Restarting My '70 Nova Project

[MossRoad]

Nova's did not get the respect they deserved. Quicker, faster, lighter. Better power to weight ratio. If you could get them to hook up, look out.

Favorite car is still the Yenko 427 Nova; a car that should never have been built, according to Yenko himself. He said it was a car “we probably should not have done. Almost lethal.”


Another of my favorite quotes from some article I read...

"If you have to ask why anyone would shove a 427 into a Nova, we can't be friends."

He only built 37 of them, and only about 10 are known to still exist.

If I ever had the chance, funds, etc... to do a tribute car, I'd do that.

 

[BravoXray]

The L78 is "thee" engine in the Nova and Camaro's in my mind. (these were really 402 cu in)
Most problem w these was w traction. At the time, the Cobra Jet Mustang was vaunted as the fastest production street car. I had one and ran 13.28 with just a set of 7" slicks. Tuned and some headers and traction bars, the car was a 12.8 machine. A cam change and you were low 12's. A terror on the street in those days.
The L78 was the same but didn't get the notoriety as the Cobra jet.
None the less, it was surely capable of sub 13 second quarter mile times with just a little bit of attention right out of the show room..
I wish it have had more attention it deserved in the car magazines back then

While I had the L78, a friend, who worked for a local speed shop, and I spent a few days doing a little massaging on the engine, port matching the heads, manifold and headers, 3 angle valve job, new crane valve springs, retainers and aluminum rocker arms, recurved the advance in the distributor, put Blue Streak points and condenser, solid core plug wires, Accel coil and distributor cap and rotor, Hooker headers and 2.5" exhaust with mufflers off a turbocharged IH Scout. A little later I built and added the traction bars, new shocks front and rear and put L60-14 MT rear tires and 4.56 gears in the rear end.
One Saturday we took it to the local drag strip at Osceola for a test and tune session. We opened the headers, lightened it up, took out the spare and jack and rear seats, which got it under 3400# if I remember correctly. I made 3 passes the best of which was 12.52 at 106 mph, turning ~5800rpm through the lights. Not bad for a daily driver.

Interesting thing about the L78 engine, was that in Novas, Camaros and Chevelles it was rated at 375hp, but in a Corvette was rated at 425hp. Same identical engine.

 

[BravoXray]

Nova's did not get the respect they deserved. Quicker, faster, lighter. Better power to weight ratio. If you could get them to hook up, look out.

Favorite car is still the Yenko 427 Nova; a car that should never have been built, according to Yenko himself. He said it was a car “we probably should not have done. Almost lethal.”


Another of my favorite quotes from some article I read...

"If you have to ask why anyone would shove a 427 into a Nova, we can't be friends."

He only built 37 of them, and only about 10 are known to still exist.

If I ever had the chance, funds, etc... to do a tribute car, I'd do that.

I've seen a couple 3rd gen Novas with the 572 big block in them. Can't imagine how fast those are.

As for getting them to hook, it just took the correct combination of tires, springs, shocks and traction bars. Grumpy Jenkins had gotten them pretty well dialed in when he raced them. TCI, I think, makes a independent rear suspension unit for Novas that bolts in with minor drilling and welding, but it's around $8000.

 

[MossRoad]

While I had the L78, a friend, who worked for a local speed shop, and I spent a few days doing a little massaging on the engine, port matching the heads, manifold and headers, 3 angle valve job, new crane valve springs, retainers and aluminum rocker arms, recurved the advance in the distributor, put Blue Streak points and condenser, solid core plug wires, Accel coil and distributor cap and rotor, Hooker headers and 2.5" exhaust with mufflers off a turbocharged IH Scout. A little later I built and added the traction bars, new shocks front and rear and put L60-14 MT rear tires and 4.56 gears in the rear end.
One Saturday we took it to the local drag strip at Osceola for a test and tune session. We opened the headers, lightened it up, took out the spare and jack and rear seats, which got it under 3400# if I remember correctly. I made 3 passes the best of which was 12.52 at 106 mph, turning ~5800rpm through the lights. Not bad for a daily driver.

Interesting thing about the L78 engine, was that in Novas, Camaros and Chevelles it was rated at 375hp, but in a Corvette was rated at 425hp. Same identical engine.

I stopped going to Osceola with my RD400 when we had kids. That was around 1992. Too bad they couldn't get that deal going with those folks that wanted to make a road race track there. Some farmer bought it for investment property. It'll never be a drag strip again.

Where's the closest now? Bunker Hill?

I had the little RD down to 11:92 pretty consistently. I frequently won $12 in prize money after doing $3-400 in damage in an afternoon.

 

[BravoXray]

Where's the closest now? Bunker Hill?

Actually, US131 in Martin, MI is closer to Elkhart/Goshen.
I used to go there every year for the Popular Hotrodding meet, was always a lot of great cars and races.
Besides, the Hurst girl, Linda Vaughn would be there. Yowzah!

 

[MossRoad]

Hahaha. Ah times past.

 

[arrow]

Hahaha. Ah times past.

I recall when Jungle Jim Liberman would come up to Connecticut Dragway and bring his side kick "Pam" along. I didn't know to look at the car or she with no underwear on whatsoever.
It was the noise of the burn out that reminded me "oh yeah, there's a car there".

