exwestracer
11-16-2011, 06:13 PM
11/27, see post #29 for details on a slight edit I made to part 2.
Just one o' those days….
Things hadn't been going well…my mom dying, the wife's ongoing legal problems with work, dealing with ******* contractors in trying to get the storm damage on the house fixed, the customer rod project not going according to plan…it was all building up to an explosion. Around 2pm I said "the hell with it" and started to head in for a beer and some couch time. For some reason, my eyes were drawn to the tarp-covered shape lurking at the back of the shop. I stopped, thought it over, and it seemed that there could never be a better day for some "therapy"…
"Old Paint"…I know, sounds like a stupid name for a car; more like something you would call a horse. But in a way it was a perfect name for THIS car. through all the turmoil and changes my life has gone through in the past 10 years, Old paint was always there, just like that faithful animal. Old Paint is a 1970 Nova that I built when I quit racing supermodifeds. I had a lot of really trick parts laying around, and one of my former students had made me an offer I couldn't refuse…a Nova shell free for the taking when he decided he really wanted a Camaro instead. Must be nice…In all my 57 years, I've never had that luxury. It was always one car and I really couldn't ever afford even that. 15 years racing supermodifieds made sure I didn't have to worry about what to do with my extra cash.
Then one night at Oswego Speedway, the super was destroyed, and I decided I just didn't want to start over again…so that was it. The engine survived fine, just a few broken externals, but what in the hell do you do with a 905hp, 480" injected big-block Chevy, a bunch of circle track racing parts…and a free 1970 Nova?
So, 8 months later Old Paint…the eBay, Speedway garage sale, barter special first roared to life in my shop. I hadn't named the car that at first, it sort of developed on it's own, as the car steered me through two moves, two wives and 2 girlfriends, and a remarkable amount of death around me. I built it as a "therapy" car…street "legal", but not daily driveable…safe, but not legal for any particular class of racing.
I pulled the race engine apart and milled 10cc off the piston domes to take the compression down to what I could get away with running race gas instead of the Methanol that powered the super. For about 10 sec i thought about swapping in a smaller cam…after all .765 / 308 is ridiculous for a street car, but that cam was perfect for that engine, and I knew exactly when and how i was gonna use the car, so it stayed. So did the Crower 3" mechanical fuel injection. I'd spent enough years with it to have it dialed in exactly the way I wanted, and I knew I could live with it on the street…for short periods anyway.
The supermod's quickchange axle got converted to a road race setup and attached to a pair of swap meet Flex-a Form leaf springs. I added a top link and a pair of Carrera shocks off the race car. Keep it simple, stupid…
The Nova front stub was long gone, but I had something different in mind anyway. I built a new front half out of 2X3 and welded it to the floor pan. The front suspension and brakes were all stock car stuff I raided out of my friends' shops or built to suit. The race car had a power rack, and even the hoses were the right length to fit the Nova, so I thought what the hell… I'm no spring chicken anymore.
I swapped my 30deg layover dry sump pan for an upright unit, thanks to a new player in the supermod game who wanted to play the center of gravity game. That let me set the engine in the car REALLY low, so much so that only the top 3" of the injector stacks stuck out of the hood. I was always going to go back and do a cleaner job with the hood hole, but never got around to it…
Since we build roll cages as part of the class I teach, it wasn't hard to get a 10 point full length cage put in the car, tying in the front and rear suspension and stiffening up the center of the car as well.
My memories are interrupted by the squawwwk of the hinges as I open the driver's door. Funny, I hadn't even realized i took the tarp off… Not much to look at inside, just a stock car wheel attached to a chrome-moy column, 3 pedals and the shifter for the XTrac sequential 5 speed. Ah yes, the trans…sort of the car's dirty little secret (well, one of them anyway). I recall the Cooper sports racer I repaired/prepped, and the day I delivered it to the customer. He had recently bought out a modern SCCA Trans-Am team, and among all the spares were 3 of those XTrac boxes. When the customer asked what the bill was, I could only stare and point. No questions asked, I went home with an empty trailer, an empty wallet, and an Xtrac on the passengers floor of the truck.
To say the interior is spartan is an understatement…I did put some cheap carpeting and insulation in; to cover up the frame welds and keep some exhaust heat out. Those 3 1/2" pipes are CLOSE to the floor. There is only one seat; this car is mine to experience…alone. That seat. I can't help but grin when I look at it. It's an OLD tube frame Corbeau that I was given almost 40 years ago for one of my first race cars. Since then, it's been in every car it was legal to use in, and every hot rod and street machine I've ever owned. That seat was SO comfortable that I fabbed up a frame for it and used it for years as furniture in the family room during the off-season. It's still comfortable; 30 lb, a sciatic nerve, and 2 bad discs later.
