newbie to turning & stopping fast!!! pics of Chevelle project

[doorslammer71]

My name is John Barnes III (everyone calls me JJ). My brother and I have been into drag racing & muscle cars for some time. Our BTP Racing P/S '69 SYC camaro has run a best of 6.902 @ 204.4mph. My Chevelle was my first car, bought for me by my dad in '85 when I was fourteen. Our family business worked on the car for the original owner since new. His 16yr old wanted nothing to do with it!! (Thank God) 350 2bl/auto/ps 2.7310bolt & factory AC. Completely unmolested & original. Mulsanne blue w/ a white top, going be solid Mulsanne blue with white stripes, SS or HeavyChevy style !?!? We had a body shop paint it back then and started a procession of motors leading up to a Brodix head'ed 482 BBC that run 11.32 back in '94, along with trannies, 12 bolt, many sets of gears, adding factory disc brakes, tilt and a F41 suspension from a gutted SS396 (long gone, not worth saving back then but now....). 1995 the 12:1 482 got pulled and sold to a customer. I built a house, our family business got into drag racing hardcore, torque converters, engines, tube chassis, etc. Then I saw IT.....the Redline Oil Tim Kerrigan owned cortez silver '70 Chevelle. Now married, building the family business, blah-blah. My brother and I pulled the car cover and stripped the shell to the last nut and bolt about a year ago. Sand & Soda blasting revealed some less then stellar repairs to the quarter panels, but a relatively rust free & dent free car with a solid frame & floor. We installed the Goodmark full quarters and outer wheel houses and repaired a couple of spots, stripped all the body sealer and cleaned the seams. Epoxy primed the body and finshed the body work. One thing that alway rubbed me the wrong way about Chevelle's was the door gaps at the top back of the doors. We welded the doors edge up and filed until we had a 3/16 gap along the bottom and along the rear quarter. The frame, rear-end, lower a-arms & a bunch of misc. parts were sand blasted & powdercoated. For the most part we used Hotchkiss with Edelbrock shocks. The front brakes consist of modified f-body spindles, S10 hubs, C5 rotors and powdercoated calipers. The rear brakes are from a '99 Z28 with a small adapter ring we machined to center and align the caliper to the rotor. The engine I built for it is a 565ci Big Block, I used a new style GM bowtie shortdeck w/one piece rear main ( I HATE LEAKS) 4.600 bore by 4.25 stroke, Brodix's new Race-Rite rect. heads fully CNC ported, Bullet hyd. roller cam, beehive springs, titanium intake valves, milodon oiling goodies, and port matched RPM Air-Gap. We dyno'ed the motor at 741hp @ 5900 rpm and 676ft/lbs at 5000 rpm but we are over 550ft/lbs from 3800 to 6000 (dyno was struggling at the lower rpm's). I've been hanging onto a set of ancient Cal-Custom valve covers my dad bought from honest charley's speed shop back in the early-mid 70's, they cleaned up nice. We did a driveline restoration to an LS6 car that had a cherry set of "Appliance" big tube headers with the funky four bolt collector, they have been sent to Jet-Hot. A couple of notes; we used one of MSD's new E-distributors (worked very nice) and GM's complete serpentine belt kit. Less than 900 bucks and everything on the front of the motor is NEW. I know it's not billet but it fit my style (we dyno'ed the motor with the accesories in place and just looped the P/S pump). When we put the motor in the car we had modify the p/s pump resevoir for clearance (slight dimple and change the a bolt to a "button head" in the steering gear). The motor is bolted to a th 400 with a tight ten inch converter. (gear vendor coming soon) The 12 bolt has 3.55 gears with Moser internals. Believe it or not this car had TTII's on it in '95 (15x6 & 8.5s), I'm thinking about using AR's classic 200S 17x9 & 11 w/315/35s in the back. I just like the retro style and TTII's seem to be everywhere (and they STILL look good). SORRY I AM SO LONG WINDED but I've been surfing this sight and you guys have been very helpful. I 'm just excited to drive it next summer!!! Ten years snuck up on me and I've got Nitto's that AIN'T gonna' last!

[doorslammer71]

I'm adding some pics of the car up to this point and if you get a second check out btpracing.com there are some fun videos and fabrication pics. thanks, JJ

[Bill Howell]

Welcome aboard John.
Always great to add another A-body guy to our fold. The build looks great so far, keep the pictures coming.

[Ralph LoGrasso]

Welcome to the site, JJ.

[derekf]

Welcome aboard, JJ. Really glad to have you and looking forward to future updates.

[Roger Poirier]

Yeah baby! Another A-Body. Its looking good.

R.P.

[steemin]

Welcome JJ that is going to be one very nice ride.
Keep the pics and updates coming.
Scott

[doorslammer71]

I've finally made some progress on the Chevelle and am actually out driving, about 150 miles so far. $4.40 a gallon premium be damned! I'll throw up a couple of new pics and add some more later. I've got a decent video camera now and I want to take some clips of it, it sounds real nice but waaaay loud. We fabbed up a 304 stainless 3.5 primary X-pipe system that goes into a pair of Borla XR1 mufflers. Out of the mufflers it transitions to three over the rear end and into a set of 3" core "bullets" and then modified GM SS tips. Its decent at idle but it really barks @ WFO. All the little things seem to be working but I've got detailing to do and cleaning. It does run a bit warm, works it way up to about 205 (it is just shy of 90 today) but it maintains about 175-180 in the evening. Might need a different rad setup?? Its a becool kit now but I know some of the guys in the hot southwest use custom ron davis??? Anyway my pregnant wife (our first AND twins!) just called my cell (I stopped by my shop) and would like some help getting ready for tonight, gotta go. thanks for all the invaluable help so far. JJ@BTP

[doorslammer71]

sorry about the chitty pics, apparently I do not understand how to resize to fit and the got cropped instead of downsized. I'll retry when I get home...

[doorslammer71]

my wife gave me some pointers, here are a couple of improved pics

[doorslammer71]

I would be remiss if I didn't correct a mistake from my first post. The 565 made SIX hundred & forty one horsepower. thanks

[Motown 454]

Welcome you will love this site. Your car looks very nice .I like the wheels .
Wayne

[novanutcase]

Sweet Chevelle! Welcome!

John

[BossaNova]

Very tough looking car. What kind of wheels did you decide on (I can't tell from the pics).

[Young Gun]

looks great! welcome!

[doorslammer71]

man, I struggled with wheels. I didn't want something that would out of date before I even drove the car. And I wanted some sidewall to fill the big wheel well. I went with ET wheels, check out there site under street rod. they make them in two piece and some sizes in one piece, full polished or satin center or ?? The fronts are 18x8 with 245/40 18 BFG KDW and the rear are 18x9.5 with 285/40 18's. I was real happy with the service and had the fronts in about 3 week and the rear two week later. thanks for the compliments, a guy works on them so long, you start to lose sight of the completed project. JJ@BTP