Overall History and Build Breakdown

Arby’s may have the meats but Shawn White has them beat! Meet Sexy Sally, a monstrous 1970 Chevelle SS. Shawn’s wife came up with the name immediately after buying the car. It is an SS so she came up with Sexy Sally and it just stuck. When Shawn bought the car it was a small tire drag car with typical modifications like a store-bought roll bar, no backseat, and a 496 under the hood. “I am the third owner of the car and the second owner only had it for a few months. The guy who bought it in 1970 took it home put a roll cage in it and drag-raced with it his entire life. But I mean he really took care of it.” While doing some research on the history of the car Shawn discovered it was actually a somewhat rare SS LS-5 model. This was some news that Shawn didn’t really want to discover about the car. “My other Chevelle was just so original and clean you just hate driving it. So with this one here we were just trying to figure out what we wanted to do with it now. We thought about many options maybe restore it or go in a new direction. I had always wanted a pro street car and with the car already having modifications we started down the pro street route.” Before the pro street route was fully explored there was an in-between iteration of the car. The 496 was pulled out to be refreshed and some nitrous was thrown at it. Shawn drove it like this for a little while and then the major surgery began to make it the Sexy Sally you see today. “I knew I wanted a little more horsepower than the 496 was making so I got in contact with Beck Racing Engines out of Phoenix Arizona. I worked closely with Frank beck the owner who is a good friend of mine now to create the high compression 565 big block nitrous engine that is in the car now. The engine makes about 900hp then with the 300 shot of nitrous it makes a little over 1200hp. It is just an incredible engine.”

With an engine that size you can’t run some little dinky tires in the back anymore you need some real meats and I think Shawn agrees. To get the size of tires we wanted we cut it and used a Chris Austin back half kit. We ended up cutting the frame in half basically from behind the front seats and then took the trunk floor out and rebuilt that. Once all that was cut out we put the tires under the car and basically built everything back together around that. My rear tires are Mickey Thompsons which are 33 inches tall by 22 inches wide. They are definitely the thing that stands out to most people now.” The list of other upgrades to the car is an extensive one. With such a dramatic increase in power, Shawn needed a tranny that could take the abuse. He ended up going with an FTI manual valve body Turbo 400 with a billet torque converter. A custom roll cage was added and the whole car is now NHRA certified for 8.5 seconds. To get the car stopped after a combined 44 inches of tire grip on the ground the car is equipped with some heavy-duty Wilwood disc brakes on all four corners. Aldan American coil overs combined with Speedtech Performance control arms keep the car planted and riding smoothly around those tight PCH corners. A trans brake plus line lock makes it effortlessly easy to roast tires off of this car. Other performance upgrades include a fuel cell, a full MSD system, and dual electric fans. Plus Holley has recently become a sponsor of the car so a new Sniper EFI system is being added in the near future.

As for the interior and exterior of the car, believe it or not, Shawn tried to keep them both as original as possible. The only non-OEM panel on the car is the fiberglass hood with everything else being some good old heavy steel. Interior pieces are factory with slight modifications such as an original center console, factory carpet, trim pieces, and factory dash with new inserts and gauges. Then of course the back seat has been modified to squeeze between the new wheel tubs.

Overall, the build took Shawn and some buddies about a year to complete and another year to get all the bugs worked out. “My car came out almost faster than anybody’s because we just did not stop. I wanted it done. My biggest thing is if I have something and it is not running it drives me crazy. So everything we did I just had to get done. I just can’t have something I can’t get in and drive. I didn’t go with – I need a brand new paint job or this or that. I just built it as we went. I am still building it. Get it to the point where it is safe and drivable then just work on the details as you go. I can finally say the last four or five trips in the car I was able to get home, park it, and not have to look at it until the next time I went to take it out. I am finally at the point where I don’t really have any worries about it stranding me. There were a lot of bugs we had to work out before I got here.”

Shawn then shared one piece of the car that not many people know. “I started at four years old racing motocross then in my adult life started racing road bikes and so on. So when we were doing the floor behind the seats the way the car sits I had to come up with a little hump where the tunnel was to clear drive lines and stuff. So if you are under the car and look up you will see that little hump. Stamped in that hump you will see FMF. I actually used a piece of my Honda CR 500 exhaust pipe because it was the perfect shape. I just cut a section out, welded it in, and painted it. Every time I see it I know exactly what it is but if you just look at you would never be able to tell what it is. Unless you are under the car and really look you’ll see FMF stamped on the floor.”

According to Shawn “It has been a really good car obviously it is a little more pro than street. I haven’t actually taken it to the strip. It has taken so long to get everything ready and get everything working together that I go back and forth and then think Nah I don’t want to wreck it on the strip. But I do take it out and cruise it around car shows. Plus it is a race fuel car so whatever is in the cell is all I have to get around on unless someone follows me haha. It has been a really fun car. I know everyone says they’re done or never done but I'm about done. I am tired of working on it, I just want to enjoy it haha. It is humbling though how many people know the car” After getting the overall history and build of the car Shawn and I dove into some more niche aspects of the car. Shawn shared some of his mistakes / hard times during the build as a way to help others from repeating his mistakes. He also shared the story of how his many sponsors came to be and some advice for those who feel like they are lacking the time, knowledge, or tools to build a car of this caliber in their own garage.

