1969 Chevelle Turbo LSx-T56 Magnum-14" brakes-CTSv interior
 

I guess it is finally time for a build thread.

I have always been into cars and my first real build was in the late 90's where I put a Buick GN (turbo V6) drivetrain into my '87 Mazda RX-7. I put about 20K miles on it and commuted to work in it every day. Car ran mid 11's with a stock turbo on Nitto 245/50/16 Drag Radials. I had another stock rotary RX-7 with coilovers and Toyo RA1 tires with upgraded pads and tried road racing where I was hooked. Sold both cars and set out to build an LS1 powered '93 RX-7. That car I drove at the Sport Compact Car "Ultimate Street Car Challenge" in 2005 where I met Mike Maier and he was piloting the K&N sponsored turbo MR2 (it needed a bunch of refinement and he said was a handful to drive due to its on/off power). My car managed a 1.13g on 285/30/18 MichPSCup tires which was my goal. To prove the aluminum LS swap wouldn't mess up the cars handling.

I picked the Chevelle up in August 2012 off of Craigslist and surprisingly it was on there for a couple months. The story goes like this. 2 owner car originally purchased in Pasadena, CA where the 2nd owner bought it from about 10 years ago as a father/son restomod project. It sat in their garage about 30 mins north of SF for the entire time they had it. 93K original miles, Protectoplate, paperwork and service records dating back to the early 70's, factory Green/green 307ci, powerglide, 10 bolt non posi no a/c bench seat car when the original owner had it. 2nd owner installed an unknown mileage iron 5.3 with 4L65E trans and that was about as far as he got. No engine harness, no other real progress made. I had a bodyshop friend of mine come with me to look at the car and he said within a few minutes this is the cleanest rust free car you are ever going to find. Impulsively I bought it on the spot and put it in the trailer to take it home for some much needed care.

My goals for the car were to modernize it with EFI, a/c, better brakes/suspension, interior, and plush comfort. I hope that the car will run 9's with the turbo 5.3, achieve 25mpg highway, and be reliable with a/c as icing on the cake.

That week I pulled the engine/trans and in the following months installed a 2008 alum 5.3 with ported 5.3 heads, LS9 head gaskets, ARP studs, 225/223 114LSA cam, LS6 intake, ported TB, AutoKraft baffled pan, CarShop Inc 1" engine setback motor mounts, TC78 turbo, McLeod twin disc, and T56 Magnum, Holley 120# injectors. Most likely run it on e85. My buddy made 830rwhp with this turbo on a 378ci forged LS3 with ported LS3 heads/intake. I'm guessing I could make around the same.

Pulled the stock peg leg 10 bolt out and picked up a built Currie HD 9" with 35 spline axles, Detroit locker, installing 3.25 gears, with Torino big ends. TRZ adj upper/lower control arms too.

Digging into the body work the sail panel below the rear window had some rust and some of the rear window frame needed repair also. I had a neighboring shop repair that and prep the rest of the body, weld some of the trim holes closed, and put it in black primer.

At that point my good friend Chris Coffey was leaving the area with an empty trailer back to Nashville, TN (he was out doing some fab work in the area) and asked me if he could take it with him so he could work his magic. Realizing that my progress was slow and I don't have the skills to do a full cage that actually looks good, a turbo system that would be reliable, and other touches the car left with him! He has been a fabricator for pretty much his entire career and would work on it during his slow times and charge me a discounted rate as a result.

At that point I felt like I was paying alimony at times as monthly funds were being sent to make headway and buy parts. I'm coming towards the end of the build so this thread needed to be put up!

I sold the TC78 turbo and went with a GTS76 billet unit (1200hp rated), bought a beefy CG&J custom radiator, Holley Dominator EFI, chromoly tubing for the rollcage, and the hot side parts for the turbo system. 2.25" crossover tubing using truck manifolds and Vbands welded on them. Downpipe is 4" into a Badlandz e-cutout and then dual 3" into 4 mufflers for super stealth mode when closed.

Looked for a year and found some black Recaro heated/cooled seats from a totalled 2009 CTSv and had to have them.

Been wondering if you were ever gonna start a build thread on this car! Nice find!

onto the cagework.... Coffey Fabrication on it! Chris builds Bonneville salt flats landspeed cars for a hobby!