Poor guy died at 31 years of age when his Corvette hit the side of a bus.

 

[BravoXray]

Yeah, I saw Pam at Martin a couple of times too. Double Yowzah!

 

[BravoXray]

Back on the original topic, I finally got both new front fenders hung on the Nova. These are from AMD (Auto Metal Direct) in GA, and they fit WAY better that the Dynacorn junk I had before. The left fender fits really well with no modifications needed, the right one needed a little surgery on the lower area just ahead of the door and rocker panel. When flush with the door down to the lower body line, it fit pretty well, but below that it was kicked out about 3/8", with no way to adjust it to get a better fit. So, I took it off and made a cut through the reinforcement on the back side with a cut-off wheel, bent it in the proper amount, hung it again to check the fit. Looked good to I loaded some .024" wire in the Miller 211 and stitched it back together. A little smoothing up with a die grinder and a flappy disk and some black paint and you can hardly tell it was molested. Now it fits really well, at least to my eyes. Next I'll get the hood on and see how it fits up to the new fenders.
Going to be a few days though, as I have my niece's JD LA125 mower to work on, and it's damn near a basket case, used, abused and left out on the weather year round. Looks like the mower deck had had a pulley failure of some sort, haven't gotten to that yet, just got finished servicing the engine, including replacing the fuel pump and fixing an oil leak. What a friggin' mess! All four tires are the originals, and leak like seives, so those are getting changed too.
I'll get pictures of the fenders on the car tomorrow and post them.

 

[BravoXray]

After getting the fenders and hood aligned and fitting well, my friend came over and we worked on fixing a few dents in the right fender and hood made during shipping. When he gets more time, we're going to start priming and block sanding them. The quarter panels, trunk and doors have been blocked out already.

 

[goeduck]

Excellent work, looking forward to seeing more

 

[BravoXray]

Finally a little progress today. We got all the dents in the hood repaired that the trucking company put in it, and got it primed and block sanded out. Also filled in a low area above the left sail panel and got the left quarter primed. I'm going to pull the front fenders next week and scuff them for priming.
My painter friend priming the hood.

 

[BravoXray]

Been working on getting the front fenders and rear quarters sanded and ready for primer and block sanding. I even got the insides of the front fenders sanded so they can be primed and then painted black. Brian has the hood block sanded and is ready for another coat of primer. Found another low area on the right side sail panel/roof junction that needs some filler. Got the right rear quarter sanded out and didn't see any problem areas so far. We'll see after we get it primed, a guide coat on it and block sand it out.
Probably going to remove the subframe soon so I can get the body back on the rotisserie which will make it easier to work on.

 

[dodge man]

The most important part of a paint job, block sanding. I’ve seen cars with great paint but it’s just wavy because of not block sanding it well. I had a buddy whose joke was “they block sanded it with a spoon”. Enjoy!

 

[BravoXray]

The most important part of a paint job, block sanding. I’ve seen cars with great paint but it’s just wavy because of not block sanding it well. I had a buddy whose joke was “they block sanded it with a spoon”. Enjoy!

We used to see a canary yellow '70 Chevelle at some of the cruise-ins locally. From a distance it looked really nice, but up close, especially when you looked down the side of the car it looked like a roller coaster track. Even the hood and trunk lid had pretty obvious dips and bumps. My two painter/body men friends were amazed that someone would spens that much time on a paint job and not make it right, because otherwise the paint job was very good.

 

[arrow]

Did you say what color you're painting this thing?
In my mind there are just two valid colors in my world for this car and one of them isn't about "factory" color.
Also for the sake of muscle car mankind, please don't add a vinyl roof.

 

[goeduck]

I never understood vinyl roofs either.

 

[arrow]

I never understood vinyl roofs either.

Vinyl roofs were first added to what was termed "luxury cars". This action besmacked the aspect of "if it had the appearance of some animal hide, it had to be luxurious".
Then Detroit got crazy and thought the aspect should be overlapped to just about any car to increase its "value look" and thus the vinyl on Chevy 2's and other cars.
This was the result of people in high places that just didn't get the "what is a muscle car supposed to look like?" question.
It was like putting ketchup on "corn on the cob" because you know, ketchup makes everything taste better and a vinyl roof "makes everything look better".
My reverence for a 396 Nova doing 12.5 in the quarter is not enhanced in any sort of way if it is adorned with a vinyl roof. As a matter of fact, it detracts such from me.

 

[BravoXray]

Did you say what color you're painting this thing?
In my mind there are just two valid colors in my world for this car and one of them isn't about "factory" color.
Also for the sake of muscle car mankind, please don't add a vinyl roof.

I'm taking it back to the original color, Cortez Silver. When I bought it, it was a Chevy maroon color. While working on the doors, there were layers of a light metallic blue over the original silver.
And sorry, but it originally had a vinyl top, which amazingly was still on it after the paint color changes, which I am going to replace.
Here is a picture of it when I bought it.

Here is a picture of another Nova the same color as I'm going to paint mine, with the (gasp!) black vinyl roof.

 

[BravoXray]

Brian and I worked on sanding and priming some more yesterday. We'll get it eventually, one panel at a time. I got it back on the rotisserie, will make it easier to do sanding and painting on the body panels.