Mistakes / Hard times

“My friend and I built the car. It is a garage-built car from start to finish. But this car has fought us every step of the way. It is true that a car has its own personality because this one definitely does. Nothing on this car was easy, everything on this car was a battle. When we first put it together we used a four-link kit. The kit we used was a really good kit but we went with poly bushings because I wanted it to be smooth on the street. I also went with a spool instead of posi. At one point I was backing out of my driveway and all of a sudden I felt that my tires were rubbing badly. I got out to look and tried a bunch of different things to see what was happening. Eventually, I discovered what was going on. Since I have about 44 inches of tire combined with the poly bushings and the spool it was the perfect mix for it not to work right. I learned when you would go to turn, basically, the body would turn on the rear end because of the width of the tires. So it would basically move on the rear end the width of the bushings. After this, I went back to the drawing board. I ended up taking the posi out and going with a different rear differential, and new axles, and that helped some. But stuff was still getting bound up a bit. Finally, I put it up on jack stands and checked everything. We decided to pull out all the four-link bars and me and a buddy literally hand-built all-new four-link bars out of Chromoly and Heim joints. And now all of a sudden nothing was in a bind anymore. Everything side to side up and down was free and worked well. But that was a battle. As soon as we got those new bars in it just completely loosed everything up even something things we didn’t realize were tight got fixed. Everything just works so much better now.

One of the other mistakes that we made was a lot of people when they tub their cars they pull their tires way into the car. And for me personally, I don’t like the look of the car hanging way out past the rear tires. If you look from the front you’ll see the front tires but the rears are pulled in so far you can’t see them. I wanted my rear tires as pushed out as possible while still being under the car. Which was hard because the car doesn’t have to cut wheel wells, it has factory wheel wells. The only thing that has changed is the tubs. Trying to get that to work without rubbing was extremely hard. I originally had 4.5-inch backspacing on my wheels but now that I am running RC Component wheels I went with a 5-inch backspacing. This pulled the tires in just enough so I was able to lower the car a little more. I always had to have the car a little higher in the back so it wouldn’t rub the tires which I didn’t like. By just getting a slightly different backspace it sucked the tires in. Then I was able to lower the car a couple of inches. That was one of the other things that ended up working out so I was able to give the car the stance I really wanted.

Another thing that may be surprising is I went on a photoshoot for Weld wheels when I was running their wheels. When I was coming back the car was running great then I heard a loud crunch sound. I got it into the garage and looked underneath it. The FTI transmission I was running had a full race-prepped stock case and housing. Well, I saw a crack on my bell housing so I took the transmission out. I discovered my bell housing was cracked from the 5 o’clock position all the way to the 9 o’clock position. Fortunately, it didn’t get into anything else. So I cut that off and put on an actual FFI bell on it. It’s always driving it, fixing something, driving some more, fixing something else. That’s just how it is.

Sponsors

Was the intention to build something to get sponsors or did the sponsors come on their

own?

So it’s funny. I built the car just for myself and then got involved with a group of friends on social media. They helped me start my Instagram page a few years ago. I started a personal page and then they convinced me to start one just for my car. And I do have one just for my car with a few things on it. The problem with me is that I like all types of cars, trucks, bikes, boats, and anything else. So on my page, I have people send in their vehicles and I’ll post it for them depending on what it is and so on. Then all of a sudden my page started getting bigger in the community and sponsors started reaching out to me. The car was also featured in RPM Magazine and in an Autotopia LA video. Autotopia LA did a full feature on my car and we shot that video literally a few hours after I got my new transmission in. Nothing was fully dialed in and it didn’t run the greatest. But we still had a great time. That video is one of the things that really got the car on the map. The video has a few hundred thousand views. It’s kind of funny because I’m not originally from California, I’m from the East. I have people I grew up with or people I don’t know who recognize the car. I’ll post a picture of the car and they will be like Hey, that’s Sexy Sally and not even realize that it is mine. One thing that was different with my car compared to other sponsored builds is that my car was fully built and done before any sponsors came in. What the sponsors have helped me do is take the car to the next level. For example, the car just had standard disc brakes on it nothing fancy basically a factory GM disk brake then Wilwood hopped on the build and now the brakes are amazing. All my sponsors I work with have just been some of the most amazing people to work with.

Built Not Bought

You have a full-time job but still built this incredible car in your garage with the help of some

buddies. What would you say to people who might say I can’t build a car of that caliber because I

don’t have a big shop and I work so I don’t have time.

