Ron, that was me. The standard Spal fans sent with the Ron Davis rad were to thick.

John, I can send you the Spal model number if you want.

Good point. The headers are *supposed* to work with either. However, I did have much better fitment luck with the current frame stands than those I tried prior.

Yeah making custom frame stands is probably the answer. I'll have to think about how to approach it design wise but shouldn't be too bad. I want to go ahead and mount an intake and distributor since that will likely be first place to touch the firewall.

The Autorad setup uses Maradyne fans. I looked last night for thinner fans but didn't see any that weren't different in other dimensions as well. I know when I was dealing with Ron Davis they did say they had thinner fans available. This Autorad radiator/shroud assembly is narrower than the Ron Davis even with the thinner fans. That was one of the reasons for going this route. At least that's what I convinced myself :).

MSD distributor and mini cap does fit much better.

I have a few pictures on my face book page of the frame perches I made for a project. They are in the shop projects page.

A little update. After having moved the engine back 3/4" I mocked up the Frontrunner setup today to check clearances. At first I was mega PO'd and couldn't figure out what had happened. The A/C compressor still hit the radiator fan motors even though previous measurements indicated it *should* fit. Anyway, I pulled a block-face to end of A/C compressor measurement to check against the V/A quoted dimension. It was off and then I noticed the pulleys weren't lined up. Turns out the V/A Frontrunner diagram in the instructions clearly has the spacer in FRONT when it actually goes in the rear. The text of the instructions states the rear too. I moved the spacer and the compressor clears. Still extremely tight though. The spacer fills the gap you see there at the rear of the compressor. There is a spacer on both sides. I just have one side in because it was too tight with the tape on this side :).

You can see from the pics that I don't have the compressor front cover or tensioner cover installed. Primarily because I didn't feel like taking the radiator back out again to put it on. The tensioner is the closest point at ~1/8" of clearance. The fan motor to compressor clearance is closer to 1/4".

I'd like another 1/4" but I've got to figure out where to get that from. One of the header tubes is close enough to the steering box that I think another 1/4" setback might cause it to contact. We'll see when I get the mounts build.

So I did run into another unexpected clearance issue. The PS pump reservoir tank is too close to the UCA. This is a Jones Racing aluminum pump with an extra capacity fab'd aluminum tank. Really cool piece. Too bad it won't clear :(. I'm gonna see about getting a tank made without the bung on the side. I think that will work. Otherwise maybe a less blinged out OE style PS pump is in order. This pump measures 5 1/2" from pump shaft centerline to the outside edge of the tank. I think the OE style plastic tanks are a little narrower.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d6...ps8408a72b.jpg
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d6...pse16c15c0.jpg

Here are some shots of the firewall after the setback. Seems a little tight. That Unilite distributor is pretty small so I'm almost sure the firewall will need to be modified for clearance.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d6...ps38fdf34e.jpg
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d6...psb35cded9.jpg

Updated shot of tie-rod to header clearance after pushing engine back. I think a Ridetech TruTurn might clear now.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d6...ps46959db3.jpg

Here is a before shot of the tie-rod clearance.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d6...aglinkPass.jpg

Status?
 

So whats the status of this Nova.
Is it finished already?

Was wondering the same thing ?

I spoke with John a couple of months ago and its still in progress.

And it will be pretty nice when finished. That's some nice sheet metal work that's been done there.

Hey Guys. I still have it and it is still in progress as Jay mentioned. Been a REALLY slow last couple years so I haven't been too motivated to post any updates. I've had two kids come along which was a game changer as I'm sure many of you can attest to. I have committed to keeping things in perspective as much as possible. They are big enough now that I've been able to carve out a bit more time to work on the car though so that's good. Bad thing now is my son (almost 3) has started asking when we can drive daddy's car. Doh!

I also was struggling with motivation. At every turn there were pretty big issues I'd run into. By big I primarily mean things that I can't easily do and really should be farmed out. Lots of frustration to go around. Spend $1000+ in labor cleaning up a firewall just to later find out it needs to be redone. Spend however much getting a trans tunnel redone just to have to have more work done (driveshaft raised to deal with drive angle).

While I haven't had much time to do fab work, I've worked in time here and there on the engine build. Last year I sent my heads off to be gone through and setup for the build. Told couple weeks or so. Well I sent the shop received them in July and I got them back in almost March (IIRC) of this year. Not a huge issue given my timeline but frustrating because I went with alum shaft rocker setup instead of stainless steel strictly because I didn't want the shop to be held up waiting the 8 weeks for me to get SS option built.

Anyway. I'll get some pics up here soon.