Those of you familiar with this magazine and others of the same genre might have seen some of the cars I've built over the years, most recently, The Mule. That 600hp, '69 Camaro g-Machine build was--as far as we know--the longest project car buildup with consecutive running stories in hot rodding history (with 21 installments!). You'd think I'd had enough of this madness for a while, but thanks to the help of Popular Hot Rodding, I'm back.
Although I've modified numerous Mustangs and fabricated various other hot rods over the years, I've most recently built several Camaros in a row. When I was thinking about what I'd like to build next, I knew it was time for a change. A '64 Chevy Malibu came our way and I thought it could be an opportunity to do something new. Its sedan characteristics (which the legendary Ken "Posies" Fenical once noted the model as being "a sensible family vehicle") could be blended with the right hot rod features, trick parts, and stance full of attitude to make a really cool car. I'm calling it Malitude. When I learned of the car from my California friend Charlie Lillard, it was an abandoned project vehicle started in 1989, which had been sitting in a shed for years. The paint was okay and the car looked very straight, so at first glance it appeared to be an easy project to complete. Once we got into it we found that the car was very solid, but still needed quite a bit of work to be presentable.
As the name Malitude implies, I want the car to maintain a stock appearance with a little attitude. The wide tires will fill the wheel wells. The twin turbocharger's intercooler will subtly peek through the front bumper. Large Baer brakes, seen from a profile, give a hint of the car's performance potential. So far, it's been a lot of fun building from a model on which I've never played. Everything is a new challenge, from how the vehicle is engineered in stock trim, to figuring out how to make it work better. An abandoned project presents some interesting discoveries, especially when digging through all the boxes of parts trying to figure out how it all goes back together. For those of you who followed "The Mule" buildup, understand that I specifically aim not to build a car so significant, time consuming, or costly. The same goes for the number of stories, too! That series had tips which anyone could use on their own project, even though some of the parts and processes were above the standard project. This one will feature just as many helpful hints, but will involve more simple modifications--with so many more mid-60s GM A-body vehicles floating around (compared to the now more exclusive club for '69 Camaros), you could likely repeat most of this stuff. Even the twin-turbo engine project, while not cheap, is assembled with a much lower budget than what's both possible and popular these days.
The Outline
This is my "I've never..." project, where I'll tackle a bunch of vehicle sub-systems that are new to me. Over the next months, I'll be bringing you back into my garage for an abbreviated series with stories in the following order. First off, we'll cover the mini tub process using a practical method that anyone can follow without as much extreme (read: expensive) metalwork involved--many of you loved Reiter's craftsmanship on the last car, but thought it was beyond most people's ability.
Next, we'll build the twin-turbocharged small-block Chevy with Southern California's Tom Nelson. You might remember him from PHR's Engine Masters Challenge, as he's a young, up-and-comer who helped me assemble a list of sensible parts that are strong enough for the boost we'll build, but sensible enough not to break my wallet.
A complete story on how to properly package a twin turbo system will follow. This is something that I've never actually done, so you'll learn from both my mistakes and from the advice of my friends, some of whom are the world's most experienced in this process. Though Nelson will be offering "my" engine as a turnkey piece, there's no turnkey kits to make a system like this work in a typical musclecar. We won't provide a kit in the story, either, but I think you'll be much further along.
With crazy amounts of power at the crank, the driveline will be a crucial story in the series. My past vehicles have all had manual gearboxes, but Malitude will feature an automatic 4L80E TCI transmission that'll take anything--this is the first car I've ever owned, with the exception of my Chevy truck, that has an automatic. The 9-inch Ford rearend's buildup will also be covered in this episode.
The chassis and brake story is an obviously necessary one, as few cars need more stiffening and stopping power than this heavy, rolling Malibu. It's funny, but every car I've built had significant redesigns of suspension and chassis components--this one is done with readily available parts like Hotchkis suspension, a Currie rear end, etc. The part numbers that I use will bolt right up to your car, too.