That’s a great question. For instance, my shop is just in my backyard. It is literally a one-car garage. It is just kind of a man cave/garage. It has a little bar, a TV, and so on. Some of the really big fabrication we did in my friend’s shop which is only a little bigger than mine. Other than some of the fabrication everything was done in my garage. We have done chassis work, engine swaps, tranny work, and fabrication. You name it, we have done it all out of this one-car garage. It is tight don’t get me wrong but it works. If I was to give someone advice, I would say it can be done, you just have to have some dedication. You can’t expect the car to come out as a Chip Foose car the first time you build something. You have to be realistic about what you want and your capabilities. You don’t need all these big specialty tools. Just have some good basic hand tools. It is awesome if you can get a welder but in the end, you don’t actually need it. You can always go and rent or borrow the more specialty tools. They are good to have but you don’t actually need to have them to get a lot done. Buying good tools will always be worth it in the end because they last for years. The other thing is to save and spend money on the best parts you can buy. Ultimately that will save you money. The only reason I say buy the best parts you can is so you don’t go down the same road as me and end up with a shop full of parts that are basically brand new. I did buy the best on some of the big stuff like the engine and tranny but it is the small stuff where you think this will work. Which it does work but not the way you may want. Again with the brakes the disc brakes I originally had worked fine but now I have changed them three times to get to what they are now. Whereas if I just went that way first I would have saved money. Or my headers, everyone complains about headers and I also usually have bad luck with headers. So I finally purchased a very expensive ($4000) set of custom hand-built Lemon’s headers. Now I can change all eight spark plugs in less time than most people can open their hood. Yes, they are expensive but they are the best you can get and in the end, this will save you money and headaches. Another thing is everyone says to have a budget but I’m going to not go with that because my budget went out the window like three years ago. There is always something even little stuff that you can upgrade or maintain. Try to set up a loose budget and know you might go over it. However much time you think it will take you to do something add some time on top of that because it will always take longer than you think. Spend money on good parts and have some decent basic tools.

How to Get Over the Hump While Building a Car

During the time you were building the car was there ever a time you got discouraged or did you

always know it would get done?

I never thought I was going to abandon the build. That never crossed my mind. But every time I worked on the car I questioned myself, I mean I am not going to lie. Every Time I was under it I would be like why am I under this thing again? But at the same time, it is like a lot of things in life. For example, if you start a new job you are a little nervous and it can be challenging in the beginning. At the start, you can’t wait to get to the point where it is not challenging anymore. Then after a while you know the job, you do it well and you are kind of coasting. At that point, you tend to get bored. You can't wait to get to that point but then you get there and think oh darn I can’t wait to get a different job. It is the same thing with a car build. It is build it, build it, build it. Then you sit back and think hmm what could I do to it now? It is a bit of a love-hate relationship. Never in my mind was I ever going to abandon the build. I knew I had to get it done. It didn’t come out the exact way I wanted it to when we first finished. I accepted it and planned out what I needed to do to get it to where I wanted it. And that’s where it is now. here is also the issue of you buying a car and are jacked to have it. You are jacked to work on it so you tear it completely apart and then you are dead in the water. The car is torn apart so much that everything you do seems like you didn’t do anything and it gets overwhelming. Then the next thing you know it has sat in the garage then it is moved out back and the next thing you know you’ve sold it. I try and say buy the best car you can afford upfront. Then build it the way you want to build it. Which is what I did with this car. It was a good running and driving car when I bought it so I had a solid base to build on as I went. But in high school I had a car I fully blew apart and then it took forever to get back together. Then once I had it back together I just hated it and sold it. If you aren’t good at bodywork buy a car that has a good body on it with maybe no engine. So if you are more skilled with engine stuff you can use that. If you are really good at bodywork buy one that maybe the body needs work but the engine and everything is clean. And if you do get a car for whatever reason that is really rough. Don’t get discouraged. Just set aside literally one hour a week. Sure you might not get a lot done in an hour but you are keeping the juices flowing and keeping some motivation alive. But if you get to the point where you are just so overwhelmed you end up buying something else and just lose all interest in the original.

Just stay the course. You will regret selling it no matter what it is

Sponsors and Thanks

Special thanks to my wife Trina for being supportive of this dream of mine. My friend Brandon Scott for always lending a hand every step of the way of this build and for understanding my vision. My friend Frank Beck of Beck Racing Engines for not only building me my monster engine but for all of the help and phone calls and making sure I’m always happy! My friend Ken Johnson for helping me get started on social media.

Thank you to the following partners and sponsors.

Jeg’s Performance
Holley Performance
Speedtech Performance
XS Power Batteries
Beck Racing Engines
Wilwood Disc Brakes
Original Parts Group
Aldan American
Kilduff Machine
Novalux Industries
Evans CNC

Ken Johnson

Link Garage

Follow Shawn:

Instagram: shawntrinawhite

Merch/Website: cruisecultureapparel.com/collections/two-whites-racing-and-speed-shop

Everything that is underlined and bolded is a direct link to people or things