1970 Chevelle Pro Touring Build

[Agent_Orange_Shuvel]

Awesome build man, I joined just so I could subscribe to your thread and see how you finish this thing up

[David LaBuda]

Hi David,
What size are your front tires? Thanks and keep up the good work.

Front and rear are 275/40 R17 mounted on 17x9.5 wheels.

[bootlegr]

thanks David, is am trying to figure out my setup and it looks like the swaybar will have to be on the bottom of the arm instead of top stock location. My car may sit about 7/8 inch lower than yours...will have to see if I can get it all to work out. looking forward to more of your mods.

[David LaBuda]

Are you talking about the front sway bar? The link can be shortened if that's what it needs for clearance. There is no way I would run it below the lower control arm.

[bootlegr]

i found this picture, so it does seem like an option if needed. I am also looking at the 48 and 49 spline bars.

[sixfivepost]

I had clearance issues with my sway bar and tie rods. I called Hotchkis and they sent me some longer end links. Raised the sway bar about a half an inch and is still just about parallel to the control arm. Fixed the problem I had.

[David LaBuda]

This winter I plan on redoing the entire electrical system. This includes building new fuse panels for the interior and engine compartment. I don't like how bulky the Camaro harness is under the hood and while the EZ interior harness works, it doesn't fit very well and it doesn't have enough circuits. I plan on using four of the Cooper Bussmann fuse/relay panels and a couple of their power relay modules. This would give me room for 40 fuses and 20 relays which had better be enough!

I was able to reverse engineer some of the factory wiring diagrams to figure out how the flashers, steering column harness, and ignition switch work. Once I figure out how to distribute the power to each circuit I should be pretty well set. I've included a couple pictures of my sketches but I'm not sure how readable the are. (I am a mechanical engineer by the way, so cut me some slack haha)

The ecu will be relocated next to the engine bay fuse panel because I HATE having to fish the entire harness through the firewall. I would like to have a large weather tight plug to connect the ecu power wires (injectors, coils, ecu, etc) to the fuse panel. I'll also have a large bulkhead connector on the firewall for body wiring (lights, wipers, engine sensors, etc).

[bootlegr]

David did you check to see if Ron Francis already makes what you need??? (shameless plug for sponsor)

[David LaBuda]

David did you check to see if Ron Francis already makes what you need??? (shameless plug for sponsor)

I'm sure they do, but I can't justify spending $500 on something I can build myself exactly the way I want it.

[bootlegr]

roger that

[70SS98SS]

Like the build so far. What are the backspacing of those wheels? And also looking to upgrade my wiring harness to blade style fuses and can't seem to find the cooper boxes you mentioned for sale/get a price. My car is still bb/auto but going ls and want to upgrade wiring before I start. Thanks in advance

[chevyz240]

Nice build, David!

I'm impressed with all the rust you've had to repair! Nice stiffening of the frame too! I also like all the interior work you've done using the round bars as outlines. Way to go!

[Bob in St. Louis]

Great thread, and super looking car!

[David LaBuda]

Well I've collected most of the parts for the wiring project but it was just too cold over winter break to mess with wiring so that will now be a summer project. Over spring break I wanted to get the frame finished and painted. With the help of a few friends I blew the car apart in a day. I worked on patching the remaining rust holes/unfinished parts of the Chevelle's floor while they stripped the surface rust off the frame. I also finished the exhaust up to the tailpipes (which need to be redone so the exhaust exits at the bumper) and built mounts for the rear Hellwig sway bar end links. (Please excuse all of the booger welds on the frame. I've gotten much better with the new welder since then.)

I had to modify the supplied frame brackets to fit the new tubular crossmember.



The mufflers are supported by some really neat snapper grommets that I ordered from Jegs.





I ran out of time to finish everything on the frame but I wanted to get it painted before I had to go back to school. I'll have to take some time this summer to separate the body again and finish everything. I used SEM Rust Shield on the frame and the bottom of the floor. It was too cold to paint outside so unfortunately I was forced to brush the paint on which was a bit of a nightmare. The brushing took so long that by the time I got to the other end of the frame the brush was starting to dry and get too stiff to use. I really like SEM's paint but if you can, spraying is definitely the best way to go.

[David LaBuda]

I painted the frame on the second to last day of break which meant I had to get the car back together on my last day at home. I had to have set some sort of record because I went from a completely bare frame to what you see in the last picture in about 7 hours! I guess when you have everything apart as many times as I have it just becomes a big jigsaw puzzle.

[David LaBuda]

My family is moving to Ft Worth, TX this summer so I will be trailering the Chevelle from Pennsylvania in June. In case you don't know, I go to school in Ft Worth. Hopefully I will make more progress now that the car won't be 1500 miles away. Unfortunately, I won't be able to use the lift at the new house so my plan is to finish up the frame work, brake/fuel line plumbing, etc before the move.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Congrats. Having the car close is an ok payoff for not having the lift. Good luck and safe move!

[David LaBuda]

After completing AFROTC field training in June I packed up the shop and rented a U-Haul trailer for the move to Texas. The trip went without incident and the Sierra did and outstanding job towing despite most likely being over the posted weight limit.







My first priority was redoing the firewall so that I could start on the new wiring. This included patching holes for the old A/C box, mounting the Wilwood pedal assembly, and the new wiper motor. I was having problems with the clutch master cylinder leaking due to an incorrect pushrod angle. Rather than destroying multiple cylinders trying to find the correct angle I decided to start from scratch with a triple master cylinder setup from Wilwood. I found the wiper motor that was used in the DSE kits (including the recessed park mechanism) at a local salvage yard. I also discovered that 4th generation Camaro steering columns are very similar to the Chevelle column and they come with an integrated wiper/cruise control switch. The automatic cars are floor shift so any column will work. The biggest difference is the different intermediate shaft connection. An aftermarket universal joint will take care of that. I picked the column and wiper motor up for about $50. The column is mounted to the firewall using an ididit mount.

[David LaBuda]

Here is a video of the wipers working:

[David LaBuda]

Prepping for paint





I bought a Hurst linelock for "staging" purposes


Found a place to mount the TAC module behind the fender


I'm also ditching the canted radiator setup so I had to weld the original cross bar back in. It's a good thing I never throw anything away!


I have a few upgrades planned for the LQ4, starting with a set of 799 heads to raise the compression ratio. They've got BTR .660" valve springs with titanium valve springs to go along with the medium sized cam I picked out. I'm hoping for somewhere around 425rwhp with the upgrades.