The first picture is the frame table Chris and his friends made from plate steel and then drilled in something crazy like 350 threaded holes into it!

The CTSv rear seats need to go to an upholstery shop to be cut and fitted properly; however they do sit in there nicely.
Front seats were pretty easy to install.... the wiring to control them is the next challenge.

Newport Engineering wiper motor.... few more of the turbo progress.

Big thanks to SpeedTech for their ATS spindle kit to correct the poor factory ackerman that resulted in scary steering. Also added a faster ratio rebuilt Cherokee steering box and Global West tubular control arms at the same time. Body bushings were replaced in California by me with poly Energy Suspension stuff.

Flew out to Nashville last fall to visit and get some work done on the car I didn't want to waste Chris' time on. Knocked out about 40hrs on the car that week and prepped all the floors for Lizard Skin heat and sound barrier. It was a ton of work; however I feel it will really help in the end. I also installed the 4" aluminum DriveShaft Shop driveshaft with billet 31 spline yoke in the car. It is beefy.

In the first picture that is a '95 Firebird landspeed car project with full chassis built on the table, 540ci twin 88mm turbo, Bruno trans, Winters style quickchange rear, and other goodies to shoot for 300mph this year at SpeedWeek.
They are feverishly working on it! That picture is from last fall.

Put in Vintage Air a/c and some nice brackets were fabbed up to make it look right. A/C bracket is from Holley. That picture shows the CG&J radiator in the back, then the intercooler heat exchanger and finally the a/c condensor.

Fuel system is -10AN PTFE e85 rated feed and -8AN return running Weldon filter/regulator combo. Purchased a used 25 gallon s/s fuel tank (Rock Valley I believe) that Chris is going to put in dual Walbro 450lph pumps with the Holley Hydramat to solve any pickup issues.

Chris welded up the intercooler water tank with clear lid opening for my Chiseled Performance 1500hp A/W intercooler and a Rule2000 pump inside the tank. The system including the water in the lines and unit itself should hold around 10 gallons I'm guessing. He also added a cogged drive for the GZ Motorsports vacuum pump driven from the alternator. Thankfully the Chevelle has a very generously sized engine bay and can swallow all these parts up with ease.

The last few items to address on the car would be the following:
wiring (Painless purchased then redone to our liking already)
Holley engine harness with quick disconnect fitting at the firewall
fuel system plumb and modify tank
finish dual 3" exhaust from turbo downpipe
brake system- 14.25" Wilwood C6 Z06 kit up front, Wilwood 12.19" rears with parking brake, Wilwood master cylinder and remote proportioning valve to dial it all in.
JRi custom single adjustable coilovers (built by Cortex Racing- thank you Filip) using the SpeedTech coilover conversion parts on the super nice Speedtech A-arms
wheels/tires (hello.... any sponsors?)

I purchased a GM warranty take out LS9 motor that needed rebuilt with new rings/bearings, converted to wet sump (cut the crank snout), ported Lingenfelter LS9 heads (flow 350cfm), and BrianTooleyRacing cam of still to be determined size. That will eventually go in once I get the car back and work out any kinks. With nearly 1 liter more displacement than the 5.3 engine any turbo lag should be minimized. The compression is also set at 10:1 so it should still be potent even out of boost. My guess is the LS9 setup should make 480rwhp without boost..... add 15psi and it will surpass 950rwhp with ease. 20psi should be a fun ride....

A few more random pics of the build. Note the bellow for the air filter that goes from 6" down to 4" inlet to the turbo.....and Ford Taurus 4000cfm e-fan. They really suck.

Cage is pretty well tucked in and hidden from the outside. The door bars have yet to be fabbed in until the rest of the work inside is completed.

Some more progress as been made and we are pushing to finish the car this year. Lots of little things to wrap up and make happen.

Thank you Filip at Cortex Racing for the JRi coilover hookup. Chris will do whatever is needed to make the SpeedTech control arms work in order to fit them.

Blake at SpeedTech- thank you for your help with coilover info and other tips you have shared so we could build this custom setup! Great people to work with.
They will pair well with your forged front ATS spindles/ZR1 hubs and I plan to give this suspension a pounding.

Some pictures of recent work.

Fuel system is plumbed! -12AN feed and -10AN return

brake system is next to address
going with Wilwood 6 piston Aero6 calipers and 14.25"x1.25" slotted rotors up front

Any feedback or some recommended changes you guys see.... speak up!

