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Designers: Todd and Taylor

Vehicle: 1971 Chevelle Malibu 350
Engine: Chevy Big Block 468 Ci

Photographs by: Taylor

Between the two Chevy Big Block cars owned by Taylor and Todd there were enough extra parts and hardware laying around to build a whole new motor. This is their story.

In the middle of 1999 Todd and Taylor purchased a nice little (3600 lbs) 71 Malibu with a 350 mouse motor and turbo 350 tranny with the intention of building a wheelie pulling SS cloned Chevelle. The car came in a faded dark green color with white racing stripes and a large gouge or dent in the drivers side door. The nice thing about this particular vehicle was the work done to setup the rear end including a chro-moly roll cage, professionally setup 12 bolt posi rear end with C clip eliminators and 4.11 gears, 5/8 inch wheel studs, Moser Axles, light weight bucket racing seats with covers, 16 gallon fuel cell with foam and fuel level sending unit, half inch aluminum fuel lines from front to back for a recirculating fuel system, custom aluminum sheetmetal work in place of the back seat and the largest aftermarket front sway bar available. These are nice things to have when you want to place a 7000 rpm revving 468 cubic inch Big Block Chevy motor in between the front wheel wells and a 15 lb NOS bottle between the rear wheels.


The motor was originally removed from Taylor's corvette soon after buying the car. Now a 0.060 over-bore block, it has four bolt mains and all internal bearings have been teflon coated by PolyDyn. The steel crank came cross drilled and was balanced with the 7/16 dimple rods and 13 to 1 J&E free floating pistons. The complete reciprocating assembly rides in a bath of oil in a new GM Corvette Oil pan with baffles, trap door and high volume oil pump. The forged crank is backed by a SFI steel flexplate and lead by an Innovators West Silicone harmonic dampener. Heads are iron 068 rectangular port with 0.100 over length 2.25 intake and 1.90 exhaust stainless steel valves with 11/32 swirl polished stems, bronze guides, K-motion 950 roller springs and titanium 10 degree retainers. Many hours of porting and polishing went into matching the heads and Edelbrock Victor Jr intake mainifold to the largest Felpro intake gasket around. Riding on the nitrous roller cam supplied by Chet Herbert with .656 intake and .680 exhaust lift are Lunati solid roller lifters and Comp cams over length 3/8 chro-moly push rods. Cam timing is handled by an Erson gear drive. Topping off the heads are Billet Specialties fabricated and powder coated aluminum rocker covers which barely cover the Erson roller rockers, Crane Cams Stud Girdles, and 7/16 lock nuts.

Induction is handled by a 1050 cfm Race Demon Carburator mounted on a custom aluminum mounting plate on top of the ported Victor Jr. manifold. Fuel is pushed to the front of the car by a Comp 140 high pressure fuel pump into a custom recirculating MagnaFlo fuel log with dual pressure regualtors for the carburation and Nitrous Oxide Systems adjustable Fogger Injection System.

Spark is supplied by an MSD 6AL with nitrous retard and Blaster II coil through a MSD Pro billet distributor and MSD 8.5 mm wires. The motor is backed by a Turbo 400 tranny from a 69 big block Impala which has been heavy duty preped by Mike Harvey Racing Transmissions including a TCI trans brake. The chosen torque converter is a Continental custom built 10" 4000 stall race converter. Update-Feburary 6, 2000: We just installed a complete poly-urethane bushing set on the front end with box welded A arms, new ball joints, poly-urethane sway bar end links and big block springs for a nice tight front end. Also included in the front end rebuild are new rotors, calipers, pads, stainless braided brake hoses and a manual brake master cylinder unit. We are using a manual system because there will not be enough room for the new motor and tall valve covers to fit with a vacuum assist brake system. The drivers side door has been replaced with a straight door from a parts donor car. A new Optima battery will soon be installed in the trunk with the NOS bottle. Update-March 20, 2000: The fuel system is almost complete, which includes a Magna-Flow 500 pump, four hundred gallons an hour recirculating system and a large Fram fuel filter. The motor and transmission are almost ready to install now that the front of the car has been dismantled. Update-March 26, 2000: We installed the motor and transmission after having to modify the front crossmember to fit the Corvette oil pan.


Update-May 18, 2000: Freshly installed in the last couple weeks starting behind the front grill are two transmission coolers and a large oil cooling system each with electric fans. Also included on the oil system are dual remote filters, 10 AN steel braided lines and fittings. As it turns out the axles in the rear end that we got were not heavy duty enough so we had Pat at Pat Condons Race Cars install 35 spline forged Moser axles with a Mark Williams spool, Mark Williams 1350 yolk, 4.10 series 4 gears and Summit aluminum cover with bearing cap adjustable pre-load screws. With the rear end reinstalled, we were able to measure and get the 4" aluminum drive shaft complete with a heavy duty Spicer slip yolk and solid 1350 U joints.


