74 Nova, "Trogdor the Burninator"

[SRD art]

Hey guys, I had a spare minute and plans have begun for my Nova so I decided to get a thread started. The Nova's name is "Trogdor the Burninator". As for the name, yes it's strange, but has a funny background too. I borrowed it from the Home Star Runner website, specifically a Strong Bad email- http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail58.html Well, my car is green like a dragon and he'll go along "burninating the country side" so the name seemed to fit. If you ever have a bunch of time to waste, check out all of Strong Bad's emails, they're mostly pretty funny and loaded with stupid humor we motor heads usually enjoy. Hopefully Strong Bad won't mind me borrowing the name, I give full credit to him and his creator. I just think it's cool.

My g-body wagon project has taken a lot of time and effort over the last 3 years to get it where it is. I have a little more to go on the suspension and then it turns to visual- interior and exterior up grades. I will continue to work on it and it will also remain my daily driver for now. I've owned my Nova for about 10 years. I put it together within about a year of first buying it, set up as a street/ strip car. Since then it's spent most of it's life broken and in storage. Once the wagon was done, I planned to go through it again and make it appear to be one of the last big block powered COPO factory racers but as most of you can relate, once you taste the corners it's hard to go back to straight line.

Around '2004 I broke two trannies and the rear axle within a few months, so frustrated and with no more $ to spend on it, I put it in the garage. Now that I'm working at Speed Tech it's time to do something with it. Ultimately I want to have a decent track car that is able to still be street driven. I'm not worried about comfortability; light, fast, and nimble will be the goals here.

A huge motivation for this project is that I'm so sick of people downgrading 73 and 74 Novas because they have "big bumpers". I thought most guys like big booties! ;) lol! Seriously though, even though it's essentially the same car as a 68-72, history shows 73 and 74 Novas to be amongst the most unpopular in the hot rodding world, despite their sales were apparently higher than any other year Nova. I remember once reading a caption under a photo of a 73 Nova at the back of a Hot Rod mag. This particular Nova was turned into a 4x4 mud racer and was half buried in the mud. IIRC The caption ripped on the fact that someone would turn a Nova into a mud racer, but then went on to say, "At least it was one of the UGLY ones." Pbbbbbft! Interesting too, for all us scale model builders, you can find a model of pretty much every year Nova, at least every generation including the disco era Novas, EXCEPT a 73 or 74. How dumb is that? Well, for all you fat bumper Nova owners, our time has come. [Start singing the Trogdor song here...]

Here's my concept artwork. After several design changes in my head and on paper I finally decided on this idea. It utilizes the original factory green paint color with a Baldwin Motion inspired, yet slightly different, black stripe. It will be powered by my old school drag race prepped 406 small block Chevy which has a little over 550 hp at the flywheel, will have a very aggressive stance and a well designed suspension system. More to come...

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/01/73Trogdor28-1.jpg

[The Am1nal]

cant wait!

[srh3trinity]

If you get close to the rendering, you will change some minds of the disco bumper haters. I like the look a lot. I have my eye on a 74 Ventura to fit in with my 74 Firebird.

[craigs73]

thats gonna be a nice car.....im looking at going with green on my 73... cant wait to see it progress.......

[cornfedbill]

I love it.

Take a look at the weight bias on the big bumper Novas. They are not too bad. It does not take much to get them to 50/50 if you try.

Now I guess I need to pick up the pace on my big bumper Nova before you pass me up.

[Rhino]

Came purely for the Strong Bad reference; was not disappointed.

Your rendering, however, displays a profound lack of consummate V's. :)

[Jimmypetersfit]

Ben,
That Nova is gonna be killer! Also i love the old home star runner references, that stuff used to crack me up! Hey, do you know of any good 73-74 doors that are available? Im looking to do a single window swp on my 72.

[SRD art]

Your rendering, however, displays a profound lack of consummate V's. :)

Buwahahah, lol!!!

Thanks guys.

