing respectably and hopefully being able to fix whatever I break and finish the whole event.

        First I have to figure out how to drive what I got now, but it won't stop raining here in sunny FL. ;D
        Tampa, FL

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: 69 Chevelle - recent drivetrain upgrade pics

          A well designed cage/bar setup, can take into account stuff like that,
          while staying within the rules.

          Comment

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