DEADBLOW
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As for positioning the housing, “I designed the brackets that would use the stock geometry suspension pick-up point, moving the lower ones inboard 4 inches. I e-mailed my drawings to O.H. Hendricks (sheetmetal works contractors), and they cut the design patterns with a laser from 4130 plates. The stock coil spring mount was eliminated for space, so I used coilovers instead. New Dick Miller upper and lower control arms employ Heim ends and the lowers have a new diagonal brace that attaches to the axlehousing to eliminate any lateral swing.”

Since it was a project car, it wouldn’t have been right unless KT finished his new 598 the night before the PGD. He made the required PGD highway drive, but bringing an untried combination, he wisely used the event as a test-and-tune. On 315/60R15 M/T ET Streets, the Malibu went 9.49 at 145. The intake manifold is already plumbed with a dry fogger nitrous system so that two stages can be enabled by only one set of nozzles. At this writing, the juice jack-in-the-box hasn’t popped bloody yet.

Kevin was also anxious to lessen weight at the front of the car. To that end, he assembled TRZ tubular upper and lower control arms, rack steering, and Strange Engineering double-adjustable coilover shock absorbers. With him in it, the ready-to-rock Malibu weighs 3,500 pounds. With all the changes, plus the double hit of juice, KT expects high-8-second capability at will. None of this will affect street running. It’s a god-awful rush, though, folks. One second you’re here; the next you’re way down the road, shot through, feeling the Malibu’s effervescence in every fiber of your tired old body.

POWERTRAIN          

KT ran a squeezed 580-inch engine for years, but its compression ratio wouldn’t abide pump gas. A street demon to the core, Thompson could no longer abide the price of race gas. In hopes of equaling past performance, he punched his trusty Donovan 500 to 4.600 inches (along with a 4.500-inch stroke) to realize 598ci, though static compression is now 11:1 and quite amenable to pump gas.

After Thompson had finished his blueprints, Tom Murdock at BB&T in Southaven, Mississippi, did the machine work and balancing. KT assembled the big bullet at his Hot Rod Solutions shop in Memphis with a Lunati crankshaft, aluminum connecting rods, and Venolia pistons. He capped the bottom end with a Titan oil pump and Billet Fabrication aluminum 7-quart sump. A big Comp solid roller (specs secret) pokes Manton pushrods and a T&D shaft rocker-arm system. KT stuck it all together with a Jesel belt timing gear.

The top end is matching Brodix stuff, CNC-ported Big Duke cylinder heads (Brodix valves, Comp springs) and Big Duke intake manifold hosting a Full Throttle Performance 2,000-cfm air door.  An MSD 7AL-3 box and Pro Coil send spark (32 degrees); the KT-built 23/8-inch primary pipe headers become a 4-inch system routed through an X-pipe and nasty DNA mufflers.

Though the motor is scary enough on nuts, N2O is KT’s avatar and his seal. As yet untried, the Chevelle features a Nitrous Express dry fogger system fed by a pair of composite-construction bottles, complete with remote switch-on. KT means to equalize internal pressure with a Moroso 4-vane vacuum pump. The electronic fuel injection is controlled by a FAST XFI module.