Due to a bonehead mistake...5/18/2003
I will be reconstructing this site.
When I first got this Elky in 1984, It was a little rough the hood was primer gray, had 10x15 centerlines all around with BFGoodrich 265x50 15's. With the offset of the rear wheels, the fender wells had been jacked out to get clearance for the tires. They still would rub the inner fender during hard cornering, and it would burn a groove in the sidewalls 1/2" wide & 1/8" deep. It had been lowered (the wrong way) the springs had been heated with a torch. One of them was almost C shaped. The 327 that was in it, was real torquey & strong, but smoked. It had a turbo 350 with a shift kit, and valve body work. Man she was a lot of fun to drive!
In '86 I moved to Las Vegas for a short stint. Buy this time the old 327 was really tired. I left Santa Ana for Las Vegas at 8:00 am towing my desert rail loaded down, the bed loaded down and pulled into Las Vegas 9:00 pm and had put a whole case of oil through the engine. It took me a week to get all the oil cleaned off of the Rail.
The first end was near...
Two weeks later on my way to a job interview, flying down the freeway, it was 115 degrees that day. All of a sudden BAMM clang clang. I looked into the rear view mirror, pistons, rods part of the crank and all kinds of other miscellaneous chunks of metal dancing down the highway. Fortunately, not much traffic, only two other cars behind me that were swerving like crazy to miss my motor as it spread across the road.
I then installed a 350 that was out of a '73 Monte Carlo that I had been hit broadside in & totaled. Unfortunately, that engine only lasted about 6-8 weeks before the cam went flat, and wouldn't even run. She sat for several years after that. Afterall, it was purchased as a project car/play toy. At that time if it didn't run, I couldn't play, and I didn't have a place to work on it, so I couldn't even project it.
After recovering from a major motorcycle accident I was going to have to move and I needed my truck so the next incarnation was a old 400 that a friend had and didn't want. So with his help we installed it. It never ran very good, always ran hot & rough. Part of the heating problem was the junk 2 row radiator that was in it. That engine lasted all of about 6 months. The one day it decided to run good, seemed to have a lot of power, ran smoothe as silk, then BAMM parts dance again.
Since I didn't like the feel of the 350 or the 400, I started looking for another 327 block to put her back to original, I thought I would restore her. Well, the guys I was running with at the time were all building hot rods, Camaro's, and Chevelles.
I was wanting to build and engine for a tow vehicle/daily driver. This engine ended up strong out of the hole, then no mid range, then when you would get to about 70-75 all of a sudden the engine wanted to fly. This was way too scary, because the suspension was also wanting to fly, but in a different direction. Turns out, the cam that was used was a 300hp Corvette cam. With the heads and carb I had it just wasn't a good package, and the headers were JUNK. Sick of & from the exhaust leaks, I finally dumped the headers, and put stock manifolds back on. That really killed what little bit of performance the engine had. It started loosin power after about 20,000 miles, and was getting a whopping 8-10mpg, so I decided to start thinking about a new engine.
I had to make a couple of trips to Phoenix to help my folks, one trip I ended up driving my nephews truck home. It was a '90 Chevy Stepside with a fuel injected 350 and a 700r tranny. The power was awesome, and smoothe, and a full sized truck that got 20mpg!! I decided I wanted to have a fuel injected engine. My brother had a new GM Target 350 that I was going to buy, but FI systems to put on it were in the area of $2000.
He had bought a wrecked '94 Z28 for the driveline to put in his '34 Chevy. He was having second thoughts about it when he saw all the wiring involved. He decided he was going to use the Target, so I bought the Z28 driveline from him.
Now the project begins...
The Project Begins
Suspension Modifications and Brakes
Interior, Dash, Gauges & Console
