Slobalt
 

Alright, I probably won't get rolling full steam on the documentation of this build until this winter but I figured I'd go ahead and get it started now while some of the early details are still fresh in my mind.

Ever since I met my wife in 2015, she had a 2005 Cobalt. Manual windows, manual seats, electric locks. 4 door. Nothing special, just a fuel efficient work beater with low miles and very little rust. I had joked with her about turning it into a racecar since the first time she came to the track and she always laughed at me. At the time, I hadn't researched the combination for stock eliminator.

In 2019, a buddy needed something to race and the Cobalt happened to be sitting at the track so I told him to get in it and run sportsman. Car ran 10.99 best and 11.05 worst that day. That got my wheels turning and I came home and researched the combination. At that time, DF/S was a 19 lb class (I think) and EF/S was a 25 lb class so at the end of the day I didn't think it was a viable solution to try with the ET's it ran on the 1/8th mile and the car being a natural 20 lb car. I ended up purchasing my Ranger a few weeks later and spent the time and money making it better.

Fast forward to this spring, the car now has 150,000 miles on it and we are starting to consider replacing it as a daily driver. I took it to the track on June 24 and ran between 11.00 and 11.06 the whole day. 4 years later, same ETs. That got my wheels spinning. CF/S is now 19 lbs and DF/S is now 22 lbs which means I can add a little weight to the car and it'll have a 16.50 index. I take it to the local elevator and weigh it to get an idea...it's roughly 100 lbs light with 1/4 tank of fuel. Awesome...those runs are viable data and 16.50 isn't too far from reach.

Another buddy is starting a stocker build but dealing with parts on back order and can't seem to make any headway. He had to take my brothers street car to Norwalk to tech and get a grade point...but that car isn't remotely close to the index. My brother, Travis, mentions that we've been talking about the Cobalt and think it should be about 5 tenths above the index as it sits in street trim. It's somewhere around the 1st of July, and we decide its worth going down this path. Let's get the car to a 1/4 mile track and test it before Columbus and try to get that .5 out of it!

July 3rd, 2023 the car is loaded on a trailer and headed to Indiana to start its stock eliminator journey. Here is the picture from that evening and the beginning of the build I'm calling "SLOBALT"

Re: Slobalt
 

Hurray!

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This will be a interesting build !

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I was really praying we could read 1 from a man named Buth!

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Great bracket cars. as ive chatted with you before ellis regarding these. my g5 is killer deepstaging, going 1125ish. cant wait to see what ya do with it!

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When we last left, the car was headed to Indiana for the build to start. So far...the only investment we've made into the car is marrying the beautiful lady who owned it (and we are still happily married even after deciding to take her street car and turn it into a racecar) so we are calling it $0 initial investment since we had the car. For argument sake...you could find a car basically like this one for $1500-2000 running and driving etc. This car has just under 160,000 miles on the odometer when we started the build.

IRP had a Wednesday night test and tune/street car night (Wild Wednesday) 2 days after the car was picked up. Andrew Fidler, our buddy who is building the car, and my brother Travis decided to take the car and get some baseline 1/4 mile runs to see what it does. They make no changes to the car before going and run it as a pure street car. It runs a best of 16.80s which gives us a solid starting point. They played around with launch RPMs and a few other little things they could do without wrenching or anything. Air cleaner in vs no air cleaner, letting some oil out, tried a pair of slicks. Gained 2 tenths in the initial test session roughly so we have some hope and a plan to get the car ready for 7 days later...the Jegs Sportsnationals and Divisional at Columbus. We need 3 tenths to make the index before then!

Our plan is simple...change transmission fluid to something lighter, put in 0 weight oil, change the brakes to something smaller on the front so we can make a 13 inch wheel fit. We have a pair of 22x8 M&H slicks that came with my Ranger that are a couple inches shorter than the stock street tires, but if we can get a 13 inch rim we have a pair of Hoosier 20.5x7 slicks that a buddy uses on his Honda from time to time that are already mounted on rims that'll work with our car but won't clear the stock calipers. We also bought a header that we found online to try. As long as our initial weight for the car from the local elevator is close to correct, we'll be able to run under the index with these changes we are confident!

It is now July 10th and we are filling out our first tech card for the Cobalt. Below are a couple pictures of the visible changes to the car for testing and then for the first race. So far, we've got calipers, rotors, pads, trans fluid, header, and a couple of oil changes for testing totaling just under $400 invested in the car.

Re: Slobalt
 

out of curiosity, what brake setup did you move too?

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It required a bit of fabrication work, but we were able to make the brake setup from a 1992 Honda Del Sol work.

The idea to try them came from the fact that one of the sets of rims we have actually came from a Del Sol so we knew they would clear the calipers and rotors if we could make them work.

