Introducing my '69 Chevelle (and myself)

[gmorris]

Thought I would post this over here and introduce myself since I have just lurked on lat-g for a while now. I'm another Canuck locked in an endless winter and dieing to drive his recently finished (for now) Chevelle. I've learned a lot from the forum and it helped me solve some of the issues I ran into during the build.

I held off on creating a project post as I ran into a lot of major setbacks and issues that dragged this out longer than planned (just like every project car). It started 2 1/2 years ago when I mistakenly purchased somebody else's project that they didn't have time to finish. The car had been fully disassembled and the frame, suspension and miscellaneous parts powdercoated. It came with a th400 and a fairly fresh small block. Everything was there and while I knew it needed new rear quarters the body seemed decent. I got a decent price for around here and took my prize home in 2 trips with a trailer and about a thousand boxes. The plan was to assemble what I had and to get it on the road and then make the changes I wanted later.

This is what it looked like then:


The problems started right away when I decided I wanted to get rid of the 350 and auto go big block/5speed right away. I sold the small block and most of the stock suspension and tranny right away. That freed up some room in the garage and some cash which was great. I then went ahead and ordered a fresh moser 12 bolt with trutrack and ford axle ends from Frank at GP superstore. I also ordered a 540 from Wolfplace to power the beast. The next major problem came up then. When I installed the dif and started measuring for the backspacing I discovered the frame seemed out of whack in the rear. I had measured the diamond when I bought the car and it was square so I was baffled. I took it to a frame shop and asked him to check/square the rear and correct the fame sag in the front. He measured the same stuff I did and thought it was good enough to fix. After 2 days he called me and told me he was giving up. His best guess was that it had been hit right on the rear wheel at some point and repaired poorly. When he started pulling the frame back welds started breaking all over and all kinds of ugliness was covered up with the powdercoat. It might have been salvageable but I didn't want to have a suspect frame under this thing and decided to scrap it. This was a major setback as new frames are very hard to find up here in any kind of condition. It took me about 6 months to find another one and it looked like this:



I spent 2 moths grinding, welding, gusseting and painting with por15. I reinforced all the week points - front LCA mounts, rear LCA mounts, rear crossmember etc. I decided not to box the full frame rails as I do not believe the benefit is worth the hassle of changing the tranny crossmember mounts and brake and fuel line routing. Once the frame was done I installed twin 1/2" SS fuel lines (supply and return) and new ss brake lines from inline tube, sc&c stage 2+ front suspension plus SPC lca's, edelbrock adjustable uppers and UMI adjustable lowers in the rear.









For now I'm running bilstein shocks with circle track springs with adjusters in the front. Next winter I may go coilover or at least varishocks depending on how it performs this summer. I also ordered up some c5 Z06 front brakes from Kore3 along with their al hubs. I found some LS1 rear brakes for the back .

Next to arrive were some more driveline goodies:



Followed by some pretty forgelines (18/9.5 front, 18X11 rear)



The real excitement arrived in a really big crate from northern California:



It's a dart block 540 from Lewis Racing Engines. It made 746HP and 680ft-lbs on his dyno.

To be continued...

[gmorris]

That allowed me to finish the chassis with the help of a 3.5/3" torque tech exhaust which I added some extra flanges for easy removal into and later removed to have fully ceramic coated. I also got a set of beautiful lemons 2 1/8" X 3.5" pro touring inside the frame headers. Those things are a work of art! Finishing the front end off is an alumatech rad with twin spal fans.





I had stashed the body with a guy from my home town that has a great reputation for paint and body. He had recently quit the shop he had worked at for years to start doing his own thing on his farm. He was a little backed up but I finally got to the front of the line last fall. Once he started digging into it he found a "few" more issues that resulted in more metal being ordered. Basically all that's left is the roof, firewall and floor. New full rear quarters, tail pan, door skins, fenders, hood, front filler, inner and outer wheelhouses, trunk lid and rear filler beneath rear window. Since his shop is 5 hours away from where I live now I trailered the chassis out to him to fit the shell onto.





Once it arrived at the body shop he tore into it like a madman.









Seeing that was almost enough to change my mind to flat black...but into primer it went:



Then I got some teaser pics from him

[gmorris]

I went and picked it up the weekend before Christmas...what a present. I was ecstatic with the quality of the body work, especially since he did it in 2 months. You can also see that he managed to flush mount the front and rear windows with modern rubber seals and eliminate the majority of the trim on the car. The color is of course prowler orange from the 2001 Plymouth prowler. The last thing I wanted to do was use a color that somebody else has uses so successfully but the car was always going to be orange. Originally I planned on gm atomic or sunset orange but after seeing pics of Penny I just couldn’t get the color out of my mind. Then I saw a prowler on the street and fell completely in love with the color.

I then moved on to the sound deadening. I covered the entire car with second skin damplifier pro. It took 2 bulk packs but I did from the top of the firewall all the way to the tail pan plus the inside and outside of the doors, entire roof and as far into the 1/4 panels as I could reach. What a difference! The thing sounds like solid lead when you knock on a panel and the doors close like a Mercedes. Then I put a layer of luxury liner pro on the entire floor and firewall, including the trunk. That stuff is thick and is supposed to block noise plus absorb heat.









I then continued with the interior install, exterior trim and stereo. I managed to get 6.5' separates into the stock kick panels by removing a bit of kick panel structure and surface mounting the tweeters on the cable pull area. The seats are Arizen with perforated suede on the seating surface for grip and a bit of cooling. The are ridiculously comfortable and good quality for the price.





And here she is after it's first washing on Friday. Now I just need to get an appraisal so I can insure and license it and actually drive it!

[gmorris]

There you have it...the complete story in high speed. It has turned out to be a bit of an oddball car. Pro-touring with a carbed big block. I always wanted a car with too much power and when I started almost 3 years ago not many people were making big power with LS transplants yet, especially up here. For more details on the 540 check out this post on the chevelle forum:

http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224314

[jbutlr]

Bad Ass!! Dont worry, there are a few of us PT guys running around with big blocks.

[street3285]

My buddy and I are building a Nova with a Big Block. It is nice to see something other than a LS engine... something a little different.

Nice car, I really like the color and wheels/tires.

[tobenk]

Man that just looks down rite nasty. Love the wheels and tires.

[Swain]

Love that color.. Your car looks great.