My Hot Rodding Story

                                         Evolution of a Hot Rod:
             The Very Long and Very Difficult Process of Making My Automotive Dreams a Reality


     One of the most critical events in my life was my decision to buy a classic car and build it into my dream car. At first glance, the decision to buy a car might not seem like a life-altering event. But as all hot rodders know, the choice to undertake a car restoration project inevitably involves years of blood, sweat, tears, and countless dollars to complete. I would come to understand this over time, but I should probably start this story from the beginning. And yes, it�s a long story, but just be patient. I bought my first car when I was 16 years old for $1700. The car was a 1977 Chevy Camaro with 150,000 miles, a beat up paint job, broken suspension, and just about everything was ready to fall apart. Of course, at that time I didn�t know anything about cars and I was so excited to drive that I just bought the first car I looked at. Before I bought my first car, I was always interested in exotic cars like Ferraris and Porsches. But as time passed and I began to work on my pile of bolts, I began to read hot rod magazines to see what kind of cool parts I could get for my car. I was soon bit by the hot rod bug, and there was no turning back. Unfortunately, I soon began to realize that my 77 Camaro was not the ideal candidate for a hot rod because of its old, underpowered engine and the oppressive laws California�s �Smog Nazis� enforce on post-74 cars. Of course, this realization only came about after I had wasted thousands of dollars fixing up this same car. The event that I consider a critical one in my life occurred on a summer night before senior year in high school. That night when I was talking with my best friend, I finally realized that I would never be satisfied driving the car that I had. It was at that moment that I decided to sell it and buy a car that I really wanted.
     From that moment on, I had one goal and only one goal: to make my dream of having a hot rod muscle car a reality. But of course, the path to the end of this road was full of roadblocks and dead ends. The first pothole came shortly after decided to sell my tired Camaro, and manifested itself in the form of a blown engine. Not a problem, I figured, I�ll just put a new engine in the car and sell it for more than I had planned. Right. After me and my parents had invested close to $4000 dollars in new engine, suspension, tires, distributor, exhaust, ect. for the Camaro, I sold the car for 100 dollars less than I had bought it for. And to make matters even worse, it took about 8 months to finally make the less-than-profitable sale. So things were going pretty bad. I had angry parents and I�d lost a #$!% of a lot of money on a lemon of a car. But my motivation was still strong and I kept moving forward despite the setbacks. By now I had managed to put together around $4000 between the $1600 for the Camaro and another $2400 that I�d scraped together from my part time job flipping burgers. After a couple of weeks of searching for a new car, I found a 69 El Camino in Ventura for $4000. At first impression the car was awesome. The car had an $8000 Corvette 427 race motor with 650 horsepower, a built Turbo 350, and a cool cowl induction hood. Sure, the paint was faded and the edges were a little rough, but for $4k it was a hell of a deal. That was, until I got the car home and found out it was going to cost me about $15 at day in gas money to drive the 15 mile round trip to my high school and back. The car was definitely a beast and fast as hell, but this was not going to work. So, me and my Dad sold that car for $4250, which was actually a (gasp) PROFIT! How I managed to happen upon a piece of good fortune I�ll never know, but I gladly took the money and continued to search for a new car.
     After a few more months of earning money and searching for the perfect hot rod, I found the car that is resting comfortably under its cover in my driveway today. During my search, I had seen a lot of cars that were not the quality I was looking for, but this car was different. From the first time I saw it, I knew the car was a great candidate for a hot rod. The car was a 1971 Chevelle Malibu in Morro Bay, CA. It had a perfect, glossy pearl white paint and a new black vinyl interior. Also included were the new Alpine CD deck and 6x9 speakers, Centerline wheels and BFG tires, and a car cover. Within another couple of weeks I had managed to scrape up the $7000 the owner was asking and the car was mine. All I could say was, �It�s about damn time!�. Christ. As for my goal of having a cool muscle car in high school, I finally drove my new Chevelle to school at the beginning of the last week of senior year. But I didn�t care: I finally had my car.
