THE ELWELL CHEVELLE, Restoring the dream for Dad
I was five years old, sitting in the back seat of Dad’s 1966 Chevelle Malibu the day that mom went into the mall to pick up a bra and came out with a dog. That memory stands out the strongest from my childhood. There are many other memories in Dad’s Chevelle from when I was a kid like playing race car or Dukes of Hazzard with my sister and my cousins – crawling in and out of the windows.
There weren’t just the memories, but stories dad would tell. Like the time when I was about three years old in the back seat of the car. We were stopped at a red light and a car full of nuns pulled up looking at me and saying what a cute little boy. My uncle had taught me a new friendly gesture and my parents were “oh so proud” when I flipped them the bird. Stories like the one my dad would tell about the time he raced his friend Dave in his 1967 Formula 400 Pontiac Firebird and left him crying in the dust.
There were even some stories that we would rather forget about like the reason that the Chevelle stopped running. Besides the fact that the heater core leaked and we couldn’t repair it at the time due to lack of resources. Plus the neighbor kids decided to put sugar in the gas tank as a prank. That was in 1976 and those Colorado 1976 Centennial State plates were the last set of license plates that she wore. Dad worked on her a little bit, but found it more important to provide for my mother, sister and I, and could never quite afford to put any money into fixing her up.
In 1996 my father, after working so hard to provide, was able to buy a house with help from some friends of the family. (So well deserved). My father called me and asked if I would like to have the Chevelle. My reaction after years of asking my father for the car was . . .YES! So, when my dad handed me the keys and said, take care of her son, my objective was clear. I had to restore her – for dad.
I started the project in 1996 and had lots of obstacles in the way of my dream, like a deployment to Iraq that hampered my progress. But I started with a car that was in most cases not in too bad of shape. This was a car which had 76,3636 miles.
There was very little rust in the body and very little exterior damage. The Car had a lot of years of just sitting in the car port. This made my job much easier. I started out with a 327 eight cylinder small block that my dad was very pleased with but had no top end. My plan was to improve on the power so I got a 350 eng out of a 1968 Corvette and that was my power, I had it blue printed and balanced, and then the fun began. I tried to stay as stock as possible, but the more I got into the project I found myself adding (Toys). I added a Magnum Competition Cam with a lobe lift of .3130 intake and .3130 exhaust at the duration at .050 being 224 deg intake and 224 deg exhaust. I used a Mallory HEI. I put on Hooker silver ceramic Competition Headers and added an Edelbrock EPS Performer intake manifold with an endurashine finish and topped it off with an Edelbrock four barrel 750 CFM carburetor topped off with an open element air cleaner. I added some nice looking 350 decals to help with appearance. I installed a painless wire harness because I needed new wires due to the originals condition; I added a 1-wire 100amp alternator to help with any voltage problems with lights and accessories. I installed Flow master two chamber mufflers with 2 1/2 “aluminized dual exhaust pipes with an H-pipe with the tail pipes straight out the back. My Transmission is the original 4-speed M21 Muncie 4:11 posi rear end that came with the car.
The Suspension is the original stock suspension with all new control arm bushings and ball joints. The front shocks are AC Delco with air shocks in the rear. The wheels are Cragar S/S super sport rims that I detailed the center caps with matching yellow paint with red trim. The tires are Bf Goodrich T/A’s with 235x60x15 in the front and 255x60x15’s in the rear. The brakes right now are stock drums, which I plan on adding disk brakes later down the road. 
All the body work, sanding, blocking, and painting I did myself. I wanted to paint the car the same as the original color (Butternut Yellow). I accented all the front and rear end moldings to include the grill with the Super Sport Black, which gave the car a sportier look. The emblems on the front fenders I changed to signify the 350 engine but I polished and hand painted the original triangular racing flags.
I restored the interior with the original black carpet, black bench seats (front and rear), the door panels and the dash. I wanted to keep the original look to the instrumentation but needed better system monitoring. So I added a quick disconnect, carpeted center consol gage cluster forward of the gear shift. The Stewart Warmer, tach, volt meter, oil temp, oil pressure, and engine temp gauges gave the interior a high performance look without taking away from the original.
The sound system starts with a Custom Autosound 200 watt custom receiver that has the original stock radio look. I installed a Pioneer 12 disk CD player on the trunk shelf that has a remote changer control, and Aux MP3 player plug that I installed in the carpeted center console gauge box. I made a custom speaker enclosure tucked in the quarter panels of the trunk. I ran a 1500 watt Autiopipe amp that runs two 10” Eclipse caviler woofers. A 800 watt Boss 4 channel amp runs two 6x9” JVC’s. In the front of the car I installed a 400 watt 4 channel Shurwood amp to run two 6.5” JVC’s in the kick panels and two JVC 6x9’s in the dash.
The rest of the project has been restoring, cleaning and installing new parts. What parts that could not be restored were new parts from OPG (Original Parts Group).
All installation and build I did myself, (With a large phone bill from my father’s tech support line).
