Chevelle #2: The race car with license plates.

Boy, did I ever screw this one up.

In 1991, I finally managed to locate and purchase another `67 Chevelle. This one was a base Malibu; originally a 327 powerglide car, it now sported a 4-speed manual trans behind the warmed-over original 327. Bringing up the rear was a 12 bolt posi with 4.10 gears. Again, for no more than what it was, this was a fun car! Soon after I bought the car, I blew the Saginaw 4-speed that was in the car to smithereens. I found an early Muncie M20 box to take its place, and soon afterwards decided it was time to take it to the track.

Sporting a new pair of M&H cheater slicks, I un-corked the headers and headed for the water box. In the lane next to me was a `69 RoadRunner with a 383 Magnum and a 4-speed. We both did our burn-outs, staged, and when the tree came down, we launched dead-even out of the hole. We were side-by-side through first gear, but with each consecutive gear change that RoadRunner managed to inch ahead of me, eventually nudging past me by a fender in the lights. We both turned in mid 13 second elapsed times, his bettering mine by about a tenth of a second and one mile-per-hour. Talk about frustrating!

We pulled back into the staging lanes together after that run, and the driver of the RoadRunner struck up a conversation with me, complimenting me on the fact that he didn't think that little small block would hang with him as well as it did. He and I wound up beside each other for three more passes. Each time the result was the same--he consistently got me by a fender in the lights.

I quietly bolted the pipes back in place and drove home.

I goofed around with the 327 for a little while after that, but decided that if I really wanted to step it up, I wanted to go back to a big block again.

A 454 core was procured, and the rebuild process began once again. I still had several parts left over from my original 396 from the first Chevelle since my friend didn't want them when he bought the car from me.

The 454 received its original steel crankshaft, a set of OEM 7/16" dimple rods, and a set of original LS6 11-1 forged pistons that had come from a friends fathers race car. (As it turned out, my 454 core had next to no cylinder wall taper, which allowed it to go back together with standard bores)

The rectangle port heads were again freshened up, and this time they were equipped with a set of bigger springs to accomidate the Erson roller camshaft I had just ordered. The engine was buttoned up and topped with the same dual plane factory intake that once resided on my old 396, but this time a brand new Holley 850 cfm double pumper was placed on top.

I figured the Muncie wouldn't be long for this world behind the 454, so I bought a 400 turbo trans and had it rebuilt with a B&M shift kit, and a B&M "Holeshot" torque converter was installed along with it. For whatever reason, that torque converter never did behave very well behind my engine, and would only stall to around 2400 rpm. That was still more than enough to allow me to put the street tires I had on the car up in smoke at will, but really made the car soggy when the sticky M&H tires were on since the engine didn't really start to come to life until about 4000 rpm.

Once the 454 was somewhat dialed in, I again drove the car to the track to see what it would do with the new 454 in place. Initial runs were relatively cautious, and resulted in a couple of mid-12 second elapsed times at around 107 mph. Subsequent tuning and an intake manifold swap to a Dart single plane eventually dropped the car into the 11.90's at 113 mph, still in full street trim; a full 2 1/2" crimp-bent exhaust system out to the rear bumper, my M&H cheater slicks, and a full tank of 93 octane pump gas.

Below are two pics of the car in the above state, having just emerged from the paint booth (a.k.a. my friend's garage)

Again, I apologize for the poor quality of the pics, but they're all I have of it at that time.

I finally decided to change the exhaust to see what that would do for power output, so I bought a pair of 3 1/2" Flowmaster 2-chamber race mufflers from a local street racer along with some 3 1/2" down to 3" reducers from JEGS, and headed to my local muffler shop.

An hour later the 2 1/2 system was off and the 3 1/2" system was on. I knew I'd made a change in the right direction as soon as I turned the key to back the car off of the lift. The engine didn't just sound louder, it sounded completely different! A few quick whacks of the throttle on the way home confirmed my suspicions---this thing had woke up BIG-time!

And then my old pal Murphy reared his ugly head once again.

It was only a week or so after I'd had the bigger exhaust installed, and I was out cruising around with a friend. To note: the car was scheduled to go back to the track again that same week.

The car was running better than it ever had. On the way home from getting lunch, I decided to lean into it a little bit. Just as the tach needle hit 7K in first gear, the engine let out a loud "POP", and made a sound as if a muffler had fallen off. The engine died out, and as I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw a trail of heavy whitish-gray smoke behind me, I knew it wasn't going to be pretty.

The post-mortem revealed that the number 3 piston had disintegrated, taking out the cylinder wall with it. The head of the intake valve on #3 cylinder was missing as well, but I'm still not sure which one let go first...not that it really mattered at that point. Amazingly, nothing else was seriously damaged in the explosion, and I was actually able to save that block after having a sleeve installed in the #3 cylinder. However, the 454 didn't make it back into that Chevelle, and lest I start to get ahead of myself...

"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!"

It was around this time that the whole "Fastest Street Car" thing was starting to gain some attention. A friend and I went to the Memphis event in `92 and had an absolute blast.

Naturally, I started to get the bright idea that I'D like to try my hand at that style of racing. Since the 454 was toast (I hadn't fixed the block at that time yet), I thought to myself "what better time to start gathering parts to build something really serious?!?"

Silly me.

I again made the same mistake I'd made when I decided to tear my first Chevelle apart: I failed to plan. As a matter of fact, I made one of the cardinal sins of starting a new engine project; I started to build an engine based around a "good deal" I'd found on a used part instead of putting together a plan based around my goals and my abilities and starting from there. I made a second mistake as well, but I'll get into that a little later.

That good deal on a crank soon turned into a great deal on a virgin Mark IV Bowtie block, then a set of rods were purchased, then I had to order a set of custom pistons, and so on and so forth.

It took me a few years to finally save up enough money to buy all the parts I needed and to get that engine built. What I ended up with was a 572" pump gas engine that eventually wound up making 730 ft.lbs of torque and almost 800 horsepower just on the engine. That engine project taught me a LOT, and as such there was a "plus" side to it, but if I had the chance to do all over again, I would not do it...at least not like I did that time.

The second mistake I had made was the mistake of a lack of foresight; When I first started to gather parts to build this engine, the "rules" for the Fastest Street Car series were very well suited to what I had started to build. However, since it took me several years to complete the project, by the time the engine was done the "rules" had changed so much that my combination was obsolete before it had ever left the garage. I was now the proud owner of an 800 horsepower hunk of pump gas garage art.

My options were essentially limited to going street racing, going bracket racing, or driving the thing and enjoying it as best I could. Since I grew out of street racing long beforehand, that was out. Bracket racing had all the appeal of an ingrown toenail to me at the time, so that was out as well. That left one option--finish putting it together again and just drive it.

So that's just what I did.

The car eventually wound up getting back-halved since I determined that it was a cheaper alternative to fixing all the trunk and wheelhouse rust in the back of the car. Along with the back-half came an 8-point roll cage, a Dana 60 rear end with an Alston 4-link, and 30X13.5" Mickey Thompson ET Street tires mounted on 15X10 Weld Draglite wheels. Below is a pic of the car after it had been tubbed.