Wow, the car looks great. It sits so nice the way it is. Nice job Jody. :hail:

lots of responses, thanks to all. I got the car back from Jim in paint the end of February and it's been a thrash since then. I honestly thought it could be done even faster, but there's a ton of things that have to be done to put them together. I pulled this thing apart in a day or two, but assembly is a lot slower.

As fun (and frustrating at times) as this was I am very glad it's at the end of this journey. Got about a week to do the tune and fix any issues that may show up once I start driving. Hopefully this thing will quit fighting me now..................... :D

This build with the updates in a thread was a blast, and your comments and posts helped me a lot along the way. I definitely appreciate it and may have another build thread going in the not so distant future.

Jody

unfortunately it has to come up some. It's too bad, the tires clear fine and the exhaust is not an issue as is often the case. The damned trans pan is an issue, and I'd like a bit more clearance.

Jody

Jody, congrats on a great job and as I have said before this thread has been the most enjoyable in a long time. Always something new every morning (morning for me that is with the timezones).

I guess it will not be to many jinxes to sort out for you. The new wheels looks great but the other ones would have made it look great too. :thumbsup:

Now you keep posting how it drives and when will that video show up?


Jan

Absolutely Awesome!!!!!

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

Looks absolutely fantastic, Jody! :hail: :hail:

I can't wait to do the Power Tour together. :woot:

Jody............Great Job..........You have brought one of the "Stig-A-Low" Benchmark Cars up to the "Next" Level.................................:yes: Ribs are on Charley:yes: ......................Again "Great Job"

Ken

Congrats Jody! The car looks awesome!!

This is one of those cars that turned an ordinary car into extraordinary. Incredible workmanship and execution of function and style. Very, very impressive work Jody :hail:

(I'm just speaking of a Malibu of that vintage in general not Mark Stielow's version.)

Very very nice...awesome effort....:thumbsup: :hail:

Sick! that thing is strait as an arrow and those wheels are sweet! Great Job! :thumbsup:

Looks freaking awesome Jody, the engine, wheels, paint and interior are off the hook. I guess that means the entire car?? :cheers:

thanks guys............ :thumbsup:

Jody

Fantastic.

So how long until Charley asks for it back? How many times has he owned it before you got it?

Tyler

last time he bought a car back from me it cost him a lot of money............. :wow: I don't think he's going to want to do that again.:rofl:

Jody

Jody I've really enjoyed the thread and the build. Thanks for taking the time and pics for us to enjoy! :thumbsup:

Can't wait to see it on Power Tour.

I haven't posted at all in this thread since I am absolutely sick that I haven't been able to work on my 65 malibu lately..

But it is official, I hate you....

Love the car. not everything is my style, but then again; it isn't my car. lol. Everything goes together well.

Maybe we will get to cruise together next year at Power Tour.

That thing looks fantastic. Great job.

VERY nicely done! I would love to see it in person.

That makes two of us.

well, it's not looking good for Power Tour, as this damned car is fighting and screaming till the very end. As soon as I solve one issue two more crop up. I think I'll run out of time.

Right now, no speedo and related, no trans shifting. VSS issue I'd guess, but not sure how to solve it yet. Then as it was idling all of a sudden both pipes started smoking a lot. My guess, oil from the turbo drains backing up or just too much oil period. I have a ported pump on this thing and about 45 psi at idle, maybe it's just too much. The drain lines are 5/8" i.d. and are kink-free downhill to the pan. It's run this long before and never done this, but of course it starts now. I have the proper oil restrictor fittings Precision supplied with the turbos, so I dunno........... :(

Haven't driven it more than 200 ft without some major issue cropping up like my valve covers melting.............. :lol: which of course caused a massive oil leak that drenched everything. Not the fault of the covers, I'm going to run the same ones on another LS build, just not on a turbo car with the headers right next to the covers. :D Everybody with them on normal motors have not had any issues, great pieces.

So as you see, I've got several big things to sort out, and honestly I'm burnt out on this car. It will get sorted, but I really set my goal of one month for teething pains; one week may not be enough.

Jody

Jody I've had this issue with Precision turbos before. After sending the turbo back 3 times to get new seals, Pat and Harry both said just start the car and get into as much boost as you can right away. The turbo seals were just not seating like they should, and had smoke out the tailpipe. I setup the anti-lag and twostep in the ecu, started the car rev'd to 5000rpm and 20psi, they didn't smoke a lick after that. But cleaning out the exhaust was a PITA!!!

Hope you get the car sorted out and stay positive we're all behind you!!! :thumbsup:

Jody if it was easy everyone would have bad ass cars. Some cars go smooth as silk and some fight the whole way.

