'72 Nova project

[70TWO NOVA]

Looks tough! and I love that color, my brothers Nova was that color when he first bought it in High School!

[mikem]

It has been awhile but I thought I would give an update. The Nova runs great. I took it to the 1st day of the Power Tour and put 600 miles on in just that day. The suspension is awesome. I would put this up against my '04 GTO any day of the week and I am pretty sure the Nova would win. I averaged about 20 mpg for the trip, not too bad when most of the travel in Iowa was around 80-85 mph.

The car runs at about 180 degrees going down the road and the electric fans only kicked on 2 or 3 times on the whole ride down. The Edelbrock headers developed a leak at the collectors but Edelbrock sent me a new set and a couple t-shirts for free. The second set still didn't want to seat correctly. I ended up having to sand the coating off the back part of the header so the gasket would slide on properly. Once they seated like they were supposed to the leak was gone.

We ran into ran on the way down. The car is still not completely sealed off from the mini-tub and we ended up taking on a lot of water. We stopped when the rain did and soaked up the standing water with extra towels we had packed. Once the roads were mostly dry we got back on our way.

The only problem I had was one of the exhaust clamps dropped off about 20 miles from Newton, IA. Luckily I found a way to rig it for the rest of the trip and had no more issues.

I am still having some issues getting all the air out of the power steering system. I found a small leak in one of the connections so I fixed that and will try bleeding it again.

The weather has hampered my ability to drive it as much as I wanted too. Too much rain for a car that takes on water. I hope to get the back sealed up by next spring and maybe insulate and carpet the interior.

Here are a couple more pictures with the exhaust finished.

[96t/acj]

Very nice car, and a very nice build..........

[796spdbu]

I dig it! Looks menacing! How well did the Covan's dash insert fit? I have heard horror stories about how bad they fit. Id like to get one for my 72' Nova.

[Nessumsar]

How loud is the exhaust? I've wanted to do a side-exit exhaust, but with fear of it being too loud I haven't done it yet.

I wish someone made the Soft-8's in aluminum, I LOVE how they look on our cars!

[ssmike]

Looks great! I also dig the way the soft 8s look on the 3rd gens. Its very promising for me to hear how well the LS is treating you.....

[chevy6455]

Now that you have driven it a bit how do you feel about the HRTH suspension? Would you still consider something else or are you fairly satisfied with it?

[mikem]

The Covan's dash fit OK. I bought a blank and cut my own gauge holes. I had to drill a couple holes to attach it on the bottom of the dash as the pre-marked holes didn't line up. The carbon fiber finish is OK but looks like a printed pattern. Against the gauge faces it looks a bit off. I probably only notice because I stare at it all the time. I love the way the dash turned out. It is the way these cars should have come.

The exhaust isn't quiet by any means but it is hard to get a real gauge on it. There is no carpet and no insulation on the floor as well as nothing behind the back seat to separate the trunk. I love the Hushpower mufflers. They don't seem to have the drone you get with 40 series Flowmasters. It is by no means obnoxious but I am always running windows down so you can't carry on a coversation at highway speeds. Still quieter than 90% of the Harleys you see.

The Hotrods to Hell set up is great. I really dig the way the car handles. I would change very little about this car in its current set up. I wish I could find a way to run an X-pipe but it looks mean with the side exit exhaust.

Still getting some air out of the power steering system but less everytime I turn lock to lock.

I will have it rolling again later this week. My 15 year class reunion is coming up and I figure I will be the only person there with the car they had in high school

[mikem]

Well it has been some time but I really haven't gotten too many miles on the car. Nothing wrong with the drivetrain just too many holes in the car and the wife doesn't like smelling like exhaust fumes. So it went up to spend the winter at a body shop. Here are the pictures of the work as it is progressing this week. Very excited about it and trying to work on a paint scheme before the body work is done. I am thinking 2 tone with high metallic black over a dark metallic charcoal. Not sure what to use as a color break.

They are also fixing the work around the DSE minitubs where the shop that did my earlier work messed it up.

Here are some pictures.

[TheBandit]

Awesome! I can't wait to see the new paint.

[mikem]

Update with some more pictures. This car is being done in my In-laws shop and they are working on it around other jobs. This is not a specialty shop but a body shop, so most of their work is repair rather than full projects like this one. It is also cool to have family working on it.

Here are some pictures as work has progressed. I have been helping as much as I can and try and make it to the shop at least once a week.

The pictures here are just a few as we have been working. We are eliminating all the body trim, emblems and side blinker lights. The only factory emblem that will be left on the car is the "Nova by Chevrolet" on the trunk lid. I am doing 2 main body colors with a thin color break in a third color. All three colors are new Camaro colors. It will be Carbon Flash Metallic on the top, Ashen Gray Metallic below the body line and separated by a thin Inferno Orange stripe.

They should start laying color next week if they don't get any new jobs!

[no go nova]

Nice work sucks about the mishaps but atleast you got to drive it.

[mikem]

Started edging the car yesterday. The door jams, insides of the doors, cowl, dash and trunk jam are painted. Super excited about the colors. The top color is really high metallic and looked awesome when we pushed it out in the sun.

[CruizinKev]

oh yeah looks good!!

[bonecrrusher]

Those colors are going to look awesome!

[instro84]

nice lookin nova

[mikem]

Came out of the booth last night. Still a lot of little things to do and we have done no color sanding or buffing yet but it looks great!

In the shade you can barely see a difference in the top and bottom, very subtle and exactly what I wanted.







Thats all I have for now. More to follow as we finish it up!

[rickpaw]

Paint looks great.

[cactuss4]

turning out great.
Tory

[mikem]

Slow going as the shop has had too many other jobs to get the Nova buffed out. We are waiting on getting a couple last minute parts now anyway so they are holding it up more than anything.

The car has been sanded and had the 1st buffing. I have most of the hardware back on from the doors back. I am waiting on a new window felt for the driver's side quarter. The one I had gotten had one of the clips fall off and the other one broke. Hopefully that shows up soon and then I can get the quarter windows in. The rest of the glass is back in and the interior is starting to come back together. I don't have carpet yet or insulation so that will probably wait until winter.

I painted most of the interior pieces using SEM products and I am quite pleased with the results. The dash pad was not cracked so I painted it black. I also did the door panels and the kick panels.

Here are some pics of the interior and the exterior now that the 1st buffing is done.







The hole in the floor was so huge from my high school hack job we made this to seal it up. I left it a bolt in piece because it really makes getting to the shifter easy.

The only emblem on the whole car.