Bill- my car has fiberglass front bumper, hood, fenders, lexan windows, and 'glass deck lid. Because it's a 74 and has the really big bumpers, I'm probably going to get the slightly smaller 73 fiberglass rear bumper too. With all the light weight stuff I'm not sure how the weight bias will be. We have a set of scales here at work so I can basically make it 50/50.

srh- Changing minds is what it's all about. A Ventura would be cool! If I had the coin I'd have one of each of the X bodies. The Ventura would be pro toured with an LS with GTO coil covers, GTO seats and Year One 17" Pontiac rallies IIs. Shoot me a pm when you find one and start a build thread.

Craig- the factory green is not really that pretty, which makes it all the better. Dragons are supposed to be mean and nasty, not pretty. ;) I think I may have seen a build for your car on Steve's site, do you have 315's on Torque thrusts out back and new 1/4s?

Jimmy- Thanks! I don't have any spare doors but if I come across some I'll let you know. Blake's Nova here at Speed Tech has the 73/4 doors and it really cleaned up the look. Check it out on speedtechperformance.com

[ent72olds]

Ben....badass for sure! Love the rendering....so you made it back home now?:cool::cool:

[SRD art]

OK, so let's start from the beginning. Back in '92 I was living in SE Florida and I built a sleeper 73 4 door Nova for teasing Mustang and Camaro owners at cruise nights and light to light racing. That's when I first built the 406. I was basically the same motor as it is now, except that it had less compression for pump gas daily driving back then. I put a lot of effort in choosing good basic parts for this motor and it ran 11.80s @ 110 on it's own power. The only difference between track and daily driving was Firestone slicks on the rear and a 50/50 mix of pump 93 octane and 105 race gas. With all the fiberglass and glass windows it weighed 2950 without me in it. Here's a couple photos-

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/08/4drlaunch1-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/08/rcrmotr72dp-1.jpg

The car was pretty ugly and served it's sleeper purpose very well. In December '92 I left the car parked in a friend's back yard for 2 years while I left the state to do some missionary service for my church. When I got back the body was rotted and in really rough shape. Not long later in summer of '95 I left Florida to head to design school in Utah and left the car behind, stored outside again. Finally about a year later I went home and brought the car back to Utah. By this point it was really rough and I started casually looking for a 2 door body.

I found a 73 hatchback and picked it up, but decided that this one would make a better restomod driver than a drag car. I got side tracked buying a bunch of parts for the hatchback and the drag car just sat around. The hatchback has now been given to my 14 year old son, and we'll be continuing the restomod for him, here's a link- Tangermean 73 Nova (https://www.pro-touring.com/showthread.php?94010-Project-TangerMean-73-Nova-RS-Nova-teenager-build&highlight=tangermean).

About a year after the 73 came along I found this 74 on ebay, located only about 30 minutes from where I lived. The ad said it was a 6 cyl car and the motor was broken so it and the 3 speed was taken out of the car for a father / son restore project. The son went off to college and lost interest so the car was now for sale. These are the original photos from ebay.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/grndrvrsid_zpsdc848192-1.jpg https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/grnfndrclose_zpsf3ffd70b-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/grndrvrqrtr_zps4e8b543c-1.jpg https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/grninterior1_zps7e79d916-1.jpg

I didn't like the rust on it but thought it was worth inquiring about. With 2 days left on the auction and no bids I emailed the guy and asked if he'd close the auction early and sell it to me for $200 cash. Doesn't hurt to ask, right? :) He wrote back and said he had to get at least $250 for it. I about crapped my pants, and I was there the next day picking it up with my old 'Burby!