     After buying my Chevelle, I continued to work and pour every last cent I made into my car. The first upgrade I made was courtesy of my graduation money from high school, and was a $1200 stereo system from Lombard�s Stereo in Santa Maria, CA. I kept the Alpine deck and 6x9�s that came with the car and added 2 Eclipse 12� subs in a custom built trunk enclosure, a 400 watt 4-channel Crossfire amplifier, and had the trunk lid Dynomated and carpeted to get rid of excess vibration. So far, so good. With the stereo system now booming, I decided to move on to the drivetrain. By now we�re into the later part of the summer in 1999, the summer before I left for college at UCSB. Before diving into the engine, I had the fluids changed on the old TH350 and a mild shift kit installed by Bob Pyne transmission in Santa Maria, CA. Next, I needed a plan of attack for the powerplant. The engine the came with the car was an old, worn 350 with many miles under its belt. The motor burned oil pretty badly, and was definitely in need of some help. Not having the cash at that time to buy a new motor, I decided to beef up the small block with new Chevy Vortec heads, Holley 650 carb, Edelbrock performer intake, Comp Cams Xtreme Energy 218/224 cam, lifters, pushrods, double roller timing chain, and a Summit HEI distributor. That combo worked pretty good for the time being. Between buying the parts and paying a mechanic friend 500 bucks for installation (hell of a job!), the whole top end rebuild cost about $2000. The engine still burned oil, but I didn�t drive the car that much and I figured it would be adequate until I could get enough money to rebuild the bottom end.
     So then I was off to college and my Chevelle came along for the ride. The only catch was that I had to pay $250 for a parking permit in a shitty dirt parking lot about 2 miles from my dorm. And if it wasn�t bad enough walking 30 minutes if I wanted to drive my car, a couple of months after starting college some drunk SOB decided to tear ass around the parking lot and slid his front bumper into the back rear quarter panel of my car. But everything was cool because he of course left a note and offered to pay for the damages �. NOT! I was jacked and had to pay the $250 deductible for the $1300 repair bill for the damaged quarterpanel of my poor car. That mother f �er that hit my car is lucky I never caught him because I would have rubbed his car�s paint off my quarterpanel with his forehead. But thankfully, the crew at the Iverson Motors paint shop in Santa Maria, CA (who originally painted the car) did a great job making the Chevelle look as good as new. Between the god-awful parking situation at UCSB and delightfully reckless classmates, I decided my Chevelle had been through enough and I let her rest peacefully under her cover at my parent�s house in Nipomo, CA for the rest of the school year.
     So once again my hot rod project had run into setbacks, but my will was as strong as ever and I diligently saved my money in hope of rebuilding the bottom end of my engine. Between my part-time job at the campus bookstore and some leftover financial aid money, I managed to round up around $2500 to throw at a new set of pistons for my tired small block by the end of my first year at college. There was only one catch though: I discovered the joys of apartment living in an extremely overcrowded college town. I watched horrified as the thousands I had saved were drained away by security deposits and several months of advance $460 rent payments. By the time the summer of 2000 came and I�d paid all of my overpriced rent, I had only $300 left of my former engine fund. Once again I was a day late and a dollar short, and my plans for my car would have to be put on hold.
     Enter the summer of 2000, 3 � of the longest, hardest months of my life. Despite the temporary setback at the hands of greedy landlords, I was still determined to pull myself up by the bootstraps and earn another $3000 to rebuild my engine. If I was going to pull this one off I was going to need a job, and fast. Coming into the summer, my plan was to live with my best friend in Morro Bay and work with him for a moving company in San Luis Obispo. Unfortunately, the drunken owner of this company had long since forgotten that he had hired me for the summer and told me to get lost, and once again I was shit out of luck. What a surprise. So I took the first job I could find which was at Foster Freeze in Morro Bay. This was by far the worst job I have ever had, and I hated every excruciating minute of it (keep in mind that I�ve hoed weeds, cleaned toilets, lifted boxes, and worked with the mentally challenged in a few of my other jobs. This job was really a piece of crap). After a few weeks of putting up with my loser co-workers and insane Greek bosses, I dropped that job like a ton of bricks and moved on to bigger and better things. Or so I thought. My next job that summer was lifting boxes 40 hours a week in a warehouse, which was only slightly better than Foster Freeze but the pay was better. Despite the fact that my warehouse job was very depressing and almost made me lose my mind on several occasions, I did manage to earn around $2500 in a couple of months.
     In addition to my die-hard quest to earn money during that summer, another important part of the summer was my attempt to sell my 1971 Chevelle in order to buy a 1994 Camaro Z28. Why would I want to sell my classic car for a newer model you ask? Well, this was not just any Camaro. Oh no. This one put 450 horsepower to the rear wheels (about 560 at the crank). This car had a built LT1, forged pistons, big cam, a Vortec blower, 6 speed, 4.11 gears, full suspension, and 18� wheels. This car was a rocket ship and had a low price tag of only $14,500. My reasoning was that my Chevelle still needed about $20,000 more to be complete at that time (In addition to the $10k already invested), so I would save a lot of money by buying a car that already had things like a built engine, trans, suspension, and wheels. Unfortunately, no one wanted to pay a respectable price for my Chevelle, despite my desperate attempts to lower the price even below what I paid for the car originally ($7000). After several heartbreaking near misses at selling the car, including one buyer failing to show up after he�d agreed to buy the car, I finally gave up and got my deposit back from the Camaro�s owner.
