Jays build 07 supercharged SS

[Goblin-SS]

Hay all as you can tell from the title. I'm building a track frame Goblin from a 2007 cobalt SS with the supercharged engine. I've got the donor complty striped and egorley waiting on the frame. A few things that I've been toying with the build in my head is with the SC engine it has an air to water intercooler witch used a front mount with is way too large to fit anywear on the gobline I was thing of twin side mounts near the rear wheels.... I'm open to ideas.

Also the SS comes with a wheel bolt pattern of 5x110 a pain in the ass size. Almost all aftermarket wheels for the size are heavy , ugly or cost a fortune. Now the non SS come with 4x100 pattern wheel hub witch is the same as many me witch have a massive aftermarket. The one thing I need to know before I be the swap is how many splines the 4x100 wheel hubs have I just dont want to buy hubs that my axel shafts won't fit in to.

Anyways all happy building any feed back would be nice

 

[Jkean949]

Hi Jay!
I don't have any technical inputs to what you've got going on (my build is for a different year). Just wanted to give a friendly hello to another builder.

I'm sticking with the rims that are part of the donor for now...I know that with the brakes their is a limited number of rims that will fit.

Cheers!
John

 

[Adam]

Good to see you on here Jay.

We've looked into locating an air to water intercooler for the supercharged cars. For the turbo cars we've figured out that a PT Cruiser intercooler is going to work very well. Here is a pic showing where we plan to mount the intercooler for the turbo cars:

The intercooler will get plenty of air here and we eventually want to make a custom engine cover that can duct even more air to the intercooler. We are going to make mounts that clamp to the rear strut cross tube and to the rear upper diagonals. This way, nothing has to be welded on if someone decides to upgrade a naturally aspirated donor.

If we could find an air to water intercooler that is about the same size as the PT Cruiser intercooler, we could mount it the same way. Let me know what you think.

 

[Adam]

I forgot to mention our plans for the 5 bolt hubs.

As far as we know, the 4 bolt hubs won't work with the 5 bolt knuckles and axles. So swapping them isn't an option. Instead, we think the best thing to do is redrill the 5 bolt hubs with the more common 5x114.3.

For you SS guys, we can redrill all four hubs for $40. We'll knock the studs out, use a CNC mill to poke the new holes and then reinstall the studs.

 

[Jkean949]

Adam, what will that do for the tire and wheel packages we have from our SS? Will it be usable for this?

 

[Adam]

You can use your SS wheels, but they are very big for a car this size.

The Goblin is similarly sized to the Ariel Atom and with the SS powertrain, yours will be comparable on power. Based on that, the recommended front wheel size is 15x7 and the rear is 16x8 with 205/50-15 and 245/45-16 tires. This sounds small but on such a light car, you really don't need giant tires and wheels. Tires that are too big are unnecessarily heavy and might have trouble getting up to temp.

It is kind of the same story for the SS brakes. These brakes were designed to stop a 2900+ pound car in race conditions (like when they were testing at the Nurburgring in Germany). On the full bodied Cobalt SS, the brakes don't seem too heavy or powerful but on the Goblin (at half the weight) we are concerned that they will be too much both in stopping power and weight.

So far we've had great results from running the base Cobalt front brakes all the way around (even without track ready pads). If we do need to go larger on the front, there is a rotor halfway between the base and SS that uses the base caliper but a larger rotor. This would be a good option. Beyond that, I'd recommend going aftermarket with some WIlwood calipers and rotors.

With the turbo Goblin we are building in-house we are going to start out with the Ariel Atom wheel and tire sizes with base Cobalt front brakes all the way around, but we will eventually experiment with other tires, wheels and brakes to get a definitive answer.

 

[Jkean949]

It would seem with the brakes that "valving" it back would be a good alternative. Stick with the Brembo's we have and add an adjustable proportional valve.

I am kinda liking the idea of getting other parts too though as selling the wheels and brakes will be easy.

 

[Goblin-SS]

Hay all its been a long time since my last update. So I had gotten ahead of myself and Adam and undertook the wiring task before Adam had put out any information. I was just excited to have the car and start building it. Need less to say that was a bad plan, and I have been paying for it ever since. ...
Lucky I have a buddy that had access to good wiring diagrams and from that I have been Abel to build and fix the wiring.

As of last Saturday I now have a running supercharged engine in my goblin!!!! . I still have a lot to do before it's driving. Still waiting on a few odds and ends since I'm using a 2007 SC-SS. Many parts differ from the 2.2 and 2.4.

If anyone's run in to wiring issues I'm happy.

I'll try to update more often

 

[AleX1/9]

congrats on getting it running!

post pictures too, I'd love to see your build

 

[Goblin-SS]

ok so my goblin is coming along quite nicely is should be driving shortly. now Ive been fine tuning things. like eyeballing the alignment and suspension set up. my question is what should the ride height be ? currently the rear is at 8 3/4 inch and the front about 8. that seams high to me. the front is easy to adjust but as for the rear to get lower will I have to cut the stock springs and it so by how much?

 

[DanPerryy]

I cut 1/2 link off my rear spring, not set or measured height yet. Got a picture? My front lower A arm is nearly level

 

[BAR-AIR]

Good Evening,
Here are some numbers that I had gotten from Adam a while back. At least these will get you into the ball park. As for the ride height my car is sitting approximately 7" off the ground in the back (measured at the control arm - car is up on rollers so it is hard to get an actual measurement in the back). That also takes into account that I took 1 entire coil off my springs and I am running pretty small tires 225/50r15's in the rear. Another thing that I noticed of the two cars (2008) I stripped both had different springs also the new set of struts the spring was different then the cars?
BAR

 

[JSATX]

Those numbers are helpful. Does anyone have information on the steering rack or rear toe bar adjustment?

 

[DanPerryy]

I just did my front and rear toe
about 1/8 " toe in on both.