Much to my surprise, the story was the car was purchased from an old man by his friend, who gave it to his grandson for high school transportation. Somehow he managed to break the 6 cyl. so he and dad pulled the motor and trans. Then they lost interest. He told me the odometer was original mileage. As I went up to it I again about soiled my pants, it had just over 44,000 original miles! The paint, although faded, was original, the only problem with the interior was the tear you see in the photos and the dash was cracked and faded, and it still had BIAS ply snow tires on the back. Apparently the car spent a good portion of it's life just sitting in the sun which killed the paint and dash.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/grnintowsmall-1.jpg

[SRD art]

Ben....badass for sure! Love the rendering....so you made it back home now?:cool::cool:

Yep I'm back in Utah. I'll be in touch with you about the Cruiser later this week. :twothumbs

[SRD art]

The car sat at home for about 6 months and finally after graduating from school I took about 2 months to swap all the parts over from the 4 door. During this time I went through the motor and added 12.5:1 pistons, a better flowing exhaust and a larger carb to try to wake up the higher rpms. Here are a couple early photos.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/wholecar-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/74motor007-1.jpg

I did something real stupid though. I have a 12 bolt that replaced the factory 10 bolt, and something I didn't think about was the 12 has a shorter snout. My drive shaft for the 12 had a loose u-joint so instead of fixing it I put the 10 bolt drive shaft back in. I drove around town a bit and made a few 1st and 2nd gear hard launches on it and it was all good. I then took it out on a quiet back road for the first 1/4 pass. When I hit about 5500 in 3rd gear- roughly 105 mph, I felt a bad vibration and a split second later BOOM! then several bang bang bangs. I thought the motor came unglued! I got the car stopped and realized the motor was still running and holding oil pressure. I got out and looked under neath and saw the bottom half of the TH350 dragging on the ground connected only by the shifter cable. Apparently the drive shaft snout broke and let go, and even with an NHRA legal safety loop in place it ripped the trans, the drive shaft, the floor pan and my brand new 3" duals to shreds.

Drive shaft remains...

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/driveshaft_zps1ded903c-1.jpg

Damaged exhaust, and you can see where the drive shaft loop used to be flush with the floor pan.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/exhaust_zps37d24a97-1.jpg

What was left of the tranny that I picked up off the road. The rest of the parts aside from the torque converter were scattered along the side of the road somewhere never to be seen again. Needless to say the incident scared me a bit and I put the car away for about 6 months.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/parts_zps24b83e93-1.jpg

[72BBSwinger]

Love the rendering! Hate the bumpers lol! If they could get some love, the car would be amazing.

[SRD art]

Once I got my nerve up I put the car back together with a good shape used mud truck TH350 and 3800 stall from a friend who went with a different package. I also got the exhaust replaced again. This time I put the correct length drive shaft in. :twothumbs What I didn't catch was that one of the tabs on the pinion yoke had broken off from the earlier incident. Again the car drove fine around town. But, the first time I took it out for a hard pass the drive shaft slipped out of the yoke on the rear, beat the tar out of my brand new exhaust, and managed to crack the case of the new trans from side to side. At this point I was frustrated and out of money to spend on it so it got parked in the driveway and forgotten for about 4 or 5 years.

When I started hot rod school in 2010 I brought the car to the shop for my first year body work classes. I tore it down and started some body work. I was pretty green with body work and welding at the time and it was hard to get help from the professor in lab time so I did the best I could with the little knowledge I had. I didn't have much shop time to work on it so I didn't get far, and some of the stuff I did do will probably have to be re-done as my skills have gotten much better since then. After first year classes ended I brought the car back home and again it got stored, this time in the garage. My wagon took precedence for 2nd year hot rod specific classes. Build thread link on that one is in my signature below.

When we moved to GA last August the Nova went into a storage unit in Utah. Now that I'm back I'm now about 4 hours away from it which is a whole lot better than 2200 miles. I look forward to going and getting it in the next few weeks to start the next phase- preparing it for a pro-touring transformation. Below are some photos from school.

This is what it looked like the day I towed it to school. You can see where I was headed with the COPO factory racer look.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/872_zps4adaab17-1.jpg

[SRD art]

Love the rendering! Hate the bumpers lol! If they could get some love, the car would be amazing.

Thanks! Because I'm running fiberglass bumpers they'll be fairly easy to downsize. They will still look like 73 bumpers but will be subtly smaller and more proportionate to the car. :naughty:

Shots from school...

