Nightmare the Impala: History and Build

[95impalakid]

Alright, so I'm going to give you guys the run down on what's up. I will give you the life story of my SS, what lead me to get one of these bootylicious machines, and so on, and what this thread is going to represent other than a build thread! Hopefully it will be entertaining and invoke interest, and I will provide as many pictures as possible once the build officially starts, once I get components, other priorities fixed, etc! Also, I am using this as a storage area for my mod pictures and other pictures. (I lost a lot when my old phone broke, so many mods that have already been done will probably be explained in paragraphs.)

Ok so it's sophomore year in 2012, right? Car shopping. I worked the past two summers as an Industrial Technician (yes) making pretty awesome money for my age. I knew that I wanted a performance-oriented car, you know: V8, RWD, all that jazz. However, I had some more specific preferences: easy to learn to work on, has a good balance between computer and mechanics, readily available parts for mods, and then the most important part, an epic sleeper.

I was coming back from the Indiana State Trapshooting competition that summer in July, and that's when I fell in love with B Bodies. Near a warehouse, sat a BEAUTIFUL 1996 Dark Cherry Impala SS. Pops stopped and looked at it with me. I was convinced that this was going to be my car. I was wrong LOL. The car was too nice for me to afford at the time. It was perfect in every aspect now that I reflect back on the day. It was a family cruiser with 110,000 miles flat, had a K&N intake and filter, and that was IT. No rust, 10/10 interior, perfect! The ticket said it was $8,900. Immediately knew I had to shut the idea of driving this one out of my head.

Once I got home that day I hopped on CL looking for an Impala. I had to find something at $5,000. After 10 minutes, I knew finding one of these cars was going to be extremely difficult. So I gave it a rest and said I would start looking for one again after school started.


Later when school started in August, I had rampantly started searching for an SS to call my own. I had been scammed once trying to get one, and lost $2,000, found a killer 1996 DGGM SS with a blown motor (it came with a Golen 383 longblock) but I was ultimately never able to make ends meet. I finally had found two Impala’s that I was looking at closely. A 1995 DGGM and a 1995 DCM. I went with the DCM. It had 244,000 miles, every record on it since it left the showroom down to where the previous owner got gas everyday, 20” IROC wheels (which I love still to this day), an aftermarket head unit with audio port, and some cheapy Thrush mufflers. I was siked, however I still didn’t have my license and my parents were really strict. I only drove it twice between September and January when I got my license.


The first picture I took of the car:

IMAG0248.jpgAlmost immediately I started to browse on impalassforum.com and look at what other members were doing to these cars. I thought, “Hey I better sign up! I’m going to be here pretty often!”…… Well that was pretty stupid haha. I joined, said some information about myself, stated that I was going to be a member of Hoosier INC, and then said my age and what future mods were to come. I got chewed out almost immediately because of: my age, what club I was joining, and because most members thought daddy bought my Impala. Apparently these were to be “a gentleman’s car and not to be ruined by a young high school kid”. I was shocked how I was treated, so I laid low for a good while when I was looking for repair guides and threads.


The first thing I wanted to do to the car was to get new headlights. In my honest opinion, I think that the stock ones are absolutely hideous, and they really suck at lighting up the road. Or, at least they did for me. I bought some Euro Clear lenses with corners from sstreettrends.com and threw those suckers on there. They really changed the look of the car for the better, and really helped my lighting issue.

Picture of the lights

impala 6.jpg




Shortly after doing the lights, I removed the Impala SS First Base and Home Plate. These are basically air baffles when the motor takes in air. It restricts flow, and makes the car somewhat quieter. Good for grandma, not for me. Basically with a couple wrenches, you can take off the Home Plate, and bracket, and zip tie the hanging wires to other wires lol. All you need is a 3” diameter object to plug the whole before the throttle body that leads into the Home Plate. The first base is trickier; I made my own intake out of some pipe I bought at Home Depot.

After Home Plate and First Base:

LT1.jpg


After I did the intake modifications, I decided that the car was way to high in the rear for my liking, really the car in general was to high for me. When I went to a mod day a handful of my club members were swapping springs and such to accommodate their new wheel sizes. I snatched some of my buddy’s rear Eibach drop springs and threw them in. The result, about a 1.5”-2”:


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Obviously, you may have noticed the different wheel choices, how the styles vary greatly, and probably wondering, “Why the hell did you change the wheels if you liked them!?” Well, I would have kept my IROCs and my stock wheels that came with the car however some issues EXPLODED in my face. I drove my car about 2 weeks before I started having my car tampered with in the school parking lot. The first time, someone punched a nail in my drivers side tire when I had the IROCs. I was mad, but shook it off. Plugged it, and kept on truckin’. About a week later, another person decided to slash all 4 tires, twisting the drain plug for the coolant so it was all over the parking lot, and had rubbed something resembling tomato sauce or marinara ALL OVER EVERYTHING. Called a tow truck, and had them bring a flat bead. Lifted my car out of the school parking lot, and that was the last time anyone saw it there until later in the month. I put on my stock wheels at home. They were in decent shape, I had actually debated on polishing them and still wish I did. They had balled Kumho’s on them, and it sucked the big one because it was the middle of February and I needed to be able to get to school. Drove on those for a couple weeks, sold the IROCs to a friend, then bought my put on my Ridler wheels that I had gotten for Christmas. Here they are:

IMG_20131027_210135.jpg


These are my dream wheels, but I was torn between my three favorite ones and still want to get another pair of stocks to chrome out, and another set of 20” IROCs just so I can change them depending on my mood. Had the Ridler’s wrapped in Dunlop Direzza’s, and they do there job; I love them!

