Hello everyone!
I haven't posted about my car in a long time because I have been looking for a new place to keep it. It's been more than an hour away at my brother's house, so I can only get up there twice a month, and needless to say progress has been going way too slowly.
Over the weekend I was given the amazing opportunity to move into The Race Cave in Denver, which is owned by Dave Balingit, the regional director of the National Auto Sport Association. This shop gives me access to two lifts, all the single-use tools that I no longer need to invest in, as well as many, many years of knowledge and expertise from the racers and builders. On top of all of that, the shop is less than 15 minutes from my house.
http://imgur.com/IeVeV8N
I was also able to finalize the build for the AWD, thanks to a guy from France I only know as Alex.
Now, onto the build!
I will be taking this car... http://i.imgur.com/xtTPrlr.jpg
...A 1967 Chevelle Malibu 4-Door (originally gold on gold) and turning it into my dream car that I have been planning for going on 8 years now. The drivetrain will be a 2006-2007 LBZ mated to the Allison (or a 4L80E if that is too big), and a NV149 transfer case out of a Denali for AWD.
The first few steps, that will also take the most time, are:
Other than small custom details here and there, that is the bulk of the project.
As of right now, I have taken 4 rolling chassis and turned them into street legal, moderately powerful (most horsepower was 425/450 ftlbs), muscle cars. For the last 8 years I have wanted to build my dream car, and each time I went through the options, I kept coming back to diesel. I wanted uniqueness, difficulty, MPG, power (360hp/650ftlbs stock plus a mild tune will be outrageous in a 3k lb car.), and it is a project that I will get to complete with my brothers and Dad, maybe the last one we get to do together. I have no concern for resell value, if I did I would have gotten a 2 door. I've had coupes, and for this, I wanted something I could actually bring people along in.
Thanks for reading everyone, and I look forward to keeping you all irregularly updated!
I haven't posted about my car in a long time because I have been looking for a new place to keep it. It's been more than an hour away at my brother's house, so I can only get up there twice a month, and needless to say progress has been going way too slowly.
Over the weekend I was given the amazing opportunity to move into The Race Cave in Denver, which is owned by Dave Balingit, the regional director of the National Auto Sport Association. This shop gives me access to two lifts, all the single-use tools that I no longer need to invest in, as well as many, many years of knowledge and expertise from the racers and builders. On top of all of that, the shop is less than 15 minutes from my house.
http://imgur.com/IeVeV8N
I was also able to finalize the build for the AWD, thanks to a guy from France I only know as Alex.
Now, onto the build!
I will be taking this car... http://i.imgur.com/xtTPrlr.jpg
...A 1967 Chevelle Malibu 4-Door (originally gold on gold) and turning it into my dream car that I have been planning for going on 8 years now. The drivetrain will be a 2006-2007 LBZ mated to the Allison (or a 4L80E if that is too big), and a NV149 transfer case out of a Denali for AWD.
The first few steps, that will also take the most time, are:
- Strip the car and clean every reused part (I hate working with dirty parts).
- Take the body off the frame. Box the center section of the frame and reinforce everything.
- Design and install custom roll cage. I will be attempting (if safe) a double hoop in the roof, so the rear is a relative mirror of the front. It is very, very important to me to retain seating in the rear. Both bench seats will be removed because of safety. I'll be sad to see them go as I've never had this unique of a driving experience of a car in my life. Plan is to replace both benches with 4 racing seats, a Recaro Sportser CS for me, and Corbeau Evolutions for everyone else. I plan to install and extend a center console all the way to the rear to hopefully make it look better. 3 point Schroth racing harnesses throughout, but provisions for 4+ point in the future if I want. Roll cage (and frame) will be painted or powdercoated fluorescent green.
- Minitub if needed.
- I would like to get ~275/xx/18's or larger all the way around. I am going for a square setup for the AWD, but with the added benefit of better rotations, and it limits further contribution to understeer,
- Smooth the fire wall and recess 6" to 1'. A Duramax is the same depth and width as a big block Chevy, it is just taller because of both the depth of the oil pans and the amount of accessories on top. I want to clear up more space in the front because it is going to be really tight with all the coolers, radiators, and front diff. up there, so I plan on having to notch back the center section of the fire wall quite a bit. It will allow me to both center the weight in the car better, as well as lower the engine down because of extra oil pan clearance.