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/Beginning_zps39c60736-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/shopnova8_zps2fdb044a-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/1statschool_zpsbbb107a0-1.jpg

You can see here how much I gutted the doors when I put the lexan in. I set it up so removing one screw would allow the window to be removed for street driving.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/gutteddoors_zps9a19282c-1.jpg

From sitting in the elements the lower portion of each door had a lot of pitting and was rotted towards the front.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/doorrust1_zpsef320090-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/Driverdoor1web-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/doorrust2_zpsbfc9b9da-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/door2_zps6bcb2e15-1.jpg

I bought some patch panels to replace the whole lower portion for each door but they were so crappy I just made small patches and tried to keep as much of the factory door. Looking back now, I think the inners of the skins are probably rotted too so I'll likely end up replacing the whole skins in the future.

[SRD art]

Both sides had typical Nova rot behind the rear tires. One side had rot in front of the tire too.

Here's the passenger side behind the tire. I had to cut out a portion of the fender well and built a patch from flat sheet metal shaped to fit. Por 15 went on after welding in. Then a patch panel. Again fit wasn't the greatest. When I get the car back I'll evaluate and maybe do this part over.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/RR14a_zps4aca55de-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/RR14d_zpsfb443b22-1.jpg

Did the same process on the front side of the driver's side wheel opening.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/Lf14a_zpsfcacab85-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/Lf14c_zps3348b287-1.jpg

And on the back side of that wheel opening too.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/LR14b_zpsda7a18b1-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/LR14f_zpsa387fcb2-1.jpg

Although I didn't take photos I did get the outer sheet metal welded in on all of these areas. Pretty much after this was done I took the car home for the summer.

[SRD art]

Here's what the engine bay looked like at school...

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/firewallb4_zpsc21a3d8f-1.jpg

And after cleaning it up and repainting at home. I also bought new door pin kits and got the doors back on.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/engine1_zpsa8a62d62-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/engine2_zps74943999-1.jpg

I used a thin sheet of aluminum attached with small sheet metal screws to smooth the firewall. Now that I'm at Speed Tech I have some great fab equipment at my disposal. I will be re-doing the firewall to cover that hole where the tuning gauges used to be and smooth it out with a nice bead rolled design. I will likely be using circle track clutch and brake pedals that will keep the master cyls under the dash.

Here's the specs on the motor. It only has about 20-25 miles on it since I last went through it-

.030 400 2 bolt main (2 bolts are actually stronger on these motors)
eutectic 12.5:1 pistons on 5.7 rods
custom ground solid flat tappet cam- .562/.562 lift, 260/262 dur @ .050, 110 center and 4 deg adv.
Wolrd Products Sportsman II heads with full race port and polish
Full roller rockers, noisy gear drive
High volume/ pressure oil pump in 7 qt racing pan with windage tray and baffles
Victor Jr. intake and 850 Holley
Mallory Comp 9000 distributor, HyFire coil and ignition box, Mallory spiral wires in Moroso heat sheaths.

Desktop dyno claims 562 hp @ 6500 and 511 ft lbs at 5500. Take that with a grain of salt I suppose.

That about gets us caught up to now. When I get the car out of storage I'll start posting more photos. Thanks for tuning in!

[craigs73]

yeah ben mines got the 315s and new qtrs...its also a green color... im thinking im sticking with the green or something very close to it...i am going to smooth fire wall as well. I did however start a thread here finally....

[SRD art]

yeah ben mines got the 315s and new qtrs...its also a green color... im thinking im sticking with the green or something very close to it...i am going to smooth fire wall as well. I did however start a thread here finally....

Yeah I read through it last night. Where's the thread here again? I'd like to stay in touch with it.

[craigs73]

Yeah I read through it last night. Where's the thread here again? I'd like to stay in touch with it.


here you go.... i got to warn you tho this is a slow moving project lol
https://www.pro-touring.com/showthread.php?93722-Project-no-time&highlight=

[DCx]

lol... home star runner

[cornfedbill]

It is amazing that you were able to get your 4-door under 3000 lb. That is impressive. If you can keep the 2-door on a diet, it will be a real screamer.