The cage in this car will be relatively simple, but worth a story on its own. Part of that piece will include the interior install, where I'll be fitting up Corbeau seats and a bevy of restoration stuff from Original Parts Group. OPG plays a big part in this car. In the past, it's been tough to find one source for all the restoration parts, body panels, etc., but since they specialize in these cars, it only made sense to buy my parts there. Of the mail that I get asking for build tips, one topic that often comes up is in how to keep noise down in the cockpit through installing trim and panels correctly--we'll cover it in this seventh piece (including this one...). Wiring and lighting will come in the eighth story.
Cooling and fuel systems are a critical part of making an 800hp twin turbo setup work without issues--ask any of the long haul guys from the Hot Rod Power Tour about that! The two subjects are literally insurance policies for your big-time automotive investment. That sounds like ridiculous power for a car like this, but it's so easy to make those ponies these days that it really is no big deal as long as you get the fuel and cooling issues solved. The final story will involve the paint and bodywork. As I mentioned earlier, this car wasn't that bad to start, but it's not that hard to go the extra mile and make it really right. I don't do it myself, as I pay Mike Verellen to perform his magic--the point being, you'll learn how to save a few dollars and not get stuck in "paint jail" in this last construction piece.
One thing that we didn't get to do with The Mule was run it against the clock. That car was started as a Camaro to flog but turned into a piece of jewelry in some ways. We drove it hard--PHR's pictures prove it, but it was so nice that I was afraid to run it into the corners at breakneck speed. The final story on Malitude will offer a few off-track excursions, I expect.
ON WITH THE SHOW The photos and captions here show that we've been stacking up this info--we wanted to make certain the car could be completed with consecutive stories so a lot of the work is already done. Follow along as we preview a few of the upcoming stories. Until then....
Here's Malitude as it arrived from California--a very solid example with a rust-free shell and 12-year-old paint. I threw a new front wheel on the car and cut the spring to see what it might look like at the right ride height. Remember that the first thing I ever do on these cars is figure out what wheel and tire will fit--I build the entire car around that. My wife is excited that the car is much bigger than others we've owned--this one actually has a trunk that holds things!
The top surfaces of the car looked good but the bottom was still a greasy old car. I went to my local rental yard and rented their highest power pressure washer available (16hp). To be as thorough as possible, I supported the car three feet off the ground using jack stands and cinder blocks. After an afternoon of water blasting, the car was stripped back down to its original paint.
Once the car was clean, we pulled the frame out from underneath it, which was much simpler than I expected. Once we had the body supported on jack stands and got the bolts removed, I slipped the frame out with the help of my friend Larry Filipczak.
Now that the chassis was separated from the body, we modified the frame and the body shell to accommodate a beefy 315/35R17 tire.
The frame and inner wheelhouse needed to be moved inboard two inches to clear the 11-inch wide wheel. We're going to cover this in greater detail in a later issue.
Once the chassis and the body are modified, it's good to re-check tire clearances. I replaced the springs with 2x4s to get the ride height right and rolled it outside to check the stance. The big tire on the Budnik wheels looks great on this car, doesn't it?
The hardest part of packaging a twin-turbo set-up is figuring how and where to place the intercooler. We'll show you this process in upcoming months, but for now, know that I placed a heat exchanger 24 inches wide, by 12 inches tall and 3 inches thick in front of the radiator and had to cut the front bumper to get adequate air flow across it.
This mock-up of the plumbing gives you an idea of what we're trying to achieve with the twin-turbo install. Innovative Turbo supplied the turbochargers, the headers were built by Tom Nelson. It looks like it's done, but trust me, it's far from it.
Our original plan was to keep the paint the car came with and to just color sand it and repaint the bottom. But once we got the car blown apart we found that it was full of bondo.
We stripped it and repainted the entire car in a custom blend of Valspar Red. My wife Kathryn consults with the painter Mike Verellen, and Joseph Leggio from Velspar about the correct color. | 
Malitude is going to get one of Tom Nelson's creations: a 350 small-block with a few compressed tweaks that should bump the output to more than 750 hp. With the falling cost of EFI and related turbo equipment, this is by no means an outlandish project and makes sense on a car like this. |