Update-June 9, 2000: Things are moving along at a much increased rate now that we have a very nice four post lift by Cytech. It has allowed us to complete the installation of the four mufflers, four (4) inch exhaust, Hotchkis rear sway bar, TCI finned aluminum, extra capacity tranny pan and the custom four (4) inch aluminum drive shaft with driveshaft loop. This week Todd finished the rough out of the wiring system including eight (8) Autometer guages, 4 fans, an ignition switch box, and the MSD 6AL ignition, MSD starter/NOS retard components. We integrated into the dash a panel for 7 Autometer Ultra-Lite guages and placed the black faced air-fuel ratio guage in the stock clock location.
Update-June 27, 2000: While trying to line up accessory pulleys to the new crank pulley we found that the Innovators West crank dampener was leaking a little bit. This required us to ship it to Kansas for a rebuild and new SFI certification sticker. It sure shines now. The engine bay wiring is complete along with the trunk wiring, now all to be done is wire bundling and mounting the ignition components in the drivers compartment. The exhaust system was fiberglass wrapped near the transmission and on the rear header tubes (these were the only ones with enough room to reach). Last week we finished installing the new power steering pump, ignition coil, and spark plugs/wires and this week we are installing the low mounted alternator, extra warning lights, and the nitrous purge solenoid.
Update-July 4, 2000: We manufactured a custom double groove pulley for the alternator and mounted a new one wire alternator way down low on the passenger side of the motor. After spending a week getting dozens of V belts and trial fitting them I got a system that looks like it will work with all the motor accessories. We primed the oil system and the transmission and filled the cooling system in preparation of the motor starting.




Update-July 19, 2000: Today I gave up on trying to keep the V belts on the crank pulley. The steel main pulley seems to eat belts at anything over 5000 rpm, so today we are going to put on a Meziere electric water pump and some custom spaced aluminum crank pulleys for the alternator and power steering pump. This and the electric cooling fans will allow us to run fewer belts and cool the motor even when the car is turned off. I have been driving the car home for the past couple nights for its debugging process and other than losing belts it has been a very fast and pleasurable ride although it is very loud when running faster than 2400 rpm. It launches straight and true and hooks up pretty good but still haven't used the NOS button for the true test.
Update-Nov 19, 2001: In May of 2001, I was trying to get the car back to the garage at the office before a large rain storm came in. Traveling up C470 the car hydroplanes in some standing water, spins around and hits the center wall with the rear of the car. It wasn't pretty but didn't cause any frame damage. The fiberglass trunk lid and fiberglass bumper were 'toast'. Fortunately I still had the original steel trunk and bumper laying around.


Update-Dec 1, 2001: The car sat in the garage for a few months until an article in 'Chevy High Performance' came out and described in detail the method of replacing a rear quarter panel on a Chevelle. That was all I needed to get off my ass and start the body project. I replaced the complete passenger side rear quarter panel, the inner trunk to quarter panel, the lower panel section on the drivers side for rust and pulled out the fender behind the drivers door. After welding in the new pieces from Goodmark Industries I spent days with the big can of body filler to clean up the 30 year old body. I removed and filled some body lines got rid of the fender and trunk emblems for a nice shaved look. We then began the painting process by sanding the whole car down to the base primer on most of the panels in preparation of the new 2 stage epoxy primer.


Update-Dec 8, 2001: We got the car primered and just about ready to paint and finish. We paint the car 'Galaxy' silver (a GM color) and clear coated the paint when we realized that the primer was not smooth enough for a smooth finish with the paint and clear coat. I then sanded the car back down to the primer and got it nice and smooth for the silver paint and clear coat.

Update-Dec 15, 2001: I originally wanted to paint on the stock style SS stripes on the hood and trunk. I even bought the stencil kit and started to adhere the stencil to the car when I realized what a pain in the ass it is to add this style of stripes. The stencil would not work with the 4" cowl raised hood with out major modifications so Todd and I decided on a set of 'Midnight Black' Viper style stripes down the center and over the roof. I don't know of many or any Chevelles that have this kind of stripe. (I like the uniqueness) People might give me a hard time about it but I'll just tell them that it is the next best thing to having a Viper with stripes. I know that the 'next' Viper will have stripes.

This is a ongoing work in progress so check back often to see the updates.

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