V1 Jake & Morgan’s Turbo SS Goblin #536 Build Log!

[jmsax536MI]

Hi Y’all! We are Jake and Morgan, a husband and wife excited to build our first kit car together in Mid Michigan. I am a pilot and my husband is an electrical engineer. We bought a 2010 Manual Turbo SS Cobalt with many ZZP mods including the ZFR 6758 turbo, the Inner cooler, upgraded cams running on E85. Our goal is to eventually track the car. Our kit arrived on 3/9/25 and we are excited to be Goblin #536!

Now the fun begins!!

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

Welcome Jake and Morgan! Hope this is a great experience for you both.

First thing, if you haven't read about it in the forum already, label everything and take photos of everything. Save the handbrake and everything that goes with it. Keep every bolt, nut and washer that you can from the donor. If it can wait, don't get rid of the donor until you are certain you have everything needed from it.

Don't be afraid to ask questions, the forum has probably been ask everything for every situation that has come up with a Goblin build. Happy building!

 

[Ark :D]

Welcome!

 

[Mahkoi]

Welcome to the Michigan crew!

 

[comegetjoe]

Welcome!
Yes! Another TC build!
LTG ZFR?

 

[SmsDetroit]

Welcome to the Michigan crew. I’m in Troy. Let me know if you need any help. Happy to hop in mine and head out

 

[ah.b.normal]

Welcome Aboard!, and let me be the first to say, Save your parking brake parts, label everything, take lots of pix!(posting is of course optional) AND... when your project corners you, ask here, someone has been "there" before! My specialty is mailing you another one of "the last/lost bolt"(fasteners). IM me a pic and I'll do what I can! Also misc wiring plugs and thinggies, just ask.

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

Welcome Aboard!, and let me be the first to say, Save your parking brake parts, label everything, take lots of pix!(posting is of course optional) AND... when your project corners you, ask here, someone has been "there" before! My specialty is mailing you another one of "the last/lost bolt"(fasteners). IM me a pic and I'll do what I can! Also misc wiring plugs and thinggies, just ask.

Nope...second.

 

[Ghostknife]

Welcome to the MI crew! If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask. There is a Michigan thread with loads of info including registration help and some shows/meets going on throughout the summer. Where abouts are you in Mid Michigan?

Michigan Thread

You can use this thread to see who is close to you:

Map

 

[ah.b.normal]

Nope...second.

You called it a "hand brake", How Arcane!

 

[Saxophone-Man]

Hey everyone, thank you for such a warm welcome! I have a question as I finish up the wiring harness. I have connector that I am not sure what to do with in the dash harness. Has 3 wires, a gray, a tan, and a black with a white stripe. Connector is labeled PED25. Do I need this and what is it for? I am trying to upload a picture but it is erroring currently. TIA

 

[Gtstorey]

You need to add your donor to your signature, so we don't have to look back to find out what you are working with.

Always include a picture of the end view of the connector. The service manual has a labeled end view of each connector. Add that if no one else remembers what this is, and I'll look it up in the service manual this evening when I get home.

 

[Lonny]

The white is hazard (keep for switches), the gray is dash light (cut and remove), and the black is ground (cut at the connector).

 

[Saxophone-Man]

Just added our donor to my signature. 2010 cobalt SS. Attached end images of the connector as well. Thank you very much!

 

[Saxophone-Man]

The white is hazard (keep for switches), the gray is dash light (cut and remove), and the black is ground (cut at the connector).

Awesome. I already have the cut wire run to my button cluster but lost track of the rest of that connector. Thank you!

 

[SmsDetroit]

I relabeled every wire after cutting it if it wasn’t removed. Saved a lot of headaches

 

[jmsax536MI]

Update for Goblin 536!
We got the cobalt completely disassembled and the unused parts out of our garage. Super lucky one guy wanted to buy everything from us. Our parts are back from powder coating and the color dirty magic looks amazing! I cannot recommend Powder Coating of Michigan in Brighton enough. They were super fast and easy to work with. We had it done in a week. Does anyone in Michigan has any recommendations for wrapping the goblin hood? We live near Milford. The wiring harness is done and we have officially started putting the goblin together. This week we have began prepping the engine and the car is flipped upright. I have loved getting to work on this with my husband. I am not mechanically inclined so it has been a lot of learning from Jake. It is cool to be on the putting a car together part now!

Till next time!
-Morgan

 

[Rttoys]

Nice bike collection

 

[SmsDetroit]

My buddy owns Design and Signs. He wrapped my goblin. He’s at 13 and grosebeck

 

[Saxophone-Man]

We are finally posting about 6 months of building and updates here! Thank you for all the advice so far, this is such a fun kit to build.

Frame: We got the frame sandblasted at Master Blaster in New Hudson which is only a few minutes from my garage before getting it powder coated at Powder Coating Services of Michigan. We went with "Dirty Magic" which is a high sparkle purple. The side panels and have of the interior are gloss black. The hood in the end will be gloss black with an offset purple stripe. The inspiration for our paint scheme is this Corvette ZR1X that I have fallen in love with.

Donor Car: Our donor was a 2010 Cobalt SS with a rebuilt title and a bad water leak in the trunk that made it super gross to strip the rear end. We got it apart with no major issues however. This was our first time dropping a motor out of a car which was a very cool experience. HUGE shout out to Neodied, goblin 375 for letting us borrow his engine crane for way too long. We stripped and painted most of the surface rust parts to gloss black and they are starting to go into the frame now. We ended up selling the unneeded parts to a guy that races cobalts on a circle track in Michigan.

Engine work: The engine in our donor cobalt started up and drove well when we bought it, but when the weather got colder developed a misfire. We compression tested the motor and it had about 10 psi low on one cylinder, and the sparkplug that came out was full of carbon so I pulled the head to clean the valves and check for any damage. That is when we found the exhaust camshaft horribly rusty and realized it needed more help than expected. I found an LNF head with new valves, springs, rollers, and cams on marketplace for 200 and drove there and picked it up, which solved that issue. We are currently working through reassembling the engine. The cams in the new heads are stock, which means we will say bye to E85 for now, and get our goblin retuned to run on 93 octane.

Wiring harness: I tackled the wiring harness while Morgan was on a worktrip. It was tedious but enjoyable. I bought a label maker and labelled almost every wire (see my above confused post) and that helped to make it a breeze. I ran an extra power wire and a camera wire to the license plate and an extra power and camera to the dash, with the hope of putting in a carplay/dashcam/backup camera unit. Overall following the videos and being as organized as possible helped make it a breeze.

Current progress: Floors are installed, brake lines including proportioning valve are run, pedals are installed, steering is installed. We are running into an issue where the collapsible steering shaft is contacting the front firewall and not allowing a full rotation. Did anybody else run into this issue? I am planning to trim the opening wider to create clearance unless there is a better solution. The motor is getting put back together this weekend now that I got new head bolts and a head gasket in. Then we will just keep plugging away until the car is done!


Bonus Bikes: We also are big fans of motorcycles! So here is our current collection! I will grab pictures when we are working this weekend to post later. If anyone has pics of their bikes, we'd love to see them!
1973 Kawasaki G5
1979 Chrysler SnoRunner
1983 Honda CB450SC
1991 Suzuki GSX1100G
2003 Suzuki SV650S
2017 Suzuki DR650 Supermoto
2017 Honda CRF50 Supermoto (For indoor fun)
2021 Hawk 250DLX

Thank you all! Happy building!