Chevy Cobalt DF/S and maybe keep it streetable

[Mike Meier]

Made it back from Chandler, AZ an extra $700 lighter in the wallet due to a breakdown on I-10 with this ramp truck I bought; and probably in for some more as it's in the shop getting the check engine light related stuff taken care of. My comment on this; yes I knew what I was getting into but that's why I bought a truck with a 350 engine....everyone can work on it and parts are easy to find. I can have Jegs or Summit ship a long block to me for about $1,600 if this thing decides to spin a bearing or kick a rod. Ultimately I was happy to hear that the No Problem Raceway LODRS was postponed because I wouldn't have been about to make it out there.

But I digress....back to the DF/S

The Cobalt is completely switched to Sunoco 260 GTX. I drove to the track Friday night and managed to get a best of 26.8 MPG to and from.

The one thing that went wrong was that I couldn't unbolt the resonator from the down-pipe to go completely unmuffled. One of the nuts holding together was at an awkward angle and I wound up rounding it off with my impact wrench. I'll just have an exhaust shop cut it off.

I'm almost at the index. I started off with a 15.90 @ 85 MPH off the bat, followed by 15.94 @ 84, 15.86 @ 85, 15.89 @ 85, and 15.98 @ 84 (heat soak and fog was rolling in). Although the barometer was moving around a tick between 30.02 and 30.05; the humidity was parked at 93%; dew point at 59*, and temperature only varied between 61 and 62 degrees.

What was promising about tonight was that my sixty foot times were in the 2.32 - 2.35 range in this "meh" air and I went quicker in the quarter compared to two weeks ago; but two weeks ago my sixty foot was quicker. I hope that correlates to hitting the index or better when the air is better and they have a LODRS track prep. I still haven't even reflashed the car with HP Tuners because I was on the road and couldn't call their customer service guy about getting the credits on there to work.