Re: Slobalt
 

i did notice the wheels were from a honda. was the fab work the bracket to hold the calipers?

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Yes, that was the fab work. Expected for a build like this and I'm certain it won't be the last fab work we have to do!

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Hows Slobalt coming ?

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Jeg's Speedweek was the official debut for the Slobalt. We pulled in the gate late Tuesday night with a bunch of work to do to the car. The brakes were installed, but still needed to be bled. We got that done and then worked on tightening the new header down properly. We left the trailer to have dinner and work on the other cars and came back to a puddle on the floor. After some head scratching, we found that one of the header tubes got into a transmission line and was causing a leak. So out with the header to put a dent in our brand new header on one of the tubes for clearance.

Wednesday morning is qualifying and class elims day. We have to apply the car number and class designation. We also still have to drain the 87 octane street fuel out of the tank and run some C11 through before going up. We ran out of time Tuesday night after we spent 8 hours on the transmission in the Pinto and didn't get to bed until 4AM!

Take the car to the scales and find that the elevator scales were about 100 lbs heavier than these...so we have to add a bunch of weight. Luckily we were prepared for that but it dampens our spirits a bit because the extra weight means our test data wasn't as close as we'd hoped and the index is going to be a challenge. Fuel check before the run goes well and the weather is decent compared to our testing so we get up there early.

The car goes out and runs well, sounds fine on the shifts and we get a 16.566 at 82 MPH. A measly 6 hundredths above the index...dang it! At this point, we've basically done everything to the car that we can for the week so we are stuck just running it as it is. In the confusion that morning, I forgot to put the NHRA and LODRS stickers on the car. We get in trouble for that at the scales but are able to correct the situation easily.

One of the biggest problems we've run into at this point is the OEM Cobalt computer is untouchable. So we cannot tune it at all and we have plenty to gain from a tune. We have a solution at this point, but a bit of foreshadowing here this solution won't arrive until September so we are stuck with a stock tune until then.

This one went a bit longer than I intended, my apologies. Cobalt proof of concept was a success. Car ran a best of 16.566 and close to 83 MPH in the soupy air that is Columbus. Qualified for both events since there ended up being less than 128 cars there and got to run class elims. It was fun for me because I got to stage up against the Cobalt in my Ranger and for the first time in my life I owned both of the vehicles staging up for a run in stock eliminator! 5 years ago, I wasn't sure I'd ever really own 1 stocker myself let alone 2.

Re: Slobalt
 

it seems that the 2005 and 2006 2,2 have locked ecm. is it possible to use a 2007 ecm?

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Yes, or a Cavalier ECM. You'll find out later in the saga which route we choose to go.

Re: Slobalt
 

Thanks

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This post will catch us up to before the Fall Classic.

After Columbus, we tested multiple things and tried many different theories. We procured a set of NOS 7x19.5 slicks that are a bit softer than the road race/circle track tires we had. We read Billy Nees build thread on the Cavalier and tried some of the tricks he tried (flopping the cams specifically) but our results for all of these tests yielded a series of runs between 16.53 and 16.51 in the morning air at each track (Indy, BG, testing at various bracket events and Wild Wednesday). A few of our tests (smaller injectors to try and help the 10:1 AFR with the stock tune while waiting on the new computer to arrive) resulted in significantly slower runs. We even tried tricking the car into thinking it was running at a different temperature to try and get the AFR back in line and resulted in significantly slower runs!

We were able to procure an 05 Cavalier computer and wiring harness which will allow us to tune the car. Getting away from the stock computer and moving to a tuneable ECM ended up being the proper solution. We found a company in Michigan that had all the equipment and it came pre-loaded with their "drag race tune" and we took it to the 1/8 mile track in Terre Haute. The AFR and timing curve are specifically what interests us initially...AFR being pegged at 10:1 and timing being locked out at 20 degrees has to be our biggest limiting factors. We are also interested in messing with the shift points and trying to lower the line pressures (another idea we got from Billy). The test and tune at Terre Haute yields our quickest 1/8 mile passes to date (10.40 compared to prior 10.60s) so we are now convinced that we are under the index on the 1/4 mile.

St. Louis double divisional is the official debut of the car with the tuneable ECM and it does not disappoint. Based on our 1/8 mile data and some tune changes we have queued up, we believe the car should be around a 15.99 if everything carries down track like we think it should. Our initial run with the baseline tune ends up with a 16.21 at 84 MPH. A full 3 tenth improvement from the prior 16.51 best! We are now under the index. We load up the tune changes that we believe will pick the car up another couple tenths and we wait for 2nd qualifier to try and get in the show. The weather, however, had other ideas and we ended up outside the show and with an untested tune for race 2.

