1963 Nova project "Rocket"

[colt6920]

Well I was able to have the weekend to go down and continue to work on my car. Which was incredibly helpful, we were able to get the entire bottom side of the floor welded up. As well as getting almost all of the floor panels fitted and Tig welded in. Then the way we did it, it allowed us to have a super strong way to bolt the seats in and weld the cage to the floor. Then the underside of the floor is completely smooth and looks incredible in my opinion. We also had some time to get the mini tub frame rails started. So next chance we have we'll be able to weld the rest of the floor, finish the mini tubs and get the cage started. With the cage actually being done properly and safe this time, with welds that don't look like a dumpster fire.

[jc70chevy]

Killer work.....

[colt6920]

Killer work.....

Thanks haha it wouldn't have been possible without my brothers welding along with my friends help. As well as me drawing and then re-drawing how I wanted to build the car.

[nickcornilsen]

When I saw that giant flat slab of a firewall and floorboard, I thought o myself: I hope he doesn't have to weld much to it - it's going to warp like crazy! The frame layout you ultimately went with will add alot of rigidity to the car.

[c91x]

I think I know what fab shop you used just. Hope you got some of your money back from that hack job they did

[colt6920]

When I saw that giant flat slab of a firewall and floorboard, I thought o myself: I hope he doesn't have to weld much to it - it's going to warp like crazy! The frame layout you ultimately went with will add alot of rigidity to the car.

Yeah the original firewall was a 14 gauge which was fairly thick but it still ended of fairly warped especially since they didn't take any breaks while when welding it in. As well as the original floor they blew through it in several spots and never bothered to try and fix them. Then the new floor design I drew up I honestly took a lot of the idea from the second gen Camaro Viking performance has.

[colt6920]

I think I know what fab shop you used just. Hope you got some of your money back from that hack job they did

I think the fab shop is the only one in Dewey Arizona? Sadly I never got any of my money back, so along with not getting any of my money back it cost me several months, and a lot more money to redo it properly the second time around.

[jc70chevy]

Yeah friends and family are a must when building a car.... especially if you don't have all the skills in one person.....I happen to be the friend who's a welder by trade..... Keep up the good work and check out my build if u get a chance

[colt6920]

Yeah friends and family are a must when building a car.... especially if you don't have all the skills in one person.....I happen to be the friend who's a welder by trade..... Keep up the good work and check out my build if u get a chance

Haha no kidding they've helped me on way more things than i thought possible, and I will for sure check out your build blog!

[colt6920]

Thankfully between school and work I was able to find time to be down in Prescott to spend some more time working on the Nova. Since the last time I posted we managed to completely finish the floor outside of one small section on the passenger side. We also managed to get a good start on the roll cage by getting the head hoop in, A pillar bars, dash bar, and the harness bars. Which all have turned out pretty amazing and the cage has been entirely Tig welded unlike the garbage Mig welding job "the professional" shop did. When it came to the cage mounting points we fabbed together some boxes out of 12 gauge, and cut them to be able to fit up well with the car. So it was welded to the car, floor and frame rail we had installed. This is where my brother had a pretty good idea rather than just welding the cage to the top of the boxes we drilled holes allowing us to put cage down into the boxes before welding them in. With the idea of having much better strength in the event of wreck. It was just a struggle getting the cut angles correct for the a pillar bars, it is much tougher than I thought it would be trying to think 3 dimensionally when it comes to trying to think of how you need to cut welding onto curved tubing. We would have been able to complete more of the cage but the tube notcher locking nut managed to shear itself causing us to try to shape the tubing by hand.Regardless in the next few weeks I probably have much of a chance to dedicate a lot of time to the car with finals but the plan is to get the motor and trans into the car to see where everything will sit so we can get the transmission tunnel built and in. Along with finishing the tubs and cage we plan to also mock up the steering and pedals, we should also be getting the custom core support for the car which will be built very similar to Viking's gen 2 Camaro. Once that is done we'll be getting the whole car media blasted and deciding on what color to paint the car. I'm leaning towards destroyer gray that Dodge has on a few of their cars, but I am open to any suggestions (it doesn't matter how wild of color it is.

