New "family" Project car

[Superdave]

I picked up this '72 Nova off of CL this weekend as a fathers day present/new family project.







It's got a decent 355, Fresh TH350 with a kit and a Ford 9" with 4.11's. Runs/drives great. Has some rust and some small mechanical things to fix but overall it's pretty solid.



One of the first things to go are going to be the front drum brakes, it'll get some moderate disks and a power booster (currently manual). After that it'll be rust repair, Redoing the interior and an eventual re-paint Hugger orange.



And no.. i won't be putting a V6 in it...



I'll be selling the Camaro as a roller soon, gotta try to recoup some of what i put into it.

[norotor]

Excellent score, Dave. Hugger orange is a great color choice. I recommend white interior.

Jesse

[ieatz28]

Sweet..Love me some novas.. although if you ask certain people I'm a low life life so my opinion doesn't count..lol

[Superdave]

^lol

Spent the evening fixing random wiring issues. Found a few things that concern me, hopefully the rest of the car hasn't been messed with too much over the years.

[ieatz28]

Should do the yenko stripes when you paint it.. first muscle car I ever rode in was a 72 nova ss my brother had.. it was mean.. 12 bolt with 4.56'$ a muncie and a nicely built 350.. would've been an 11 sec car if he could've gotten traction, but bias plys in the 80's were cheap so he went through a set about once a month..lol

[Superdave]

Just a list of what i've been up to since this topic started.. and a recent pic.


Installed my WMS wideband to help with tuning
Replaced the worn out HEI with a brand new Pertronix flame thrower
Converted to power brakes with a booster from a '70 Chevelle
All new mandrel bent 2.5" exhaust with an X pipe and Hooker Aerochambers
Replaced all the body bushings and hardware with Prothane Poly/Grade 8 hardware.
Installed Summit Subframe braces
Replaced all the front end bushings with poly from Prothane
Replaced a bad ball joint.
Cut 1 coil off of each front spring
Modified and installed some Lakewood slapper bars (had to build lower shock mounts on them).
Replaced the truck rear shocks with correct KYB's
Picked up some new wheels (17x9 rears, 17x8 front) American Racing TT2's
Rear tires are 275.40.17's, Fronts are 245.45.17's
Relocated rear shocks inboard for tire clearance
Built new upper shock mounts
Trimmed out rear inner fenders and patched for tire clearance
Trimmed out front inner fenders for tire clearance
Replaced more sections of cracked fuel line and a failed fuel filter
Continued the carb tuning adventure, getting closer....
Needs an alignment bad, hopefully within the next few weeks.

Pic from the other day;

[darkfiregt]

Sweet man. And good progress.

[Deleted]

100% better already! Very cool!

[vadorsnake04]

Looking good.

[norotor]

Black vinyl top and no stripes and this thing would be friggin awesome!

Nice find and good looking progress.
Jesse

[vadorsnake04]

Sept 7, 2013 8:26:20 GMT -6 norotor said:

Black vinyl top and no stripes and this thing would be friggin awesome!

Nice find and good looking progress.
Jesse

+1

[nomrlz]

nice solid ride.
only bad choice so far was ditching the slots

[Superdave]

Thanks guys, It's been a fun one so far...


nomrlz, i still have them if you know someone who is interested

I actually liked them but when the brake upgrades start there is just no way they'd clear.

[Superdave]

So at today's track rental here are the problems that showed up...

Pre-Track, troubleshooting a missfire and found 2 bad plug wires and 1 cracked spark plug. Easy fix just to cut/re-crimp the plug wires and replace the plugs they were on (Carbon tracing on both was bad).



First arrived: 4 day old starter from Summit, Gear jammed itself to the flexplate. I checked the spacing on install, was within spec. Fixed that fairly quick...

1st run:
-Front drum brakes grab uneven, almost went into the right wall at 90 mph
-The Ford 9" starts to whine about 40, and growl at 80
-Some random squeal that almost sounds like tires rubbing, but no evidence of that

We bumped up the base timing to 17 degrees after run 2, that's when it all went downhill.

After that, every launch and the car fell on it's face. Wideband showed really rich (10:1) then extremely lean (about 19:1). Timing changes did nothing.

After a while we noticed that the fuel filter was so hot that it might be vaporlocking. I think that would make the most sense, the steel stock 5/16" fuel line is right next to the header and the post-pump lines are laying on the block. There is no fuel return line.


Then after a re-start at the staging lane, my starter stuck in the flexplate again.


Good thing I have a fridge full of beer, it's been a long day.



On a good note, I drove it there... kinda raced... and back in 1 piece. Highway MPG: 7

[s8er01z]

7 mpg? Holy hell lol...good luck man.. I know all about things not going right. Sounds like a bunch of small things on your end.. Hope you get it all figured out.

[vadorsnake04]

I seen you drove it to and from the track with the stickies in the trunk. Thought that was very cool.

[Superdave]

I guess I should update this thread.

This spring so far I've freshened up the engine with a set of ported World Products "Sportsman 2" heads and port matched + cut the divider wall on my RPM intake. Heads are 2.08/1.6 200cc runner / 64cc chamber. With .020 headgaskets my SCR is now about 10.5:1 (Up from 9.2:1). DD2K3 shows about an 80 HP gain, my calibrated butt dyno says that's close. Should now be well over 400 HP, hauls ass for sure.

Also been working on lots of other small things to make it more reliable and have less rattles.



Still have some driveline vibration above 50 MPH, going to check the angles and maybe shim the rear end next weekend. Hopefully it's nothing serious.