I love this build - and not just because it is a lot like mine. Okay, well maybe so.

[SRD art]

Lol Bill. I think with a cage it'll up the weight a little. Aside from fiberglass doors and aluminum heads I don't think there is much more I can do to lighten it up. Glass doors worry me for a street car and the motor's good for now so $ will be focused on suspension then body and paint. I'm hoping it comes in between 28-2900 lbs.

BTW I'm building this car just to get you motivated to get yours rolling! ;)

[SRD art]

Been looking at wheels and tires. I have to keep things on the cheap side for phase one of this build too, so for now I'm looking at some FR500 replicas, 18x10 all around with 275 35 18s up front and 295 35 18s out back. I can get into a Nitto NT05 for a decent price. Maybe by the time I'm ready for the rolling stock Rivals will have dropped a bit in price too.

I'm open to suggestions from those that have tried other tires that work well...:secret:

[cornfedbill]

BTW I'm building this car just to get you motivated to get yours rolling! ;)

:poke: !!!

[85coupe50]

Damn nice car...

[SRD art]

Thanks 85. It will be one day... hopefully, lol! This one might actually get painted someday. ;)

[SRD art]

I've been thinking a lot about what route to take with this car. Since it's already gutted I pretty much have a clean slate as to what I want to do. So far I'm thinking along these items on the check list, I'm very open to any execution ideas from anyone that's done these:

I'm shooting for somewhere in the neighborhood of a 4" (?) drop over stock. The look I'm going for is similar to Billy Utley's bad [tail] Nova. I will at least eliminate body bushings, and maybe somehow drop the body over the frame. The traditional way is to cut the floor and push the rails up into the car. This would require a lot of cutting and fab work, maybe more than I want to do. Another option I've been thinking about is section the frame rails from the firewall back. I have a spare subframe so I can play with this one. Between the lack of bushings and frame section I think I could drop it close to 2". Then 2-3" in suspension drop would hit the right stance without going overboard and messing up geometry. It would also keep a somewhat decent clearance for my headers. I will probably be C notching the rear frame rails and raising part of the trunk floor above the axle too.

I'd really like to run the exhaust out of the rear quarters in front of the rear wheels, see rendering. Trouble is the leaf spring pockets are in that area too. Plans for this car are a Speed Tech torque arm which utilizes those pockets. So I was thinking to run the exhaust up into the rear seat area and out the side of the car that way, then build a new floor over it. I won't have a back seat so real estate back there is open for mods.

Thinking of shaving the drip rails too. I've done this on a 69 Camaro, but I'm not sure I've seen it done on a Nova. Have you?

I'm also thinking of building a custom dash. Nothing elaborate like the Ring Bros or Roadster shop, but something nice and clean yet functional. I will probably raise the gauge area for easier visibility of both gauges and the road while driving.

More to come...

[cornfedbill]

I'm shooting for somewhere in the neighborhood of a 4" (?) drop over stock. The look I'm going for is similar to Billy Utley's bad [tail] Nova. I will at least eliminate body bushings, and maybe somehow drop the body over the frame. The traditional way is to cut the floor and push the rails up into the car. This would require a lot of cutting and fab work, maybe more than I want to do. Another option I've been thinking about is section the frame rails from the firewall back. I have a spare subframe so I can play with this one. Between the lack of bushings and frame section I think I could drop it close to 2". Then 2-3" in suspension drop would hit the right stance without going overboard and messing up geometry. It would also keep a somewhat decent clearance for my headers. I will probably be C notching the rear frame rails and raising part of the trunk floor above the axle too.

I'd really like to run the exhaust out of the rear quarters in front of the rear wheels, see rendering. Trouble is the leaf spring pockets are in that area too. Plans for this car are a Speed Tech torque arm which utilizes those pockets. So I was thinking to run the exhaust up into the rear seat area and out the side of the car that way, then build a new floor over it. I won't have a back seat so real estate back there is open for mods.