[jc70chevy]

Keep up the good work

[colt6920]

I figured the best way to do this post is to split it up into a couple different posts the first one is some cool updates regarding sponsors and Project Rocket's first event. Then the second post will be an update on the car and hopefully where the car will be at in the coming weeks. So backing up to SEMA I spent a decent amount of time talking with Baer brakes which continued after the show and as of a couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to now be sponsored by Baer! Along with that since they are based out of Phoenix I had the time off from work so I could drive down and get a tour of their amazing facility. Project Rocket will be running their Track 4's in the front and SS4's in the rear. The second exciting part to me is I registered the Nova for LS Fest West in the Grand Competitor class, which puts us on a tighter timeline but we should be able to make it happen!

[colt6920]

Since the last update I had on the car we finished up the firewall along with the recessed center section which has allowed us to set the motor farther back. Along with that we built a few crossover braces that help tie the floor together through the center. From there the plan is to hopefully have the trans tunnel bolt onto the crossover tubing pieces but we may just end up welding it to the floor. Then towards the rear where we cut out the center section the shop who messed the car up originally left us with the already tough to weld on factory sheet metal even thinner. So rather than trying to weld something onto it, we decided to build a box that would cover over the opening and bolt through the floor. Which is also setup for the center section of the tunnel to be able to bolt into it. So hopefully this upcoming weekend we will be able to finally finish up the fab work, and start taking off all of the suspension and any other removable pieces to get the car ready to go to media blasting.The only issue we have ran into is with the brake booster interferes with the front down bar when we have the pedals placed where I would like them to be. So thankfully Baer has been amazing to work with and were planning to switch over to using one of their Remaster master cylinders and proporting valves.

[colt6920]

This last weekend we were finally able to get the fab work done on the Nova outside of a couple small spots we have to finish welding. Along with that this week we are going to run a cover pass over the roll cage to make sure its as strong as it can be, and to look pretty as well haha. Then getting the last few parts of the trans tunnel in was a little difficult to create space to fit the Sparco Evo seats which is partly why a couple sections look a little goofy to make sure we had the room. Which just always goes to show how often I forget how small of a car the Nova's are on the inside. The plan going forward is to take the car to media blasting next week and off to paint on the following week where we decided to go with the SEM Trim Black to save a decent amount on paint.

[colt6920]

Quarantine Update part 1: This has been a crazy past couple of months now for everyone, myself included. It has had plenty of up's and down's I finally graduated from NAU but without an actual graduation ceremony or any jobs to be able to apply to I'm stuck in limbo just hoping and waiting for job opportunities to come up. Yet all of this time off has allowed me to finish up a lot of odds and ends on the Nova. I have all of the cover passes completed on the cage and and other welds we needed, we've also managed to get the actual seats mocked up in the car. Which was a pretty great day for myself I just sat in them for a solid 20 minutes. We also briefly put the motor with the headers from TCI in to check clearance and it turned out nicely.

One of the other downsides due to COVID-19 is several companies having extended lead times or being closed for awhile which is no fault of their own. I was looking forward to having the car running for LS Fest next month but it looks like were going to be waiting a few weeks longer for the fuel system from FuelSafe, radiator from C&R Racing and steering from Sweet mfg. Has put us into the spot where we should have everything in, just in time but it wont have all of the lines ran to be able to run and it won't be painted. Regardless I'll be bringing Project Rocket to LS Fest in hopes of winning builders car of the show since we won't be able to compete in the Grand Competitor class.

This week the OBP throttle pedal will get here so we can finally get the final set of pedals in haha with the Wilwood clutch/brake pedal, Baer master cylinder and OBP throttle pedal. Once I can get that in and as parts continue to come in I'll have a few more posts prior to LS Fest and can hopefully win builder car of the show.