- Custom floor pan grid and flat floor pans. I need to get as much ground clearance and head clearance as possible. Currently the bench seats both sit on platforms, and there are all kinds of other high and low spots in the floor pan. I have to cut so much out to fit the new tunnel and get clearance for the front drive shaft that it makes more sense to just build the floor to exactly what I need. I will be welding in a grid of square tubing to support 14 gauge floor pan plates. The plates themselves will be sealed and HD riveted to the grid, and the transmission tunnel will be removable.
- Skid plates for the front half of the car, and one for the diff.
- New suspension. I am leaning towards air bags, but I am still able to be swayed if a different setup wins over performance-wise. New upper and lower front control arms will be absolutely necessary, and I may be "remote" mounting the shocks because of clearance issues. Spindles will be out of the donor truck.
- Rear end from the donor truck will be trimmed down to fit the car. Gearing will probably be very high, so 2.xx's. Front diff has to match it.
- Install new InfinityBox wiring system. These things, while expensive, are so damn cool and will really clear up a lot of headaches later. Not to mention they are incredible capable wiring systems. http://infinitybox.com/
- Dakota Digital VHX gauge cluster. The only extra gauges I will need will be boost, transmission temp, and pyrometer. It's possible to have the display on the cluster show these, but I would have to push a button to scroll through each of them, they don't have a dedicated gauge. http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.c...rod/prd798.htm
- Reuse truck radiator/intercooler, or do split radiators if it improves space. Mounting at an angle with electric motors is also an option.
- Battery bank moved to rear.
- ~40 gallon fuel cell in the trunk. The trunk on this thing is really, really massive, so there is plenty of room for a low and wide fuel cell that won't affect my ground clearance. Rough napkin math is you gain 3-5 MPG per every 1,000 lbs of weight you shed. The Chevelle is already 4,000 lbs lighter than the HD truck, minus how much weight I add beefing up the frame, adding the roll cage, etc.. Even conservatively at 2 MPG/1k lbs, I will be around 32 MPG. This doesn't take into account much lower rolling resistance, custom tunes, much better aerodynamics, etc. My goal is to break 40mpg (this type of project has already hit 36-38 really consistently), or hit the limit of the Duramax MPG, whichever comes first. I think 40+ is well within reach with an OD transmission.
- Turbo inlet was originally going to be through one of the headlight openings like the Chevelle in the link below, but I like the look of 4 headlight too much to do that. I will instead find, or make, a scoop to pull from under the center section of the bumper, around where the hood latch is.
- Exhaust routing TBD. It will be 4-5" from the collector back, so it may be routed through the crossmember. May end up double-mufflering it if it is a single outlet, depending on what it sounds like. Going with Magnaflows as I had them on my last Camaro and loved them. Quite a big difference than my multiple sets of Dronemasters.
- New side mirrors? Side mirrors on this car were dealer added most of the time (including mine), so the variation in their placement is huge. I can't open my wing windows without swinging my side mirrors away first. Definitely going to fix that, but might go with a more modern mirror at the same time. Maybe something with signals?
- Aftermarket A/C to replace stock A/C. This is both for more space in the engine bay, and modern controls (no cables/vacuum).
- Interior will be predominantly gunmetal gray with black accents.
- Color will either matte blue, matte black, or Artesian Turquoise (old Chevy color) inspired by this amazing car: http://image.adam.automotive.com/f/4...e-quarter-view
Other than small custom details here and there, that is the bulk of the project.
As of right now, I have taken 4 rolling chassis and turned them into street legal, moderately powerful (most horsepower was 425/450 ftlbs), muscle cars. For the last 8 years I have wanted to build my dream car, and each time I went through the options, I kept coming back to diesel. I wanted uniqueness, difficulty, MPG, power (360hp/650ftlbs stock plus a mild tune will be outrageous in a 3k lb car.), and it is a project that I will get to complete with my brothers and Dad, maybe the last one we get to do together. I have no concern for resell value, if I did I would have gotten a 2 door. I've had coupes, and for this, I wanted something I could actually bring people along in.
Thanks for reading everyone, and I look forward to keeping you all irregularly updated!
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