Did you ever think of moving the lower control arm pivots up in the frame? This is the plan I am going to follow. The plan is to go up 1 inch. I will have to raise the steering and the motor, but it will allow the body to drop another inch. It is the G-mod the really, really hard way. It requires some surgery to the frame above the lower control arm for clearance. But it gets the frame lower while maintaining better lower control arm angles.

Are you running the stock spindles or the Speed Tech parts? I will stick with stock for now with the Pozzi cheap big brake mod.

I am eliminating the bushings and will be moving the front mount on the frame downward TBD inches and rearward 2 inches for more room. Then I will be modifying the rails under the body to make them shorter to clear the floor. I am not sure if I will be cutting them up into the floor yet. I still have more calculations to finish.

It will require me to open up the transmission tunnel, but I can deal with that. My plan is to get the bottom of the rockers to 4-1/2" or 5" of the pavement and still have about the same for ground clearance.

I will also need to move the front leaf pivot up into the back seat area a bit. I am optimistic that this will not be too hard. I will be routing the exhaust out the same as you, if I can figure this all out.

I have considered shaving the drip rails. I've never seen it done on a big bumper Nova yet. I'm sure someone has done it somewhere though.

Gee, why are you going with the Speed Tech rear suspension????

I will really need to pour on the heat if I am to catch up to your build.

[SRD art]

It's amazing how much we have in common Bill, in and outside of cars. Moving the control arms up? No! I'm artsie fartsie remember? Math and suspension geometry hurts my brain so I have to stick with the simple things I can comprehend. To me that sound like overkill. From what I understand a 2" suspension drop is nice as far as geometry goes. That can easily be done with short springs and tall ball joints. My wagon is so, I really had to resist the urge to slam it like it was before but it only has a 2" drop. Still the car handles incredibly well. With the Nova, I WANT the slammed look, so dropping the body can achieve that with the relatively mild 2" suspension drop.

Funny, I want 4.5-5" at the rocker and overall ground clearance too. I'm concerned that fender well headers and oval exhaust tubing may be the only way to achieve this. >sigh< More $, cha ching...

The trans tunnel will likely need to be modified anyway for the 6-speed trans, right?

I found some photos of 68-72 style Novas with shaved rails on Steve's Nova site. If you leave the body line that is behind the drip rails it looks good. Saw one builder that made the sheet metal totally smooth and it looked like something was missing. Didn't like it at all.

Speed Tech front AND rear suspension equals employee cost cheap, especially if I'm welding the parts together myself. But I suppose you already knew that ;)

Yes you do need to put a flame under it! ;) I will be starting with a bunch of free or close to free mods so I can only go so far for the first few months. A smoothed firewall will be done first, then fixing any body panels that still need addressing, then likely the drip rails. Hopefully by then I'll have enough spare $ to buy at least 2 wheels and tires to do some test fitting, and then I'll start with building the suspension. So, what are you doing? Still sledding around in the snow??? Get to work! lol!

[cornfedbill]

We finally have some spring weather here. We needed the snow to end the drought. I'm not used to living in a desert.

My plan is to run the exhaust down the transmission tunnel. I am considering stock car 180 degree headers that exit the rear of the engine bay at the top right of the bellhousing. It means a big change in the transmission tunnel, but keeps the underside clean. From there I will snake along the right side of the driveshaft and out in front of the wheels if I can.

I do believe you will need to modify the transmission tunnel for the 6-speed. I have also heard that the bellhousing will hit the transmission tunnel if you remove the bushings and leave the stock transmission.

I don't think fenderwell headers will fit between the wheels and firewall if you slam the car. I'm not sure though. There is not much room there. Another option is shorty headers and then tucking the exhaust into the transmission tunnel beside the transmission and driveshaft. It gets a bit wider at the bottom.

I hope to get my heads on the motor this week and then pull the subframe next week to start the surgery.

[SRD art]

Been wheel shopping today. I was planning on running 18x10 FR500 replica wheels. Cost is low and they look decent.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/05/28101_zps337b7c0d-1.jpeg

But today I saw these Konig SSMs, and I can get a good break on them through work. I like the deeper look on these better. They would be just a few bucks more than the FR500s.

