Pro Touring '69 Chevelle build thread

[Derek69SS]

I never shared this car here since I figured the interest was more stock original and Day-2 style cars on this forum, but Mark asked about this car in another thread, so here's the full build, starting from the beginning.

In the spring of 1998, I bought my '69 Malibu for $500, running driving unmolested car, but quite rusty. 250hp 2bbl 350/TH350 car with A/C, 2.56 open 10-bolt, Lemans Blue with excellent condition black cloth bench interior.

I was 15 years old at the time.

[Derek69SS]

Fall of 1998, Dad had waited a few months after I bought the Chevelle to transfer the title so he would get 30 days of free insurance at the same time I got my driver's license. I had a farm-permit, which turned into a full license on my birthday, so at 11:59pm I headed out, knowing I would have a license by the time I would get to the highway, taking the Chevelle for a short drive.

The next day, I found some blue enamel that matched, brush-painted over all the rust, and sprayed black over all the lower body argent silver which hid the rust well. I had bought some 15x7 ralleys, and got the used tires off my parents' Caprice. The car looked great from 50' away. Unfortunately, I never took any pictures of the car at that stage... It only lasted 30 days on the road like that.

That winter we started the body work at Dad's body shop. This was planned to be a quick job over one winter, but the project stalled out for a little while after the metal work stage was done.

[Derek69SS]

Like most of our car projects, what was planned to be 6 months for paint stalled out for a while and turned into 2-1/2 years. We took the car apart when I was 16, but I really wanted to have it done before I graduated high school.
Spring of 2001 we got serious about getting paint on it and freeing up the space it had been occupying in Dad's body shop. Huge thanks to Dad, the paint turned out awesome, and still looks great 20+ years later.

[Derek69SS]

After paint, I assembled the Chevelle in May of 2001. The picture on the trailer was when we hauled it to a shop for exhaust and alignment. I was finally able to drive it to school the last 3 days of my Senior year.

With the completely stock drivetrain it was a very nice comfortable driving car. I drove it daily like that during the summer for two years, putting 9,000 miles on it in 2001, and 8,000 in 2002.

[Derek69SS]

Fall of 2002 I thought this car was "done". It ran great, drove great, and I could see no reason to change it. Being completely satisfied and done with this car, I just knew I would have all sorts of free time, so I started looking for another project car to build.

I bought a '66 El Camino in late September.

One week later, my Chevelle was rear-ended at a stop light.

One week after that, I met my wife Jenna.

A week later, I took her on our first date in this car. She thought I was a dork, but liked the car enough to agree to a 2nd date.

Two weeks after that, the original 350 blew a head gasket or cracked a head (still haven't taken it apart to diagnose) on the way to meet her parents the first time.

So much for the free time and plans not to mess with it.

I bought a used, completely stock '77 400sbc with 200,000 miles on it, and cleaned and painted everything under the hood, and added some chrome. I had the TH350 rebuilt with a shift kit and a used 2400rpm B&M converter, and found a 3.08 posi rear out of a '66 4-4-2.

It was back on the road by July 2003, but the new quarter panel was in primer that whole summer. We repainted the back of the car some time during the winter of 03/04.

[Derek69SS]

In 2004 the Chevelle was fixed from the crash, and back to being a great cruiser. I changed wheels again (3rd time) to some 15" Torq-Thrust IIs that I bought used. It wasn't fast, but it made noise and did some decent burnouts.

I was getting bored with it, and thinking about selling it.

That fall, a friend talked me into going drag racing at Rock Falls, WI. I was reluctant, but he reassured me that the car didn't need to be fast to have fun, and I was really no more likely to break things there than I was doing the dumb things on the street that I was doing all the time anyway.

The car ran very consistent, with a best of 15.045 @ 89.9mph. With some beginner's luck, I went multiple rounds, but red-lighted in the final, taking home a 2nd place trophy that was way more satisfying than any car-show trophy I had ever received previously.

The hook was set. Racing restored the fun, and I started planning how to make the car faster.

[Derek69SS]

In 2005, I went drag racing a few more times, and the old tired 400sbc was getting slower each time. I was getting interested in "Pro Touring" type car builds, and wanted a more modern drivetrain. LS1/T56 was the dream, but they were still prohibitively expensive at the time. I bought a wrecked 9C1 Caprice and salvaged the LT1 and 4L60e.