Yup, today is one of those days… I move a few things to clear the way to the shop door and head off for the air tank and a jug of fuel. It's been way too long. I key the trunk open and recall that I was also going to put in a set of pins to hold the trunk shut since the car hasn't had an ignition lock or door keys in a decade. Somehow, the trunk key never got lost or broken, so the lock stayed. I disconnect the battery tenders from the 2 truck batteries mounted low behind each rear wheel, and pour 5 gallons of race gas in the fuel cell. I never do much maintenance on the car, but draining the fuel system is something I've always managed to be religious about.
The big Potenza RE01s are a little low, but I continue to be amazed at these tires. They're the only ones the car has ever worn, they're still in good shape, and they've never gone flat, even in those sad periods of long disuse.
I notice my palms are sweating a little as I cap the last valve stem. I always get like this, and that's a good thing, because it's why I built this car in the first place. A capful of gas down the stacks and I slide stiffly over the X bars and into the seat. MAin power switch on, electric supply pump on…that whining piece of **** IS going to get changed one of these days… bump bump the shifter to make sure it's in neutral, mag switch ON, and push..the..button.
The diesel pickup starter laughs at the 4.500 bore and 14:1 compression, and the damn thing does the same thing as always; explodes to life like a 50 cal going off outside the windshield. The cheap Summit multi gauge / tach combo shows me 80 psi oil pressure and I'm holding the idle smooth at 1500 rpm.
All my friends laughed when I put silicone on all the front sheetmetal mating surfaces, but I'm sitting here listening to the air rushing in the stacks and the gear drive moaning softly under the cannon blast of the 36" long gravel filled homemade glass pack mufflers that sit crossways under the trunk floor. There's another dirty little secret…that's gonna stay secret.
A couple minutes later and the engine is starting to show some temp. Foot off the gas, and the engine settles down to a sweet cackle and thump at 1000rpm. This is almost good enough…almost. I slam the door and feel the slight rattle of the floaters as I disengage the bronze faced triple disc clutch. Bump. 1st gear and just that much throttle, and we're off…with the wump..wump..wump jerk typical of big torque and tiny clutches.
Clutch in at the door and a couple jabs at the throttle just for the hell of it. Nothing revs like an injected big block with an 8lb flywheel. Bump. Neutral and let it roll back against the lip of the garage pad; I climb out to throw another 5gal jugs of fuel at it. You never know how long this kinda thing is gonna take…
A quick glance under the hood, but it's always weeped a tiny bit of oil from that same spot, and nowhere else. Oil temp is 160, and I'm ready.
Just one o' those days….
Things hadn't been going well…my mom dying, the wife's ongoing legal problems with work, dealing with ******* contractors in trying to get the storm damage on the house fixed, the customer rod project not going according to plan…it was all building up to an explosion. Around 2pm I said "the hell with it" and started to head in for a beer and some couch time. For some reason, my eyes were drawn to the tarp-covered shape lurking at the back of the shop. I stopped, thought it over, and it seemed that there could never be a better day for some "therapy"…
"Old Paint"…I know, sounds like a stupid name for a car; more like something you would call a horse. But in a way it was a perfect name for THIS car. through all the turmoil and changes my life has gone through in the past 10 years, Old paint was always there, just like that faithful animal. Old Paint is a 1970 Nova that I built when I quit racing supermodifeds. I had a lot of really trick parts laying around, and one of my former students had made me an offer I couldn't refuse…a Nova shell free for the taking when he decided he really wanted a Camaro instead. Must be nice…In all my 57 years, I've never had that luxury. It was always one car and I really couldn't ever afford even that. 15 years racing supermodifieds made sure I didn't have to worry about what to do with my extra cash.
Then one night at Oswego Speedway, the super was destroyed, and I decided I just didn't want to start over again…so that was it. The engine survived fine, just a few broken externals, but what in the hell do you do with a 905hp, 480" injected big-block Chevy, a bunch of circle track racing parts…and a free 1970 Nova?
So, 8 months later Old Paint…the eBay, Speedway garage sale, barter special first roared to life in my shop. I hadn't named the car that at first, it sort of developed on it's own, as the car steered me through two moves, two wives and 2 girlfriends, and a remarkable amount of death around me. I built it as a "therapy" car…street "legal", but not daily driveable…safe, but not legal for any particular class of racing.
I pulled the race engine apart and milled 10cc off the piston domes to take the compression down to what I could get away with running race gas instead of the Methanol that powered the super. For about 10 sec i thought about swapping in a smaller cam…after all .765 / 308 is ridiculous for a street car, but that cam was perfect for that engine, and I knew exactly when and how i was gonna use the car, so it stayed. So did the Crower 3" mechanical fuel injection. I'd spent enough years with it to have it dialed in exactly the way I wanted, and I knew I could live with it on the street…for short periods anyway.