Hmmm, still undecided.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/05/Konig_SS08514155_01_zpsc48fee39-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/05/Konig_SS08514155_02_zps39f1bad3-1.jpg

[cornfedbill]

Oooo... I like the Konigs. Nice wheels.

I am just old fashioned with these in 17X8 with Goodyear Eagle GT's.

76299

[SRD art]

Those will look good on your car. You'll have the dealer performance package on the SOA option, right?. Just like the old Baldwins and Yenkos etc. We just put a set of vintage wheel works 17" original torque thrust style wheels on a 69 Camaro at work. Man they look good and classic on there.

[64futura]

Came by to give props on the name choice. Makes me think I should call my falcon "The Poopsmith" on account of its crappy state.

[SRD art]

Came by to give props on the name choice. Makes me think I should call my falcon "The Poopsmith" on account of its crappy state.

Lol!

[cornfedbill]

Ben,

Just a thought. Have you ever considered using a 2nd gen subframe on Trogdor? The geometry is pretty good. You can use the 2nd gen steering column so it will all bolt in. You will need to modify the front ears to match the stock mounts for the radiator support and bumper.

Big B-body wagon/police spindles bolt right on and have 12" rotors. IROC-Z quick ratio boxes will also bolt right in.

It is the budget plan for a great handling car.

[69-nova]

man i was hoping to be a trend setter:throw: ahah heres a rendering of what i might do with my car.
80361

[rchaskin]

I like the BM look! Go for it.

[SRD art]

Very cool 69! Great minds think alike!

Bill- with all the support for 1st gen frames, I'd rather not have to deal with adapting the wider 2nd gen frame. I saw it done once on a 1st gen Camaro and it was ugly, albeit a part of that was poor quality work. Not to mention employee discount on 1st gen stuff... :)

[timmy2times]

Nice ride im a fan of the 73-74s too i got my 74 last year it has a 402 bbc in it with a cam head work and all the other typical hot rod stuff what made me want to buolt it pt style was .. I was racing a challenger srt8 on the way to work and was beating him but i had to let off on a long turn cuz it was getting kinda scary at 100+ mph.so that night at home i looked up pt 74 nova online and seen your pic and it inspired me to build mine along those lines. Thanks. For the insperation oh ya mines gold and her name is sheba hahaa

[brawls43]

Best. Theme. Name. Ever.

I'm here for the burninating of the villagers.

Glad your side stripe isn't an "S" shape, since we know S stands for Sna....sucks.

I dig the FR500 wheels!

[SRD art]

Thanks guys and nice ride Timmy!

Unfortunately I've had to make some hard decisions about this car. I've been focusing a lot on my wagon, The Pumkinator (http://www.chevyhardcore.com/features/car-features/battle-wagon-ben-meissners-1979-olds-cutlass-cruiser/), that the Nova has taken a loooong back burner seat. After attending some larger Pro Touring events it's obvious the wagon is a little under powered if I want to break into the top 10 cars at an event. Autocrossing is more exciting to me than drag racing so that's why I deceided to transform Trogdor to an auto X car. Trouble is I really only have the budget for one car right now so I've decided to yank the motor from Trogdor and slip it in the wagon, then sell the Nova as a drag race roller. Financially that's the best route for me at this point.

Selling thew Nova will help me get some 18" wheels for the wagon, and stickier Falken 615s. It is likely I will be stepping up to 315s out back. The cash will also help me get the final items I need to swap the big motor in the wagon. I hate to let it go, but my wallet says I have to. Since my son bought another car, "Coppertop", (https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/105097-78-Cutlass-Wagon-quot-CopperTop-quot?highlight=coppertop) a 78 Cutlass wagon like mine, I still have my other 73 Nova, "Tangermean" (https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/94010-Project-TangerMean-73-Nova-RS-Nova-teenager-build?highlight=tangermean) which will one day be a nice resto mod for cruising.

[timmy2times]

Aww man i was looking forward to seeing it done but i know all about the wallet deal im so broke i cant even pay attention. Haha