The original frame had a lot of rust, so I bought a better one, boxed it, and started building my first suspension setup with handling in mind, using mostly dirt-track parts and tall balljoints with stock spindles. I started building the new setup while still driving the car.

In the fall, I took the car apart and got to work on the frame swap. I was young, energetic, and didn't have kids yet, so things actually moved forward at a pretty good pace. I had a deadline though, Jenna and I were getting married in May and I wanted to drive it to and from the church on our wedding day.

[Derek69SS]

May of 2006, I don't know what motivated me more, the idea of having the car done for our wedding, or my brother Chad telling me that I would never make it.

This first picture is around noon on the day before the wedding. Wiring was pretty much done except power to the fans. I worked on plumbing the fuel system, and Dad, Chad, Carl, and Joe worked on fitting sheet metal, hanging bumpers, and putting the interior back in it. I still hadn't heard it run yet. It was still up on stands when we went to rehearsal. After the rehearsal dinner, I made some coffee and got back to work. Between the caffeine, nerves, excitement, and stress, I was throwing up outside the door of the shop shortly before I test fired it. About 1am, I heard it run for the first time.

The morning of the wedding, we hung exhaust, did a quick string-line alignment and hit the road with only about 30 seconds of run-time on it... About half way to the church, the temp gauge spiked. When I painted the engine I removed the temp sensor from the head and installed a temporary plastic plug just to keep the threads from getting paint on them. When I put the new sender in, I used a different port and forgot about the plastic one, so it dumped the coolant when it warmed up. We towed it to the church the rest of the way behind Joe's Firebird.

My groomsmen fixed the car while I was in for pictures, (and then took a nap on the floor of the church) and another friend took the car to his house and washed it. He reported that the temp gauge still read pretty high, so a temporary fix was made to make the fans run... Jumper leads alligator clipped to the battery.
When we were leaving the church after the wedding, the temporary fan wiring lasted about 10 seconds before it caught fire. That was ripped off, no damage done, and away we went to our reception and all 80s hard-rock wedding dance with my awesome wife Jenna.

[Derek69SS]

After the wedding, we had planned to drive the Chevelle to Tennessee for our honeymoon, but it had a few small mechanical gremlins I didn't figure out in time for the trip, and wasn't confident in its ability to make a long road-trip yet, so we took a daily driver instead.

Once sorted, with the LT1/4L60e and 3.08 gears, it ran a best of 13.8 at 97mph, and got 22mpg on 87 octane. It did everything respectably, but fell a little short of my expectations, hoping for a 13.5 or better.

We bought a 66 Chevelle wagon for Jenna that needed suspension and brakes, and there were some cool new things coming onto the market, so in 2007 I swapped most of the setup from my Chevelle onto hers, and I bought the new ATS AFX tall spindle, SPC A-arms, upgraded to C5 Corvette front brakes, and 98-02 Camaro rear brakes on a used 12-bolt with 4.10 posi. The new brakes required new wheels, and I scored a deal on some 17x7 and 17x8 from Billet Specialties.

With the change to 4.10 gears and stickier tires, I improved my 1/4-mile ET to 13.62 at 98mph. I was losing interest in drag racing though, and focusing way more on making it handle.

[Derek69SS]

In 2008, after 2 years of driving with no speedometer due to the modern transmission not having any way to run a mechanical cable, I decided to adapt an electronic speedo into the stock dash. I also wanted better seat bolsters to hold me in place while cornering, and to change the interior to "parchment" off-white from the original black.

Scat had just introduced their new "Procar Rally" seats, which had nice bolsters, but also styling and sized to look great in a musclecar without the high-backs that most other bolstered seats had. I decided to buy those seats, and have them custom upholstered with correct '69 style pattern inserts. It was kind of expensive, but worth every penny! I still love these seats.

For gauges, I wanted white faces to tie with the interior color and the stripes, so I cut and welded on the gauge panel to adapt 5" Autometer Phantom speedometer and tach into the stock cluster, and put a gas gauge in the clock location. One cool original feature on a 69 Chevelle dash that I knew I would miss was the little blue bowtie for the bright light indicator. I designed a small custom bracket and panel with a blue bowtie light to go in the PRNDL location. I also used the Corvette style font but read CHEVELLE instead to tie in with the Corvette brakes and fuel rail covers.

I finished the install just in time (bolted the front seats in while Jenna loaded the trunk) to drive the car to Nashville, TN for the Chevelle-abration show in June, and while the AC didn't work yet, the white interior proved to be a good choice in the 105° heat down there!