Luckily, several cars left between races and we only have to out-qualify a couple of cars (which we didn't know when qualifying started). We leave the new tune in the car and we put the "class oil" (FL0) in the car to ensure that we should be far enough under to beat a few cars. The wind has changed to a head wind which slows the Ranger down 8 hundredths on this run, but the Cobalt goes out and runs 16.02!!! The changes in tune and the "class oil" combined picked us up almost another 2 tenths. We are now .475 under the index in the same weekend we made our first under the index pass at all.

The ECM was $900, tires were $300 plus shipping, other miscellaneous parts and pieces and tax from the rest of the year all add up to a total of $1,800 spent to get the car from completely street to around .5 under. Obviously, if we could have gotten the ECM sooner we could have saved some of the smaller tests and saved a little money along the way. I'd estimate the extra savings would have been in the $100-200 range but we wanted to get the car under the index however we could while we were waiting on the ECM.

There is still 1 more race on our schedule after St. Louis and plenty more to update on the build over the winter.

Re: Slobalt
 

That’s a good lookin car. I have been following this build closely and even drove to Bowling Green,Ky to watch it run on a warm Saturday afternoon. Now that it runs 5 tenths under I think you guys should pony up and spend a few hundred on a custom fender cover ..:):)

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Now that is almost a sales pitch you can’t ignore.

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She ain't too pretty just yet. It was a good looking single-color car before I backed into it a few years ago in the driveway with my F250. That's why the hood and bumper cover are different colored than the rest of the car.

MJ, I'll probably be reaching out sometime over the winter to take you up on this.

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There you go Larry :):) 502-693-173five.

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Hi Mr.Buth,
Since there is no NHRA accepted products for your specific engine L61 134 cu.in.at this time (and just in case you didn’t know that website) go to ZZP Performance website. There may be a few interesting parts for your car/engine L61 set-up and some really good tech/ explanation related to those parts that may help you.

Re: Slobalt
 

Fall Classic in Indy marked the end of our 2023 season. Andrew Fidler was still waiting on parts for his stocker, so he continued to drive the Cobalt. Leading up to the Fall Classic Andrew worked on fabricating a new weight box which will let us move the weight towards the front of the car. That's the only change from St. Louis...and while we see no change in ET the car did stop spinning and the reaction out of the beams became much more raceable.

We end the season with a best run of 16.02 and 2 full weekends of consistent runs under the index. If we had the faster oil in the car at Fall Classic, I believe we would have seen a 15.9x timeslip from it! So in year 1, we saw a gain of 1 second and significant testing time and lessons learned. We were able to complete the season with all upgrades and maintenance for right at $2,000.

This winter, we plan on going thru the head and getting stronger valve springs, installing an electric water pump to get rid of the one driven by the engine, setting up the electric fan to be controlled by the driver, replacing the rocker panels that are the only real rusted spots on the car and getting the car painted.

After that, if the budget allows, we will see about getting a more favorable gear ratio for the stock setup as we believe we have one of the gear ratios that falls "in the middle" of the available options for the 2.2L setup from the factory. We are also going to start looking for a spare engine that we can work with and try to make some improvements or at least have a "fresh" engine that doesn't have 160,000 miles on it.

Now that we have a "proof of concept" season in the books, our goal is to make the car as quick as possible. Our hopes are to be able to run 1 second under in DF/S trim which would put us solidly under in CF/S trim as well.

Re: Slobalt
 

Hi Mr. Buth,
If you take the time to read the GM sport compact performance build book part number 88958728, you will find there some very interesting details/suggestions for your L61 engine.
Since no race parts are accepted for your engine in the NHRA accepted products listing, you must read between the lines here.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxzZ...UpUdZN92YfEmkQ

Re: Slobalt
 

After a long winter that saw multiple other projects taking longer than expected, the Slobalt sat outside and got no attention until early April.

Despite sitting all winter, she started right up! Andrew pulled her into the shop to remove the balance shafts from the engine and get the car ready for the season. While performing this task, he found a major issue where the tensioner for the timing chain had a bolt broken off and allowing some slop in the timing chain. Quick fix, but could have certainly led to major disaster!

The removal of the balance shafts and related components resulted in a little over 5lbs of rotating weight removed from the equation. In addition to that, we put an electric water pump on as well. We also installed gauges in the car so we can actually tell what RPM, temperature, and oil pressure we are running at! We also made the switch from C11 to Sunoco Purple.

Tested it out at a bracket race at Indy a couple weeks ago...and we finally saw the 15.90's pop up on the board! The air wasn't bad...but not great either. And we had a pesky wind that couldn't make up its mind which way it wanted to blow. The air was somewhere between .07 and .10 slower than the air we had in St. Louis last fall, so take our 15.99 compared to that 16.02 from last fall and the changes seem to have picked us up another 1/10 of a second!