I want to run 18" rims all around.... and have the option to put in a 17" skinny drag front runner with hubcentric spacer... and a 15" rear 275 Pro drag tire to try to see what it will run; however with a 13 or 14" rear brake I don't see that being possible.

Built up a fresh LS9 shortblock with RaceTech 4.070" pistons LS9 crank/Ti rods topped off with fully ported LS9 heads/LS3 intake and Johnson linkbar lifters. Shake it down with the 5.3 and then this goes in. The crank snout was cut to convert to wet sump. Going from 5.3 liters to 6.2 will help a ton with spooling the turbo. This turbo went 162mph in my 2900lb LS9 RX-7 best at the strip. My goal is 150mph in the 1/4!

This is going to be killer street machine, still thinking single turbo instead my d1sc...
Nice work!

A little more headway:
Wilwood 14.25" rotors/6 piston Aero6 calipers
Speedtech upper/lower control arms with upper coilover mounting kit (very nice quality parts)
Coffey Fabrication custom lower mounts
JRi coilovers with Hypercoil springs

Next up torque arm, watts linkage, WaveTrac LSD out back.

Love this project. Very cool.

I just came back to check in, Wow nice progress. I love what your doing. Subscribed.

Awesome project , great job

My buddy's shop Coffey Fabrication & Race Prep in Nashville, TN was featured on PowerNation TV recently and it also shows the Chevelle there for a few seconds ;) That part starts at 1min50 sec. Chris Coffey builds some amazing vehicles and everything in between. He is truly a bad ass.

https://www.powernationtv.com/episod...lf-mile-hauler

He is working on other projects right now; however I did buy a Watts link/Torque Arm from my buddy Filip at Cortex Racing (Mustang suspensions) and Coffey Fab will adapt them to my Chevelle project. That of course means the fuel tank needs to be pulled yet again and modified for the Watts link clearance. After that is finally done the exhaust can be completed. It is currently a 4" downpipe that terminates at the firewall into a 4" e-cutout.

After that it is time to finish up the wiring and technically that should be all of the large items on the list. I'm sure more crap will pop up.

In the video you can see the Isuzu based 4x4 with Cummins 6BT, Dana 60's front/rear he bought as a non running project (from the PowerNation guys he actually did a lot of work on for them) with nothing on the rear frame aside from the cab up front.... he then made out of aluminum that wild camper with a clamshell that will swing open for more head room and also access to it from the rear. The large open section between the camper and cab is going to be for storage and potentially a motorcyle when doing trips.

Making good progress on the car. Just watched the Power Nation episode too. Good job. This thing is gonna be nice to drive.

I like it, good lookin welds.

Under the knife for the Watts link/Torque arm..... and Wavetrac LSD. Out with the Detroit Locker.... (35 spline... for sale)

That hole you see in the housing was the fluid fill!

test fitting some alternative tires out back....

Time to order some rims.... Next up is exhaust and not much more left after that :headspin:

Chris has the tires in hand 275/35/18 front and 305/35/18 rear Nitto NT01's to precisely measure for rim size/offset.

Wiring is getting finished up..... as is the exhaust (still deciding upon outlets on either side of the body before the wheel housings) !?!?!?!

Truly not much left after that! Spring I'm thinking I will be cruising this on the West Coast laying rubber for hundreds of feet and competing in Good Guys events plus open track days! I wonder how a 3500lb/1000hp 50 year old car will do with modern upgrades!

Hell yea! keep up the good work brother.

Looking good!!!

Cool. Gitter dun!

:bigun2:

Coffey Fab borrowed a wheel tool to get the perfect offset. Test fitting NT01 tires now and keeping in mind the front/rear overall track based upon offsets.
Front: 275/35/18 18x10
Rear: 305/35/18 size still TBD

He also noted that one can't super lower the car or the A-arm geometry will get affected. He said it's at about 2" fender gap; however can go another inch or so before angles get funky.

Main things are to order wheels, finish exhaust and some wiring plus misc crap.... getting close for hopefully summer driving this year! 5 years later and way too much money.

Any suggestions on wheels? I am open but not sure I want the usual Forgeline choices that 90% of the cars on here run.