Just a thought but what is the Id in the #10 fitting connected to the turbo. Some company make pretty small bore on the fitting which restricts flow alot.
Just a thought.

Don't give up, you have come way to far. When you make the Power Tour it well all be worth it.

that's possible, but will be a real pain in the ass since I don't have the car tuned and it doesn't want to upshift........... :rofl: . It's real embarrassing driving around smoking like this. I just tried to lower the shift points as I logged the trans controller and it has a mph signal, just won't upshift so some other table must be over-riding it.

these are XRP pushlocks, which are actually bigger than standard braided in the same size. A #10 pushlock is a real 10/16 (5/8") id whereas in an it's smaller.

I had a return pump stop pumping on my GTO and I thought I'd blown the motor up......... :faint: And it is a real pain in the ass to get the oil out of the exhaust if this is what is happening.

jody, do not plug the speedo into the pcs speedo wire until all other parameters are tuned.
make sure you got tps, low thru high signal, and 12 volts to controller, as well as rpm and your good to go, leave speedo un hooked until the end.
i take it the computer is picking up the controller in the program, try putting it in manual mode and paddle shift up and down thru the gears. also the tranny solenoids should be humming when key is turned on

the speedo is known to cause the tranny not to shift, steevo always says to leave it until tranny is tuned perfectly

the tcm has a mph signal. I used the speedo signal out for the speedometer, so maybe the speedo just needs a re-cal. Gonna be tough to un-hook the speedo I think.............. :yes:

The paddle shifter has no affect. Steve gave me a couple things to look at, but if I can't get the smoke under control it's not gonna happen. That was all I needed at this point............

I agree!! This car is BAD ASS and I bet its way better in person. I love this malibu. :thumbsup:

Jody, you did a gret job with the car and I love the attention to detail. Its the little details that make a car IMO.

Jody I can understand the frustration you're going through right now but you have to fight it. That oilsmoke is of course not good but try to solve the problems and your reward will be satisfaction.

After all it is better the jinxes show up now than out on the tour.


Keep the spirit man!!


Jan

I haven't given up yet, no cancelled hotels, etc. but reality is setting in. I'll keep plugging away on it, but not going to fall apart if it doesn't make it.

Jody

That's the best attitude you can have :thumbsup:

You'll get all this figured out and the car will be on the PT... if not this year than next.

Good luck. Wish I could help, but you're way beyond my skills.

chances of jody having the car this time next year is pretty slim lol:D

http://www.remotecentral.com/dvd/airplane-3.jpg

Jody, just wanted to say, hang in there and your doing a great job. We're all behind you!

jody, have no idea what all that means,,but if you need starbucks deliverd,or simple stuff a painter can do......i'm there......

Just remember if it was easy Sears would do it.

thanks Jim! :bow:

Jody

true, huh???!!!!!!!!! :lol:

I can only imagine how burn't out you are. I get to working on mine and can't stop. I try to remember that it's supposed to be fun and to step back and enjoy it while I can. Let's face it, the couch and TV really aren't that great.:unibrow:

well, the trans is shifting now. Thanks to Steve (Twist Machine) for telling me about scaling the tps voltage. Hadn't done that, but now it works. Speedo still doesn't read, and the paddle shifter doesn't respond, but at least the car is moving.

It's raining here today, but I went out anyway................ figured the car has been screwing with me, doesn't deserve to stay dry and clean. :lol: It's officially wiped out now, so I don't have to worry about it any more. :faint:

Good things

car drives nice as far as ride and handling. Quiet inside, comfy ride, firm but not stiff at all. Trans shifts nice.

Bad things

smoking fairly bad at idle/low speeds, seems to not do it at a higher cruise. It's not an engine problem, this was run in the GTO and was flawless. Pulled some plugs, perfectly clean. It appears the oil is getting past the turbos, and I'm sure the exhaust is full of it now. This happened on the GTO and I had to remove the entire exhaust and stand it up on end to drain it for 24 hours. Can't really get into any appreciable boost with the wet roads to see if it helps seat the oil rings/seals in the turbos.

BAD rear end howl on decel at lower speeds. Completely quiet at a steady cruise or accelerating, but obnoxious slowing down. Wish I would have drove the car before tearing it down a couple years ago, would have definitely had the rear section reset correctly or fixed, whichever the case.

So now it looks even less like Power Tour will happen, as these are big issues. I can live with the rear end noise, but the smoking is a no-go if I can't get it to stop. I'll be calling Precision on Monday.

Jody