The supermod's quickchange axle got converted to a road race setup and attached to a pair of swap meet Flex-a Form leaf springs. I added a top link and a pair of Carrera shocks off the race car. Keep it simple, stupid…
The Nova front stub was long gone, but I had something different in mind anyway. I built a new front half out of 2X3 and welded it to the floor pan. The front suspension and brakes were all stock car stuff I raided out of my friends' shops or built to suit. The race car had a power rack, and even the hoses were the right length to fit the Nova, so I thought what the hell… I'm no spring chicken anymore.
I swapped my 30deg layover dry sump pan for an upright unit, thanks to a new player in the supermod game who wanted to play the center of gravity game. That let me set the engine in the car REALLY low, so much so that only the top 3" of the injector stacks stuck out of the hood. I was always going to go back and do a cleaner job with the hood hole, but never got around to it…
Since we build roll cages as part of the class I teach, it wasn't hard to get a 10 point full length cage put in the car, tying in the front and rear suspension and stiffening up the center of the car as well.
My memories are interrupted by the squawwwk of the hinges as I open the driver's door. Funny, I hadn't even realized i took the tarp off… Not much to look at inside, just a stock car wheel attached to a chrome-moy column, 3 pedals and the shifter for the XTrac sequential 5 speed. Ah yes, the trans…sort of the car's dirty little secret (well, one of them anyway). I recall the Cooper sports racer I repaired/prepped, and the day I delivered it to the customer. He had recently bought out a modern SCCA Trans-Am team, and among all the spares were 3 of those XTrac boxes. When the customer asked what the bill was, I could only stare and point. No questions asked, I went home with an empty trailer, an empty wallet, and an Xtrac on the passengers floor of the truck.
To say the interior is spartan is an understatement…I did put some cheap carpeting and insulation in; to cover up the frame welds and keep some exhaust heat out. Those 3 1/2" pipes are CLOSE to the floor. There is only one seat; this car is mine to experience…alone. That seat. I can't help but grin when I look at it. It's an OLD tube frame Corbeau that I was given almost 40 years ago for one of my first race cars. Since then, it's been in every car it was legal to use in, and every hot rod and street machine I've ever owned. That seat was SO comfortable that I fabbed up a frame for it and used it for years as furniture in the family room during the off-season. It's still comfortable; 30 lb, a sciatic nerve, and 2 bad discs later.
Yup, today is one of those days… I move a few things to clear the way to the shop door and head off for the air tank and a jug of fuel. It's been way too long. I key the trunk open and recall that I was also going to put in a set of pins to hold the trunk shut since the car hasn't had an ignition lock or door keys in a decade. Somehow, the trunk key never got lost or broken, so the lock stayed. I disconnect the battery tenders from the 2 truck batteries mounted low behind each rear wheel, and pour 5 gallons of race gas in the fuel cell. I never do much maintenance on the car, but draining the fuel system is something I've always managed to be religious about.
The big Potenza RE01s are a little low, but I continue to be amazed at these tires. They're the only ones the car has ever worn, they're still in good shape, and they've never gone flat, even in those sad periods of long disuse.
I notice my palms are sweating a little as I cap the last valve stem. I always get like this, and that's a good thing, because it's why I built this car in the first place. A capful of gas down the stacks and I slide stiffly over the X bars and into the seat. MAin power switch on, electric supply pump on…that whining piece of **** IS going to get changed one of these days… bump bump the shifter to make sure it's in neutral, mag switch ON, and push..the..button.
The diesel pickup starter laughs at the 4.500 bore and 14:1 compression, and the damn thing does the same thing as always; explodes to life like a 50 cal going off outside the windshield. The cheap Summit multi gauge / tach combo shows me 80 psi oil pressure and I'm holding the idle smooth at 1500 rpm.
All my friends laughed when I put silicone on all the front sheetmetal mating surfaces, but I'm sitting here listening to the air rushing in the stacks and the gear drive moaning softly under the cannon blast of the 36" long gravel filled homemade glass pack mufflers that sit crossways under the trunk floor. There's another dirty little secret…that's gonna stay secret.
A couple minutes later and the engine is starting to show some temp. Foot off the gas, and the engine settles down to a sweet cackle and thump at 1000rpm. This is almost good enough…almost. I slam the door and feel the slight rattle of the floaters as I disengage the bronze faced triple disc clutch. Bump. 1st gear and just that much throttle, and we're off…with the wump..wump..wump jerk typical of big torque and tiny clutches.
Clutch in at the door and a couple jabs at the throttle just for the hell of it. Nothing revs like an injected big block with an 8lb flywheel. Bump. Neutral and let it roll back against the lip of the garage pad; I climb out to throw another 5gal jugs of fuel at it. You never know how long this kinda thing is gonna take…
A quick glance under the hood, but it's always weeped a tiny bit of oil from that same spot, and nowhere else. Oil temp is 160, and I'm ready.