     By now I was really pissed. A dream car for a ridiculously low price had fallen just out reach, and I was devastated. But the good news was that the extra money I�d managed to borrow and collect to make the Camaro deal left me with enough money to buy a 450-horse crate motor (from Jon Barrett Hot Rod Engines) to replace the oil-burning small block in my Chevelle. Three months and $7000 dollars later, I had my new 383 stroker motor resting comfortably in my engine bay completely outfitted with performance accessories and chrome goodies. Paso Robles Cylinder Head in Paso Robles, CA, did an excellent job with the installation of the engine, including custom installation of the MSD box, Auto Meter gauges, and Hooker headers. The new engine may have cost a lot, but it was worth every penny as it is powerful, reliable, and has a hell of a rough idle with its 245� cam.
     So that pretty much brings things up speed, after several years of plight and hardship. During the early months of 2001, I put the finishing touches on my new 383 powerplant by putting on MSD plug wires, chrome Summit alternator and brackets, braided steel hose covers, chrome water neck, and a K&N Xstream Air Flow Top on my old filter. During these months I also entered my car in several local shows, including Avila Beach Cars By the Bay, the UCSB Car Show, and the Santa Barbara Wheels and Waves show. In the Avila Beach show, my car took first place in the Modified Muscle Car class. When displaying my car at these shows, I got a lot of positive feedback about my car which helped to make all of the hard work and money put into the car worthwhile.
     Also during early 2001, my job at Devereux working with developmentally disabled boys for 6 months gave me a large chunk of change to throw at my car. The job was very stressful and at sometimes dangerous, but it did give me about $3000 for upgrades. My plan for this money was to start working on the suspension and wheels. The first upgrades to the car I made were a set of Hotchkis performance coil springs, KYB shocks, and new front drum brakes. I also ordered a set of 17� Budnik Pentacle wheels and Nitto tires, but there was a mix-up at the tire shop and my order was never put through. So, I instead used the rest of the money to install a new 3� exhaust system with an H-pipe, 2-chamber Flowmaster mufflers, and turn-downs. I�m happy to say that between the bigger exhaust system and my engine�s mean cam, my Chevelle now rumbles and resonates like a race car (just the way I like it J). Thanks to money saved up from my summer job at Costco, I�ve also recently installed a pair of Scat Procar Sport 2000 racing seats with Simpson Camlock 5-point racing harnesses, and relocated my 5� tach to the top of the dash.
     Over time I�ve done a lot of research for future modifications for my car. Right now most of my research has been concentrated on suspension and transmission components. My current plans for the front suspension include dropped spindles, 13" Baer Claw cross drilled and slotted brakes, Hotchkis tublular A-arms, and a Hotchkis sway bar. For the transmission, I plan to have a performance rebuild done on my existing TH350 and combine that with an under/overdrive unit from Gear Vendors, giving me six forward gears. Later in the future, I plan to finish the car by adding a 12 bolt 4.11 posi rearend, Hotchkis rear suspension package, a Glassteck 4� fiberglass cowl induction hood, fiberglass bumpers, shaving the door handles, carpeting the trunk, and adding a custom aluminum dash to house my Auto Meter gauges. After all those mods, the final upgrade will be either a NOS system, undererhood supercharger, or fuel injection depending on which one seems the best after the rest of the car is built.
     So there you have it: the complete story so far of the evolution of my Hot Rod Chevelle in only a couple thousand words. But even though the story is filled with roadblocks and hardship, the good times that I�ve had in my Chevelle outweigh the all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into its construction. To this date, I have invested over $20,000 in my Chevelle, and that�s not even counting all the money lost on the other cars and all the other misc. car expenses that have continually drained my pocketbook. But even though I have about $10,000 more to spend before my car is done, I believe that my finished Hot Rod will be worth every penny. Being able to drive and enjoy the finished product will make the years of investment all worthwhile. The building of my Chevelle has been a long process filled with careful planning, extensive research, and substantial investment of time and money. When selecting each component of my car, I�ve done meticulous research and planning in an effort to select the ideal combination of parts that will collectively produce my desired result. Hopefully when I�m done, I�ll have a cool hot rod that will be equally comfortable at car shows, race tracks, and on the street. So keep checking back on this site to follow the continued progression of my car. To be continued��.