[95impalakid]

Fast forward to today, and this is what I have waiting to go on the car. I have a broken manifold bolt, that is broke off in the head about 1/4" into the head. Top, nearest to firewall,on the drivers side. It's really bad.
OTApipes.jpg
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[95impalakid]

These are 2.5" OTA pipes and ceramic coated Flowtech Afterburners. I'm waiting to order some Dynomax Ultra Flo-SS mufflers right now, and I will probably have the shop fab me up some tail pipes.

[Fastbird]

Car is looking good man. Love that color.

[SSlowBoat]

alright, i NEED one of these in my life, in this exact color. nice car man.

i went through alot of the same stuff in high school. i bought my own third gen, in a school where everyone had hondas. a kid i beat one time poured sugar in my gas tank and dumped maple syrup and mustard all over my car. i got lucky, and it rained early in the morning so the crap got washed off, and since it was carbed, it smelled like a funnel cake when driving for a week lol

[FormulaJoe]

So the bolt that is closest to the firewall is broken in the head? On these heads there are 2 outer bolts for the exhaust manifolds on both the front and back. Aftermarket headers don't use that outer bolt, they use the inner. So don't sweat it! With those headers you'll be all good. Everyone has a broken bolt in their heads lol

[SSlowBoat]

So the bolt that is closest to the firewall is broken in the head? On these heads there are 2 outer bolts for the exhaust manifolds on both the front and back. Aftermarket headers don't use that outer bolt, they use the inner. So don't sweat it! With those headers you'll be all good. Everyone has a broken bolt in their heads lol

both lt1's both heads lol

[95impalakid]

I forget. I've looked at that damn bolt so much I forget if it's the inner or the outer. I have a snake with a camera on the end and looked at the bolt with it, and it shows that the break off point is jagged so I might be able to get a hold of it and fish it out. But regardless, the car will be getting Z heads in the future.

[95impalakid]

Friday I went to go get a quote to get all the exhaust work done from the header back. It is probably going to cost me a couple hundred bucks from the header back. I really wanted to be able to do them myself, and learn through the process, but with school, work, lifting, and then homework every night I just simply have no time.

I have a daily driver right now too, a 2004 Nissan Quest that gets better MPG. Plus with the exhaust leak that it has right now, it ticks like a bomb going down the road.

Another thing, I must add, is that a couple days after Christmas someone attempted to steal my wheels while my car was sitting in the lot at work. I didn't notice anything wrong with the car until I put it in drive and immediately knew something was wrong. I kept on hearing a large clunk. I thought I had a broken tie rod or something, the noise was that bad and my handling was awful. The car was shaking and jerking all over the place. Pulled into an elementary school parking lot and found that I had a couple lug nuts broken off from each wheel. The thief that tried to steel them realized I had locking lugs, and just started breaking them off. I have drilled and slotted rotors on order now, because the threads were apart of the rotor and the hub. (Lost the picture of the car with broken lugs, was on my other phone.)

Perhaps something that ISN'T depressing right now is that my grandma is very close to giving me my grandfathers old race shop that he built back in the 1960's. It has two large bays, and the other half is a machine shop and work area. She felt like I should be the one to have it since my dad has our garage made as a shrine for the Chevelle that we have. Given, the shop needs some TLC. Most of the machines need oiled up after sitting for 30 years, and my aunt has been using it to store a bunch of crap she has that literally is trash. You will see in the pics. But I have basically every tool that I need to build a car and do custom work. Drill presses, saws, a lathe, welder, a couple loaded tool chests, a lift, engine stands, a couple cherry pickers, etc. It needs some new lighting and insulation is hanging from the ceiling but I'm thankful that I'm more than likely going to get it. It's better than having no place to work on a car.
shop1.jpgshop2.jpgshop3.jpgshop4.jpg

One of my closest friends also bought a MINT 1984 Cutlass Supreme with a 307 V8 on Friday, and he is going to be at the shop with me along with a couple other friends. His brother who is one of my best friends is getting a 1999-2004 Mustang GT to learn with. Another friend has a 2004 short bed Silverado with a 5.3 that we are going to be sooping up and using as a shop truck, and the other friend is currently searching for a Fox body Mustang to learn the basics on.

[95impalakid]

Picture of my SS and the Cutlass that I snagged last night.
cutlassandimpala.jpg