[colt6920]

Since the last post I have spent a majority of my time working and starting a stock pile of car parts in my living room haha. What I have had time to do was finally get the actual pedals into the car I'm running a Wilwood brake/clutch pedal assembly paired with a Baer Remaster cylinder, as well as an OBP throttle pedal. Once we got the custom pedal box into the car we were able to get the steering all sorted Sweet mfg was a big help in getting everything I needed for it to work; and Justin (gcompnova) has been a big help getting the steering etc into car or any other dumb question I can think of he's answered for me! In the rear of the car we mostly have the fuel cell and cage installed, the rear of the cell mounting points I have it setup to be able to put hood pins in for the trunk, and if i ever try to put a wing on I could hopefully use them as a mounting point for that. The front mounts I made the decision to cut out the rear mounts of the roll cage down bars since they were different side to side and looked kinda ugly. So the new front mounts will be much cleaner and look identical to each other. We have also welded up the core support doing our best to build it similar to the Viking Performance gen 2 Camaro's core support. Going forward this week we'll get the brake and fuel lines installed, and once the bolts for the new clutch arrive we can get the drivetrain into the car to get the rest of the exhaust welded up. Along with everything that is going on I have several other parts waiting to go in from the full chassis wiring, headlights taillights and a couple other unique touches.

[colt6920]

The past month has been a crazy one, starting a couple new jobs has taken away a majority of my free time haha. Yet we have been able to still make good progress on the car, we’ve put the fuel system along with the fuel lines into the car to know how we want all of that to run. On the outside we sanded the car down to bare metal and it was in surprisingly good shape, the only spots with bondo was on the doors and that looked to have been done professionally and fairly recent. The rest of the car is in pretty good shape just with a little dent here or there. So we spent the weekend circling back to some of the smaller items we still had to address such as making the fuel door and trunk latch holes flush, adding a couple little bars to the roll cage and any other small holes we wont be using. The other bigger thing we had to do was torch out all of the lead that was in there from the factory and then patch it back together with steel. In the next couple days we’ll have the car back on the trailer with all the suspension removed to make a quick trip to have it media blasted on the inside and any other spots we couldn’t reach when sanding. Then on Friday it’ll be over to the body shop, and I have finally decided that were going to paint it Destroyer Grey that’s on Hellcats. So hopefully we have a quick turnaround time to see if we can make the push to have it at GoodGuys in Scottsdale in November. To hopefully attempt a few runs around the autocross but, regardless of what shape the car is in it’ll be there!

As far as moving forward we should have the oil pan, new clutch, and throw-out bearing installed and the engine and trans bac together in the next week or two. We also have the Falken RT660’s on order and hopefully we’ll see them soon! Then with all the suspension off I plan to go through and clean everything and make sure every nut and bolt is correct and torqued to what it should be so it’ll go back as fast and easy as possible on the car. Along with the Baer Brakes and Rocket Racing Wheels! I have also been planning to re-powdercoat the front clip since it has been beat up so much from getting moved around and having the motor in and out a few times, I was planning to go with a purple this time around but if anyone has other suggestions I would love to hear them!

[colt6920]

It as usual has taken me awhile to get my blog up to date but, I have been able to get a decent amount of work done on my Nova. Once we managed to get the car down to bare metal, and all the lead melted out, and a good majority of the body work done we were a couple days away from getting the first primer onto the car but thanks again to covid Yavapai College cancelled in person classes. Which left us scrambling to try to get the Nova on a trailer and out of the school before they closed everything, leaving it locked inside and then trying to figure out a way to get it primered. It took a bit to get it all together, we got the new rear taillight section installed, and luckily I had a friend who's career has been paint and body work who was able to really help me out haha. At this point we just have a small amount of body work to clean up, and we'll be ready for paint. I've also managed to get the firewall and underside painted black, as well as spraying the raptor liner in the tubs and underside. So we can get the suspension and drivetrain cleaned and back in, and hopefully get it started for the first time. In the next week the Terminator X and Falken RT660's should be here. The other thing I'm looking forward to is hopefully start filming a Youtube build series in the coming weeks, and that should transition into racing this car later this year and keeping up with all of that!

[c91x]

Does Yavapai have an auto body course at the airport campus?

I'm looking forward to seeing this thing finished.

[David Sloan]

Looks Great!
Thanks for sharing!