I picked up this 2007 Cobalt SS yesterday for what I think was a steal at $2,869 the dealer was asking $3,900

These are the six that I wanted to check out and drove 3hrs up to Tampa.






It drove great on the ride home, here are some pictures I took of her this morning.

 

Good pickup for the price for sure. However I've noticed a few things right away that are not right about the car. First off you have no side skirts that come standard with the ss/sc and ss/na models. Also you have no front lip spoiler that again comes standard with the ss/sc model. I would be contacting the dealership where you got the car to ask what happened to those parts. Inside the engine bay I see you have no fuse box cover unless you removed that yourself. Other than those few things it looks like a solid car. I look in your local junkyards in your area to see if you can find the side skirts and the front lip spoiler. Fuse box cover should also be easy to find in the junkyard. What are your overall plans for your build? I see you have a cold air intake on it already.

 

Thanks for the feedback, The dealer would not have any idea what happened to the missing pieces, they got it as is as a trade in. There are a few salvage yards in my area so I will check them out from time to time. Only plan at the moment is to enjoy driving it and see where we go fro here.

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No problem man. It looks like a solid car and at a great price that you got it for. I'm actually in the process of restoring my 07 Pontiac G5 GT. I've done full suspension mods, new fuel lines, fuel pump, new tires, new brakes and brake lines. I'm also doing a m62 supercharger from the Cobalt SS which i'm upgrading to a stage 2 setup. I've been working on my car now for 3 years at a slow but moderate pace since I'm doing a majority of the work myself to save money. I think once you start to dive into it you'll really have a lot of fun making it your own. This ecotec platform is great because the cars themselves are very reasonable in price and oem parts/aftermarket parts are fairly cheap in comparison to the jdm counterparts like Honda Civic, Subaru WRX, etc. I came from that world originally growing up and to see the prices now some 20 years later when I first started modifying vehicles is astounding lol. Mind you in the next few years I might import a vehicle possibly if I can get a fair price for one. I live in Canada so we only have a 15 year rule compared to USA which is 25 I believe. Anyway good look on your project Sir and look forward to seeing more updates.

 

Nice, cheap pick up.

Appears to have an aftermarket supercharger pulley on it, so I suspect that it is tuned and probably has upgraded injectors, as well.

 

Yes, it has a ZZP Pully, the dealer commented that using his words "the guy had a different computer in it before he traded it in", so he put the stock one in before dropping it off as a trade-in for another car. I asked the dealer for the guys contact info but he made some excuse of why he was not able to give it to me. I wanted to contact the original owner so that I could truly understand what it may have under the hood.

I even paid for a Carfax which I thought might reveal who owed it but it did not, basically only learned were all the services were performed and when.

Not sure how to tell what else has been done to it?
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Dealers are generally idiots... so I wouldn't give too much credit to what they said.

With that said, I'd be a little careful initially when it comes to driving the car hard. Stock tune and stock injectors really can't support a smaller pulley. What size pulley is it? Take a picture of the face, if that's easier. I'd also try to get a picture of the injectors.

Have you driven the car hard yet? Like taken it to the rev limiter? Stock rev limiter is 6500. ANY non-factory tune will have it set to 7000 or above.

 

Here is picture of the pulley

 

with a 3.0 pulley the previous owner more than likely had a zzp stage 2 tune on it with either 42 or 60 pound injectors. Here is a link to zzp. I would check your injectors to see if they are stock or larger ones. Eitherway I would definitely not drive the car hard until you upgrade your ecu and check your injector size. He probably had an exhaust on it as well. is your exhaust stock? https://zzperformance.com/collection...zp-stage-2-kit

 

I'm actually lucky the exhaust did not fall off on the 3hr drive home, but I guess there are not that many pot holes here in Florida, it was basically only held on with one stretched out rubber hanger in the back.

I suspect just like the ECU he most likely took off what ever exhaust he had on there and slapped the stock one back on? I also suspect the dealer was not offering much for tread-in so he took everything off of it that he could, who knows maybe even the side skirts?

I wonder if ZZP would have any record of the car based on the vin number?

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It seems like the previous owner may have taken off what exhaust he may have had and just slapped on something when he traded it in, it was litterley just held on with a single stretched out rubber hanger. I don’t know how it did not fall off during the 3hr drive home, guess I’m lucky that there are not meant pot holes in SWFL.

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Is it a stock exhaust though? Is the header still the OE cast unit? Downpipe stock?

 

Yeah thankfully you could also go to a exhaust shop and get a quality muffler welded on for now or buy a new exhaust from zzp. They sell 2.5 inch which would sound very good especially if you select their resonator option. I would check to see if your manifold and down pipe are stock also. More than likely they are as it sounds like this car before it was traded in was fairly modified with aftermarket exhaust, smaller pulley intake and tune. How quick does the car feel under acceleration and wot? If it feels just ok then he probably flashed the ecu back to stock or swap out his modified ecu and put the stock ecu back in the car. Some people like having two ecu's for say warranty work or in this case sell the other ecu when he traded in the car.

 

No it is not a cast unit, I'll get it up on jack stands and take some pictures

 

I was taking if fairly easy on the ride home at first but their were a couple times I put my foot into it to catch up to my wife who has somewhat of a lead foot on her gas pedal. I might have been going 70 hit the pedal and in a half a heartbeat was going 90

I suspect when he got a stage 2 setup he kept the stock ECU and put that in before trading it in.
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If there's a catless downpipe in there and you don't have a P0420 CEL, then your ECU is most likely still tuned.

Rev it out and see if it redlines at 6500 or 7000. Most people don't swap ECU's in these cars. Tuned ECU's tend to not be any more valuable than a stock ECU since they're VIN locked.

 

Here are some pics.

 

Looks like a long tube header, which is good. Looks like it was made with cheap steel, which isn't great, but not the end of the world.

The cat-back definitely isn't stock, either.

 

I would weld a nice magnaflow or borla muffler on it for now. It will give you a nice tone without it being too loud.

 

Here is a drive by video of how it currently sounds.



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Not too bad but trust me with a nice Magnaflow or Borla muffler welded on. Will sound way better. https://www.trubendz.com/categories/...l-4-x-9-5.html

And full catback stainless steel https://www.trubendz.com/products/05...magnaflow.html

 

I believe she has a 5spd SAAB?

I have an opportunity to pickup a NEW Getrag F23 Transmission, can the F23 be used as a replacement?

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Yes it can be done. Here is a thread here from USMCFieldMP he just did the swap not to long ago.

USMCFieldMP's LSJ Build: A Redemption Story - Page 9 - Cobalt SS Network