hi guys. here from newfoundland posting about my 09 ss project. mostly looking for insight as i have no idea what im at lol. car has 84k miles. i am the third owner, going on engine number 3.. the car was previously abused and not taken care of, so naturally i got a really good deal on the car. it had the front bumper near hanging off, no muffler, oxygen sensor dangling which eventually ripped off, spoiler delete and a terrible job on the holes. seats in meh condition. hood was scratched up from an ice scraper, and theres clear overspray all over the whole car from i guess another project. it was on engine number two then, which i recently popped.

i just bought an engine with 60k miles, from a 2010. i have forged pistons and rods ordered for it as well, arp head studs. the car has a lsd swap and i am having major shifting issues. next to impossible to shift with any strain on the engine at all. i am ordering powell billet engine mounts and the zzp transmission mounts, new slave cylinder, adjustable clutch rod thing, clutch and oem flywheel, shifter clamps and anything i can do to improve the shifting. also doing stainless brake lines, painting my brembos and getting rid of my shitty drilled rotors for some premium nice onces. i put new cables on it before i blew it up and the roll pin in the linkage, i went through the alignment for hours and cannot set it any better. i went ahead and bought MOOG upper/lower ball joints, inner and outer tie rods, stabilizer links and control arm bushings all lifetime warranty. the car is getting the royal treatment. cleaned up inside and out, engine bay paint different from the body color. not spending crazy money but i would like to clean this car up and make it last for years to come. if anybody has any insight about my shifting issues and what else i can try to make it shift better, please help me! also ill be looking for charge pipes that i can mount a blow off valve too, possibly a front bumper.

thanks!

 

Powell doesn't make engine mounts he makes transmission mounts. Do not use the zzp engine mount with his transmission mounts.

Also adding a blow off valve is not as easy as buying pipes with a flange on these cars. Unless you recirculated the bov you need to do a maf relocation and a tune

 

This guy hit it on the head.

Buy Powell rotated mounts and don't do engine mounts. Trans mounts help with wheel hop and trans destruction issues as well as traction. But the firm aftermarket mounts are to stiff and won't let the engine rotate. It will not help with anything except crazy vibes.

Have you adjusted your shift linkage?

 

Adjust the cables at the shifter.....if your still having issues it can be a multitude of problems so you need to be more specific as to what's going on.

 

it's very hard to explain. there is a thread above me called "shifting my car SUCKS" where his problems are identical to mine. I also listed what issue I'm having. I've done every adjustment I can, the car will not shift at high rpm. I never want to nls but if I wanted to it literally would not be possible.

 

hey yeah I'm actually aware of that and totally willing for it! I did the reads on it. I have a local friend with the trifecta tuner, he did the 24psi tune I am running right now. I expect to have the car returned by HP Tuners before it is driven so I'm fine with doing the maf relocate and the tune part of it. thanks! so all I really want is the rotated trans mounts?

 

Yup that's all you want. You want the engine to be able to rotate/move. You would probably be fine for some time but eventually something will brake and it won't be that mount if you know what I mean

 

totally feel you. I'm on the ottp website about to buy their cable clamp, downpipe, and rotated mounts but in the kits it just says stage 1 2 and 3. stage two is "front and rear mount" and stage 3 is "front and rear and lower rotated trans mount" I thought I needed upper and lower rotated mounts? it seems they only have a lower and pair it with "front and rear" mount?

 

We have 3 transmission mounts. I have all 3 from ottp

 

so only one is the rotated mount?

 

2 of them are. I have the upper mount and the stage 2 rotated mounts

 

hey sorry for the late reply but I'm a sailor and I don't usually have cell service for 6 or 7 days at a time. I went to ottp a few hours ago and ordered the short shifter, weighted delrin/ss hybrid engraved knob, ottp billet cable clamps,
the ottp base bushings, and also the stage 2 rotated mounts. will I want the stage 3 you think? thanks for all the help, I will be posting pictures in a week when I get home and get at the car. I will be kinda documenting it too so I'll have lots of info and stuff as I'm going Through it!

 

Nah I think the stg 2 will be more than enough honestly

 

hey sorry for the late reply but I'm a sailor and I don't usually have cell service for 6 or 7 days at a time. I went to ottp a few hours ago and ordered the short shifter, weighted delrin/ss hybrid engraved knob, ottp billet cable clamps,
the ottp base bushings, and also the stage 2 rotated mounts. will I want the stage 3 you think? thanks for all the help, I will be posting pictures in a week when I get home and get at the car. I will be kinda documenting it too so I'll have lots of info and stuff as I'm going Through it!

 

appreciate all the info dude! stripping g this car down and doing anything that is known to be faulty. any suggestions here is a list of the stuff I have already purchased.

lnf block 60k miles from a 2010
ottp billet shifter cable clamps
ottp short shifter
ottp weighted hybrid delrin/ss shift knob
ottp stage 2 transmission mounts
ottp shifter base bushings
zzp 3" catless dp with angled o2
MAF relocation harness

front end:
Moog upper and lower ball joints
Moog lower control arm bushings
Moog sway bar links
Moog inner and outer tie rods

all I need to get is the charge piping, blow off valve and shim for the stock one, clutch, stainless brake lines and hawk pads and slotted rotors. anything else I should re do while the car is apart? rack and pinion? anything these cars are known for? thanks for your help I really appreciate it

 

Sounds good to me I'm not a big fan of moog but they will do the job. And not really a big area with problems that I would say for you to look out car has been running strong for 1.5yrs for me

 

Check out the "all things Powell" thread in the general cobalt section. He seems to be the chassis/suspension expert IMO. Has a background in racing.

 

Yeah I agree on powell has great stuff, you just have to want to pay for his parts

 

I'm not a big Moog fan either but I have a daily which is a 13 speed3 ( I like the ss more hehe) . I will probably sell the car in a year or two and I wanted to be sure that anything that will go suspension wise will be always replaced. I got lifetime warranty on them all so I figured why not. I'm not building this to be a like show car, if I was I would a went with the best of everything! thanks very much for the info

 

mega appreciate it. ive spoken to powell a few times recently. definitely knows his stuff. I'll check the thread out!! thanks guys big time. looking forward to getting home and building this car!

 

..

 

excuse me?

 

anytime. subbed to this thread

 

cool! progress might be slow but it will be done 100%. my buddy just sent me a picture of the car (it's at his house, they're hauling the engine out before I get home for days off), and I had no plans on doing a bigger turbo yet but looks like I'm about to buy a zfr off of a forum user! paint is going to have to wait a month I'm getting mad excited for this! rice burner will be building me a set of projectors to go in this bad boy as well this is my first project since my 03 em2 k20 swap. I'm maaaaaad excited! my Mazda will see hardly any use 😈 pretty sure I'm gonna trade the Mazda on a truck and keep my cobalt.. I really love that balt lol

 

Nice man I'm sure you will love the Balt even more than before with that zfr. Also rice Is doing some great work with retros I'm sure you will be really happy