Before I get into this, I want to mention that I have almost all of the receipts and information about the parts purchased for the motor, and some for other parts as well. I will provide all of that to the buyer.
I purchased this car while in High School back in 1998. It became a project for me and my father. First we removed the 350 that was in the car, and dropped in a 400 small block. It has 6-inch eagle rods with ARP rod bolts, Kieth Black Hyperutectic aluminum flat top pistons. We used Albert $ Childs chrome rings/zero gap rings. The heads are somewhat stock 2.02/1.60 heads with roller rockers, hardened push rods, and anti pump up lifters. Final compression ratio was 10.25/1. The rotating assembly was all balanced. Bottom end is very strong. I believe the block was also decked a bit, but I'm not 100% certain on that. We used a mild street cam from Comp Cams, lift is .510. I do have the cam spec card and can email a copy if interested. It also has Headman headers, an aluminum intake, and an Accel Blueprint Electronic distributor. The carb was nothing special, just some Holley 650 we had laying around the shop. We cooled it with an aluminum radiator, a makeshift oil cooler, and a 7 quart Moroso oil pan. I believe the motor has a lot of potential in the right hands, and doesn't have many miles on it.
The drivetrain includes a Powerglide rebuilt with a very aggressive manual valve body, transmission break, improved clutchs (and more of them) and a hardened input shaft (after we twisted the original in half). We also installed a stall converter from TCI, I believe the stall is around 3,000rpm or slightly less. It has heavy duty U-joints and a Ford rear end with posi-track. We also installed bucket seats in the front to make room for the Hurst shifter. The tranny break is operated with a button on top of the shifter. These old Novas had a Uni-body, so Competition Engineering chassis braces and leaf spring hangars were installed, which stiffened up the chassis and relocated the leaf spring mounts inward slightly. This allows for the use of a bigger tire/wheel if desired, although the wheel wells would need to be cut to go much bigger than 10 inches, but that is pretty easy.
To add a bit more about the History of the car, I am not sure how many owners it had before me, but the body/interior was definitely in a lot better condition back in 1998 than it is now. I went to away to college in 2001 and left the car with my father, who left it sitting in his front yard. He lives in Carlsbad, NM which is pretty dry desert. The nice paint job was literally sand blasted and the interior took it's share of the beating as well. My father is a High School teacher, and is also friends with the Auto shop teacher. Last year he let the auto shop teacher pick the car up, and the students did a lot of work on it. They removed the gas tank and cleaned it out, kitted the carb, and did some work on the front end. They replaced a lot of bushings and parts in the front end, and did a break job. They removed the steering wheel to install a new turn signal switch and didn't put the wheel back on straight, which is slightly annoying but only cosmetic. They also installed the rear end described above along with the Competition Engineering chassis braces and leaf spring hangars. After this, I decided to go rescue it from the desert. I live in Plano, TX so it was quite an exciting drive to say the least. I made it home, but I also learned a lot about the current condition of the car along the way.
The best thing about this car is probably the motor. As I said above, it runs strong and has a lot of potential given the right tuning. It would become a real monster with a better set of heads/intake/carb. The mileage on the car itself is not correct, as it was reset when the motor was rebuilt. Even though that was 16 years ago, the motor only has about 5000 miles on it. The worst thing about the car is that it does need a lot of work and cleaning up, granted a lot of it is small/easy things. Imagine what happens to a car sitting in the desert for that long. The trim around the windows needs replacing, that kind of stuff. There is a short somewhere, likely something simple, which requires the battery to be unhooked when parking the car for long periods. Also, I believe the transmission is due for a rebuild soon. We were a bit naive when installing such an aggressive manual valve body. It was likely a little to strong for daily street use. It has started to wear on the clutches. This has only become noticeable in the last few days. It's not bad yet and will remain driveable for some time. The only time there is slippage is when under power and shifting, so it's easily maintained at the moment. If you are an interested buyer and planning to race or drive it a lot, it will need a rebuild soon. There's no sugar coating that. As for the rest of the car, the body is in pretty good shape considering what it has been through, there's a few small cancer spots low on the doors but very easy to fix. I am limited with the pictures that I can post here, but I will email any picture you desire. Just request it and I will send within 12 hours (likely less).
Chevrolet Nova for Sale
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Tue, Oct 20 2015
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Thu, Jun 11 2015
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Thu, Jan 21 2016
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