Chevelle Engine Swap

[Sharp shooter]

Suspension wise I run the southside machine lift bars, which are now made by Lakewood if memory serves me right. It is a turbo 400 done by Leo in San Dimas at Remac trans, and in all honesty, its the best upgrade on the car, did more for driveability and time in the quarter than even the motor, rear end, etc, and efficient trans is an amazing thing. I like the idea of gear vendors if you don't have too high of a stall, but that wouldn't do me much good as I would just be burning the stall up even if I got the rpm's down, smaller stall speed no problem. 4L80E sounds like a nice deal if I ever re did everything, LS motor, etc.

I'm gonna need trans work at some point so I may just follow your lead on this. I considered the LS swap, but I guess I'm just too old school. I don't think I can fit a 4L80 without modifying the tunnel. My car is a real SS so I'm trying to keep from cutting or drilling anything.

[chevellesb406]

I'm gonna need trans work at some point so I may just follow your lead on this. I considered the LS swap, but I guess I'm just too old school. I don't think I can fit a 4L80 without modifying the tunnel. My car is a real SS so I'm trying to keep from cutting or drilling anything.

Yeah, there is nothing original left on my car except maybe the roof skin, and its a 307 malibu glide car originally. It had a bad accident in 72, and then I got hit head on it at the end of high school and it took a lot of time and money to get it good again. Our mutual friend Brian will tell you, like he did me, spending some money on the trans with the right guy will do more for daily driving enjoyment as well as time cuts at the track then adding 200 hp. My car is great example of this. After the 406 grenaded I built a pretty healthy street small block for it:

421 inch
Sportsman II iron heads with 2.08 valves and some blending work
.601/.625 cam 258/262 @50 duration
10:1 even pump gas motor, super comp headers 3" x-pipe 3 chamber flows, full exhaust deal. It probably makes some decent power.

With a turbo 400, 2400 stall, peg leg rear end, car ran 13.7 at 118mph, in second gear
put a locker in, 13.2
put the rear end with 3.91 and an auburn, could get down the track, maybe 15 something that whole day almost hitting everything including the safety safari
put drag radials on, 12.70's
had trans work done, 11.59 at 118 mph, still haven't played with the carb, and I as well as the car need to go on a diet.

[Sharp shooter]

Yeah, there is nothing original left on my car except maybe the roof skin, and its a 307 malibu glide car originally. It had a bad accident in 72, and then I got hit head on it at the end of high school and it took a lot of time and money to get it good again. Our mutual friend Brian will tell you, like he did me, spending some money on the trans with the right guy will do more for daily driving enjoyment as well as time cuts at the track then adding 200 hp. My car is great example of this. After the 406 grenaded I built a pretty healthy street small block for it:

421 inch
Sportsman II iron heads with 2.08 valves and some blending work
.601/.625 cam 258/262 @50 duration
10:1 even pump gas motor, super comp headers 3" x-pipe 3 chamber flows, full exhaust deal. It probably makes some decent power.

With a turbo 400, 2400 stall, peg leg rear end, car ran 13.7 at 118mph, in second gear
put a locker in, 13.2
put the rear end with 3.91 and an auburn, could get down the track, maybe 15 something that whole day almost hitting everything including the safety safari
put drag radials on, 12.70's
had trans work done, 11.59 at 118 mph, still haven't played with the carb, and I as well as the car need to go on a diet.

It's pretty cool that you still have a car you drove back in high school. That's a decent size cam for a street car. I bet you've made a ton of passes in that thing if you add up the years. How much does it weigh? Do you run NMCA events?

[chevellesb406]

It's pretty cool that you still have a car you drove back in high school. That's a decent size cam for a street car. I bet you've made a ton of passes in that thing if you add up the years. How much does it weigh? Do you run NMCA events?

Yeah, definitely a lot of passes over the past 20 years, not nearly as much in comparison to others in the group, but definitely a ton with 4 different motors and various set ups. If memory serves me right, I believe the car comes in at 3100 lbs on the fontana scale. I haven't ran any NMCA yet, I did the summit series off and on for a few years with the guys, but I am very interested in doing a couple of events in the NMCA true street class next year for fun. I would love to finally put the nitrous on it, a lot of the build was spec'd for it, but since I won't do any of the required safety features and cut up the car, it would just be a one time thing in the end I am sure. I doubt a low 10 second pass with factory belts, no cage, that whole deal would be very welcome, I don't comply as it is. One day I would love to pull the drivetrain out of it, put it in something I don't care about, go faster, and put a 6 speed LS cruiser set up in this car and really hold onto it forever and enjoy it more, only money right?

[Sharp shooter]

Yeah, definitely a lot of passes over the past 20 years, not nearly as much in comparison to others in the group, but definitely a ton with 4 different motors and various set ups. If memory serves me right, I believe the car comes in at 3100 lbs on the fontana scale. I haven't ran any NMCA yet, I did the summit series off and on for a few years with the guys, but I am very interested in doing a couple of events in the NMCA true street class next year for fun. I would love to finally put the nitrous on it, a lot of the build was spec'd for it, but since I won't do any of the required safety features and cut up the car, it would just be a one time thing in the end I am sure. I doubt a low 10 second pass with factory belts, no cage, that whole deal would be very welcome, I don't comply as it is. One day I would love to pull the drivetrain out of it, put it in something I don't care about, go faster, and put a 6 speed LS cruiser set up in this car and really hold onto it forever and enjoy it more, only money right?

3100 lbs!!!! How the hell did you get it so lite? I bet mine is north of 3500!

Yeah, going fast is just money. I'm sure the nitrous would be fun to play with.

It's hard to beat the overall package of the LS drivetrain. Go anywhere with decent mileage, dependability and performance.

[chevellesb406]

3100 lbs!!!! How the hell did you get it so lite? I bet mine is north of 3500!

Yeah, going fast is just money. I'm sure the nitrous would be fun to play with.

It's hard to beat the overall package of the LS drivetrain. Go anywhere with decent mileage, dependability and performance.

Big block to small block has to be 150 lbs or so I presume, heater core/AC maybe another 100 if you have those in yours, the vette buckets I run are a bit lighter than the original bench anything fancy aluminum along the way has to have been good for something along the way Spare tire and Jack out. That's all I have done.

[Sharp shooter]

Big block to small block has to be 150 lbs or so I presume, heater core/AC maybe another 100 if you have those in yours, the vette buckets I run are a bit lighter than the original bench anything fancy aluminum along the way has to have been good for something along the way Spare tire and Jack out. That's all I have done.

I have factory AC, heater core, full interior pretty much everything. I do have aluminum heads, wheels and radiator so I'm sure those things help a lot.

I'll weigh mine when I get a chance.

[Sharp shooter]

So I had the car tuned last Friday at Engine Dynamics. I still had a trans leak and a p/s belt alignment issue. We wnt to the grand canyon over the weekend so I just got back to the car yesterday and today and replaced a vacuum modulator O ring and adjusted the p/s belt alignment. All looked good so I went for a good long drive to check cooling, leaks, hot start etc. Knock on wood but so far so good.

The engine wants to rev much better than the old 396 and gassing 1st gear even from a roll it just lights the tires. 2nd gear pulls pretty good, but it might need a little more tweaking to get everything out of it. That being said, I think it's ready for a track day.