Driver/builder Andrew was also able to pick up his first round win with this car in eliminations that day which felt like throwing the proverbial monkey off his back for sure.

If weather cooperates, we will have the car out testing/racing again this weekend at Indy to see if we can find some more performance.

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Ellis, don't disregard the wheel alignment! I aligned the Cav last fall (it was really bad!) and hadn't had it out 'til last Sunday and was quite surprised! I haven't figured out just what it was worth yet but it was significant! Much more than a RWD car would have been.

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We had just had the car aligned before turning it into a racecar. Unfortunately, when checking that we were already 1/8" out which seems like the right place to be with a FWD racecar so there wasn't anything to gain from that.

I appreciate the tip though...it did encourage us to at least check the alignment to confirm where we were.

Car ran a 15.95 at almost 87 mph this past weekend so we are still making steps in the right direction at almost .55 under. Looks like you've got the Cavalier flying now!

Re: Slobalt
 

Hello Mr. Buth. Really like your slobalt thread. I to am a FWD racer here in D1. running a 1985 Grand Am in BF/S. Good job on et improvement. I enjoy seeing other FWD racers and their progress. What 60' times are you posting? You mentioned different gear ratios and I can tell you you will need to think outside the box on that one. Not much available off the shelf for us FWD guys. Any future plans for improvement? Keep up the good work.

Re: Slobalt
 

60' times are killing this thing. 2.26 I believe is our best 60 to date. We certainly have ideas on the gear ratio stuff its just a matter of finding the time to work on it.

We have lots of ideas and plans if everything works out right. We still have plenty left to find just in the tune I believe and we are going to try to go through the head this offseason since it hasn't been touched since it came off the assembly line. I think there is quite a bit to be found there as well.

Re: Slobalt
 

Finally got the car back out for the Fall Classic. We made some adjustments to the fuel in the tune and leaned it out at the test n tune on Friday. Started out running 15.94 on the baseline from earlier this season, then ran as quick as 15.82 after changing the fuel curve. We also played around with line pressures in the transmission.

By the end of the weekend we had a 15.77 timeslip with a 2.262 short time and a 10.09 on the 1/8 mile. All were far and away the best times the car has ever run!

Now we are just over a year and a half into this build. Started as a 17.00 1/4 mile car (10.90 1/8 mile). We've spent around $3000 total on parts and fabrication. And we've run .730 under the index! We still haven't freshened anything in the head or the engine or the transmission so there is still plenty left in this old girl I think.

Hopefully we can get some work done on it this offseason. Not sure what we're going to try first, but we've talked about head work, valve springs, cams, transmission gear ratios, and more. We will see what time and budget allows us to do before April rolls around

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I’m typing this as we drive over the sunshine bridge on our way to Belle Rose. Test and tune today to iron things out on the Slobalt for the week. No changes this winter, but we got a head done and are just waiting on the new cams to get here to get it built. We really think the head and cam are going to make a world of difference in this thing..

For this week, our focus is getting a baseline set and maybe tweak on the tune a little. Trying to beat our .730 under run from fall classic last year. More posts to come!

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I'd not read any of this build thread until you brought it back to the top of the page. Just read through it and this is so awesome! I'll be watching this week to see how it goes! Good luck!

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Test and tune got everything worked back in for the year. 3 cars here for the Buth’s and all 3 set new personal bests.

Slobalt ran 15.769 which is the quickest pass for it by .001 but still it’s quickest pass. In the lanes now for qualifying

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Hope the Slobalt does well in Belle Rose !

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-0.820 will get it done. Nice job.

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Results are in:

Cobalt went rounds in both races, brought home its first payout from a stock race, and ran its quickest passes ever.

Today we got ridiculously good air and the car ran 15.719 and 15.709 on the brakes! That’s .78 and .79 under the DF/S index. Plus, the car ran dead on 0 in round 1 of the sportsnationals.

Now we get the car home and maybe we get a chance to get the new head and cams in the car before the next race.

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When is your next race ?

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I was able to run the car a few weeks ago at the Spring Classic National Open in Indy. It was my first time running the car myself since it was a street car! Car ran a best of 15.82 at 87 mph with me driving.

I lucked my way to the semi finals with it where I ran into my dad in the Pinto and lost a close race. I learned a lot about the Cobalt and got comfortable racing it which is good in case I need it at any point this season for my own use!

It’s unclear when the next race for the Cobalt will be. Currently she’s sitting ready to go without the new head being built yet. This car is the perpetual backup in our camp so projects with it typically take a back burner until they’re 100% ready to be completed so that the car isn’t torn apart whenever it may be needed.

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And just like that...I have an excuse to get another car, a "back up" stocker! Telling the wife now......