In the last picture you can see the Bronco he built a new frame for to run Mustang front and rear cradle (IRS) plus a Coyote motor for another customer.

Jongbloed.

Local. Custom. Fair priced. :thumbsup:

I would recommend a dropped spindle..... RideTech or check with Ron Sutton. See what he has available. Also low puck those body mounts. Takes a bit of floor work.

Thanks guys!

It already runs the Speedtech ATS spindle which I believe has a built in 1" drop.
http://www.speedtechperformance.com/...rod/prd136.htm

The picture taken I don't think is the ride height he plans on. More just fitment.
As far as body bushings.... will have to ask Chris as the roll cage is already welded in place and intercooler to the firewall mounting points.

Rears mocked up. I feel a lot more confident with the wheel tool when ordering rims for the car :D

Wheels ordered from Forgestar and chose the F14 today.

Should be at Coffey Fab by end of February! The rears are in stock! Fronts supposedly ready to powdercoat by mid Feb.

Am I the first Chevelle to run the F14? I found a few 1st gen Camaros using them.

What sizes did you get? They are a great value and seem to be holding up on track for such low cost wheels.

Yeah, rarely see those on muscle cars..

F14s will look good on the car. I’m surprised you don’t see Forgestars more often as well. Good looking, affordable wheels.

I did an 18x10 6" BS front and 18x11 7" BS rear. One thing to note is the "super deep" style F14 won't clear a 14.25" Wilwood (C6 style) so I had to order the standard "deep" style up front.

It has a stock frame rail out back so I'm tire limited..... and I don't want to flare out the front fenders for aesthetics..... so in order to keep it from understeering too badly I felt this tire combo was a good setup. A 335 rear and 275 front would push like crazy.

The wheels arrived today.... some progress pics....

It has a 4" downpipe to the firewall.... still needs the 4" e-cutout welded on and the exhaust fabbed from there back..... I'm thinking instead of the dual 3" I planned with 2 mufflers.. I could just do a single 3" with 2 inline mufflers and exit in front of the passenger wheel well out the body. Would probably save 30lbs... be super quiet also.

Thoughts?

I ordered the Holley dash/display also for it. Opted not to do Speedhut gauges at this time.

The case needed to be modified for the WaveTrac of course! 3.25 gears installed..... it will do 60mph in 1st gear! Wonder how that gearing will work out in real world driving. Cortex Racing Watts link and torque arm! Thx Filip for the parts.

Since you're using Cortex stuff, you should get Filip's opinion on the dual exhaust: definitely a waste of weight (and fab effort), especially with the (single) turbo. I've seen the 3.5" single being touted as good for 700+ turbo horsepower (among the 2JZ types), so you might want a 4" single just to be safe in meeting your power goal. I'll be doing a 3.5" single to about somewhere before my differential, then I'll choke it down to my existing 3" single muffler and tail pipe, but I'm not looking for more than 500 wheel HP.

I think Dave G.'s Darth Vader Mustang has a 4" or 4.5" single (LS3 w/cam), and it's deafening, but he has no turbo. Filip's red Mustang is nice and quiet with his LS7 (or whatever's in it now), and it's got a big single.

Quiet exhaust rules, at least at idle speeds.

Back in '09 I believe my engine builder did 4 LS7's for us... one was for Filip and the other for my car and other buddies. His car is pretty awesome.

We've gone 163mph in the 1/4 with this turbo I have behind a 6.2 liter LS setup and 2900lb car (RX-7) with a 3" downpipe then at the firewall increasing to 3.5". That's well over 1000rwhp. I feel if I dump it at the firewall when I need bigger power and just run it thru the 3" on low power street mode (600rwhp) that should be fine....

I guess I'll have my fabricator weigh the parts I bought and go from there.

Chris Alston sway bar installed out back.... front next.....

Lookin good. Forgestars look great. This thing will be fun.


What's that saying? If it's too loud, you're too old! :bigun2:

Stay young Paul. Stay gold Ponyboy.

:cheers:

Time to cut off the front coilover top mounts to get the car down the to proper ride height.... motorboating a bit right now!

Rear wheels needed a small 3/8" spacer to fit as we wanted them.... my fabricator said the front tire well could gobble up a lot more than a 275/35/18 currently in there....

Real-old school race cars rocked the positive camber. Things are just right!