1971 Chevelle SS clone with LS1 swap

Bought this car when I was 16 after driving a S10 Blazer for a couple months and realizing how much that sucked. Got to looking and saw that even working about 10 hours a week after school I could afford payments on a $4-5k car with money left over for upkeep, gas, and upgrades.

Searched for several months for a 68-72 Chevelle and had 2 sold out from under me before my dad talked to a friend of his who owned a 71 in town. He had been asking $6k+ for several months and I ended up getting it for $4k ($4600 after interest).

350sbc with a 272 cam to which I added headers and other basic upgrades including better ignition, larger radiator, 12 bolt posi, new wheels, repair all suspension, upgrade to SS suspension, bucket seat conversion, SS dash conversion, ect ect ect



Freshman year of college saw 350 rebuild #1 after burning some piston rings and cracking a head during a routine trip to the mall in Fayetteville...went to a smaller cam for low end grunt and my dad ported the hell out of my replacement heads, this combo was now putting down about 270+rwhp, about a year later the th350 trans blew and in went a th700r4 for fuel mileage and more low gear grunt








Things stayed the same until I got bored with a 14 second car and was out of cost effective mods, I decided to build a big block for it. Upon browsing ebay for a set of BBC heads I got a wild hair and searched ebay for a LS1. A couple hours later I was on the phone making arrangements to borrow an engine lift and planning a trip to Tallequah.

Picked up the engine and transmission for $2k cash that January and borrowed some money against the car to fund all the parts for the swap. Started ordering parts and the car went under the knife in May. Lots of hard work, money, and research later the car was running by that September.

LS1 specs: stock block/heads, comp xtreme energy 230/224 reverse split 111+3 lsa cam (with all supporting mods to drivetrain), Doug's swap headers, self ported FAST 90mm intake/throttle body

Car made 325rwhp/340rwtq at 97% throttle with the old LS1 intake and the car pulling timing, track times suggest I'm now at 345-355rwhp with the FAST and still pulling timing but my drag results are skewed by the stock converter keeping the engine out of its power band during runs. I have reason to believe the car is actually around 370-380rwhp. A dyno tune is in the near future for the car where I hope to prove this and hopefully get tuned up to near 400rwhp which would be enough to put the car in the 11s with traction.

Nice! I never knew the history of the Chebelle. ;]

zomg i love chevelles. awesome car

That's awesome. I also didn't know the history of that car, even with it being only a couple blocks away for a few years. Can't wait to see how it'll do at the track after the new torque converter. IIRC, dyno numbers will be lower, but track times should be even better.

I'm actually expecting the dyno numbers to go up a little bit with this converter. According to Yank they are more efficient, and I know by looking it is smaller in diameter and feels a little lighter than a stock one. Not many people dyno with a cam and stock stall though, but you are correct if I had say a yank 2800 and went to a yank 3600 or 4000 the numbers would be lower. This is all assuming the dyno run is done with it unlocked, once its locked up there is no slip and numbers will be higher.

i love your car man

look at the second picture you got of the car after paint. the body lines of chevelle are so musclular,
like the sides, they remind me of the toned/rippling muscles on horses, super fucking strong

That car is pure SEX !!!!