'72 Nova Project

[DeathStarr89]

I bought this for myself on fathers day to be a project for our family to work on. We've got lots of plans for it and plenty of time since I set a 5 year goal.

Specs: '72 Nova, healthy 355 SBC (350-400 HP). Built TH350 with very low miles, 2500 stall. Ford 9" with 4.11's. Manual Drum brakes on all 4 corners, Bench seat. Typical rust but solid for a midwest car.

I drove it home for $5500.

It'll get modern front brakes with a power master, few suspension/chassis/interior upgrades and after the rust repair we're going to re-paint it Hugger Orange.



Pics;

 

[fowler]

Ha ha nice

Looks good

 

[landuse]

Nice. To me it looks good just the way it is.

 

[souperman000]

looks very clean. Nice deal!

 

[J_Walker]

Repaint it orange?! WHY!? Don't do that! I Like the yellow! you don't see much yellow cars on the road any more... any reason why you're gonna repaint? body paneling looks fine.

 

[exenos]

I agree, the yellow looks good.

 

[DeathStarr89]

Pics are forgiving. Haha.

The DS front fender has a small rust hole along with bubbling. Both doors have some surface rust under the paint. Need to clean up the door gaps and overall panel alignment. Any work like that is going to need body work after.

Up close you can see some paint mis-match from some previous work. Thats kind of annoying. Lol.

 

[J_Walker]

Pics are forgiving. Haha.

The DS front fender has a small rust hole along with bubbling. Both doors have some surface rust under the paint. Need to clean up the door gaps and overall panel alignment. Any work like that is going to need body work after.

Up close you can see some paint mis-match from some previous work. Thats kind of annoying. Lol.

Well then.. take the paint back down, and try to get a factory match? That color and those decals are pretty neat.. I would try to keep it stock looking. Plus im not a big fan of orange anyway... I'd do brown before orange.

 

[newrider3]

Eh, it looks like some kind of taxi with that paint scheme...

 

[DeathStarr89]

Original colors were a pea green base with a white vinyl top. Had a 307 with a column shift auto. lol

The stripes are just vinyl, you guys will have to trust me on the work needed. I'm probably just going to buy 2 new front fenders. I think i can patch the doors but until i blast them i won't know for sure.

Outside body work is going to be several years down the road. This weekend i took care of the rest of the wiring issues in the engine bay. I think getting disk brakes up front and a power booster installed will be next. After that i'll weld in new floor pans and get bucket seats installed.

Safety first, then comfort, then power (Probably a LS/T56 swap), then appearance.

It's already capable of 12's in the 1/4 mile which is plenty for a street car with kids in the back seat. lol

 

[exenos]

Na, you've got that all wrong. Power, Comfort, Safety, Appearance ( Ok, so you got the appearance part right ) Hate the "All show and now go" vehicles.

 

[DeathStarr89]

lol

Might be trading my manual brake setup for a power booster this weekend from a guy here at work. I also found a set of LS1 Camaro brakes with the correct spindles for this car locally. Only problem is that they won't clear my 14" rims. Working on a solution for that as well.

 

[exenos]

You're still going to stick with period correct rims, right?

 

[DeathStarr89]

TBD...

I took it out on the highway yesterday, it was at about 3500 RPM @ 65 MPH. If i stuffed a taller tire under the back i could get that down a little. Nothing bigger than a 17" rim and a 45-55 series tire though.

Tires for 14" rims are getting very hard to find these days, these are in good shape for now though.

I built a whole new exhaust this weekend, sounds 1000x better now. 2.5" pipe from the headers back to a pair of Hooker Aerochambers, over the axles and dumped just behind the rear tires. Pretty much the stock layout for duals on these cars.

Once i get some time to edit the videos i'll post up a before and after.

 

[exenos]

You could also re-gear the axle. 3500@ 65mph sounds like you have 4.10's in there.

 

[machinist@large]

Decision, decisions....

You could also re-gear the axle. 3500@ 65mph sounds like you have 4.10's in there.

Sounds like you're right; I would guess 4.10's as well. The big question is what he'd like to do with the car; if he want's some serious track times, keeping the current setup is a good place to start. If he's looking for a street machine with long distance cruzing in mind, then a swap might be in order.......

 

[exenos]

It sounds like this will be more of a cruiser than a track star so 3.55's would probably be a good compromise. Our truck moves pretty good for a 300hp 6000# block with 3.55 gears in the back end.

 

[DeathStarr89]

It's got a 9" with 4.11's and 215.60.14 tires. they're roughly 23.5" tall. Just getting up to about 28" tall would be a nice change. It does great burnouts right now though.. lol

I got a free power brake booster yesterday, hoping to get that installed tonight and maybe take it out for a drive.

 

[OzFab]

I built a whole new exhaust this weekend, sounds 1000x better now. 2.5" pipe from the headers back to a pair of Hooker Aerochambers, over the axles and dumped just behind the rear tires. Pretty much the stock layout for duals on these cars.

Ironically, over here, we call them "Chevy drops"

It's got a 9" with 4.11's and 215.60.14 tires. they're roughly 23.5" tall. Just getting up to about 28" tall would be a nice change.

That will also throw out your speedometer...

 

[DeathStarr89]

lol, it's off by about 15 MPH now... bigger tires should help get it closer to normal.