Pro Touring '69 Chevelle build thread

[69M22Z]

That's great!!

[Derek69SS]

In 2008 I was finally ready to try autocross, but had no idea where to start. Car Craft Summer Nationals in St. Paul, MN had a small course and I was determined to try it there, but it was not meant to be... Fuel pump problems kept me out of the competition there that year. Later that fall, I found that there were local autocross events held in Winona, MN, so I tried it there for my first event. I was slow, but steadily improved with each run. I only got in one event at the end of the season.

I competed several times in 2009, including multiple Winona events, Car Craft, and on the speedway at La Crosse, WI. I was enjoying this a lot more than drag racing.

[Derek69SS]

2010 was a big year for me with this car. I bought yet another new set of wheels. 17x9 Cragar D-windows were the cheapest way into 9" wide wheels at the time, and gave the car somewhat of a NASCAR vibe. With some advice from some very fast local autocrossers, I ran 265/40 Dunlop Z1 Star Specs, which were a top competitive street tire at the time.

My 2nd son AJ was a baby then, and Jenna was off most of the summer on maternity leave. With her schedule cleared, I got a lot of racing in that year running with MAC, COM, and SCCLaC locally. I had my spring/shock/sway-bar combination figured out, and was getting a lot of practice.

At the Car Craft Summer Nationals, I ran fastest of any vintage car for most of the day on Friday. Jeff Smith (Car Craft editor) asked me to enter the Real Street Eliminator competition, so I did. I finished 3rd in the autocross, just a couple tenths of a second behind 2 pro-built shop cars on R-compound tires. I didn't try very hard on the stop box, so my time there was unimpressive. On the dyno I made a meager 256hp. There was a small paragraph in the magazine about me and the Chevelle, and a tiny picture of it on the cover of Car Craft Magazine in their issue with the event coverage.

We then drove it to Cleveland Ohio for the NOCC Chevelle show, where Chuck Hanson did a photo shoot for a full multi-page feature in Chevelle World Magazine.

That fall we made plans to drive the car down to Tennessee with Scott Parkhurst for the "Run to the Hills" pro-touring event. A couple weeks before the trip, overdrive started slipping in my 4L60, so we decided to tow it there instead. We had an awesome time on the cruise to the "Tail of the Dragon" that Friday. At the autocross Saturday I did pretty well, but coned my fastest run which would have otherwise gotten me into the top-8 shootout. My fastest clean run put me in, I think, 9th of about 80 cars in a car with half the horsepower of most cars there on a course with 2 long uphill straights. The following day was drag-racing, and after a few runs, 3rd gear was slipping too, the transmission was toast.

[Derek69SS]

After having some respectable results against some of the heavy-hitters in the Pro Touring community, despite being way outgunned on horsepower, I needed to step up my game, and the transmission failing gave me the excuse I needed to justify tearing the car apart again.

I bought an LS1 and T56 out of a wrecked 2000 Camaro SS on ebay, located near Green Bay, WI. The ad was poorly written, and had a bit of a scammy vibe to it, so it went cheap. Afterwards, the seller called me and apologized for not disclosing that the heads were studded. Good deal getting even better!

I reached out to a friend who lived nearby, to see if he wanted to get together for lunch when I come pick it up. He offered to pick it up for me, and bring it 4 hours closer because he was coming this way for a hunting trip, saving me 8 hours round-trip! He pointed out that it had an LS6 intake and upgraded injectors also!

I had it for a while before I pulled the pan, and when I did, I found it also had a 4" stroker crank, Eagle H-beam rods, forged pistons, ARP hardware, and studded mains. Jackpot!

I tore the car apart in the fall of 2010 thinking it would be done by spring. Our oldest son, Cale was a very easy-going toddler who loved to help, stayed out of trouble, and generally let me get a lot done in the garage. Parenting was easy, right? A week later, baby brother AJ started to crawl, and my free time came to a very sudden halt as he was a mischievous one...

[Derek69SS]

A big hurdle of a LS1/T56 swap was fitting the transmission in the tunnel, while keeping the car low, getting proper driveline angles, and having plenty of driveshaft tunnel clearance.

I decided to just cut the whole tunnel out and make my own. I also fabricated it out of heavy 16ga steel as this tunnel provides a lot of the body's stiffness. Templates were made from construction paper, then traced onto a flat sheet, cut out with plasma cutter, and formed in Dad's home-made 4' sheetmetal brake.

[Derek69SS]

More tunnel pics...

[Derek69SS]

Fitting the LS1 was a bit of a challenge. In 2010, there weren't as many options as there are today, and the Edelbrock headers were the first affordable long-tube headers available for the Chevelle chassis. I picked the Autokraft baffled road-race pan, and wanted to keep the stock low-mount F-body accessories for a clean look while also keeping it all factory GM so it could be serviced with replacement parts from any parts store anywhere in the country.

With engine mounts in the stock location, I had interference of the tie rods to the pan, alternator to the steering box, and the headers hung lower than the crossmember. All of these problems were solved by raising the engine up about an inch, and offsetting it about 1/2" to the right. With the tunnel cut completely out, I had a blank slate for engine placement.
AC compressor fitment required notching the RH frame horn for clearance, and drilling one well placed hole in the crossmember to be able to feed a bolt into the back side of a bracket.

[Derek69SS]

The appearance of the factory firewall leaves a lot to be desired, and cleaning that up goes a long way toward making things look nice under the hood.
I smoothed the firewall and welded studs to it any place where I could to avoid having exposed fasteners.
I made a clutch master cylinder bracket and integrated that into the firewall.
The top edge I cleaned out all of the original seamsealer and trimmed each layer of sheetmetal straight, welded it solid, and formed a new front edge.
I also added a Vintage Air A/C system and hid all of the mounting and plumbing so no part of it is seen on the firewall.

[Derek69SS]

cowl top pics

[Derek69SS]

Between 2010 when I took the car apart, and whenever I finally painted the firewall, (maybe 2014?) we moved twice, and the kids kept us very busy. I worked on it when I felt like it, but over those 4(?) years, it mostly collected dust with short bursts of progress every six months or so.

I blame the kids. It's entirely their fault. I would never leave a project unfinished for years on my own.