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Primed... this is how I purchased it... a roller in primer
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Going to be an incredible car. Looking forward to watching your progress!!

Chris

Since AutoKraft has had the Nova, they’ve welded up the holes on the sides of the car as I won’t have any side trim on the car. They’ve also done some work on the panel gaps, which were actually pretty decent. I’m going to put a Vintage Air unit in it and we’ll run the hoses under the passenger front fender, so we welded up all the holes in the firewall to smooth it out. They also welded in the bracket DSE makes to mount the hydraulic clutch master cylinder alongside the brake master cylinder.

They’ve also done a lot of work on smoothing the body for paint... primer, lots of block sanding, more primer, more block sanding... once that effort is complete, Kurt plans to get the Nova on the rotisserie so we can complete the work on finishing the firewall and prepping the underside. Attached are some pictures of the Nova during the block sanding process...

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I’ve never been a fan of the stock gas caps on the first gen Novas, so we’re going to use a Ridetech cap. The window trim, grill, bumpers, door handles, etc will all be painted black, and we’re going to paint the gas cap to match as well. I think this cap will be a nice upgrade from the stock one. Sorry, picture isn’t the greatest...
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‘63 Chevy II Pro-Touring Build

While Kurt has been working on the body, I’ve been doing a bit of work on the drivetrain. Because I want the reliability and drivability that modern fuel injected engines provide, I’ve always thought that when I build a car like this, I would use an LS motor of some sort. Then, Chevrolet released the new LT engines, which are incredible (direct injection, etc.)... I have a 2017 Camaro ZL1 with the 650 hp LT4 (same engine as the Z06 Corvette) and love that motor, but wanted the Nova to be naturally aspirated. I thought about using the new LT1 crate engine that Chevrolet has, but I would want more power than the base crate engine, and the aftermarket isn’t nearly as mature for the LT engines as it is for the LS engines. Also, an LT engine would likely require additional fabrication for motor mounts, headers, etc., whereas the LS engines are easy drop ins. So, I decided I would stick with an LS engine.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the LS7 - insane amounts of power and torque in a small package. The ability to rev to over 7,000 rpm and the nostalgia of it being a 427 sealed the deal for me, so I started thinking about my options for an LS7. I again considered a LS7 crate engine, but would want to make modifications to it (bigger cam, port heads, better intake manifold, etc). Also, I don’t want to run a dry sump in the Nova, so would have additional expense to convert it to wet sump if I went the GM Performance crate engine route. Also considered a crate engine from Mast Motorsports, but ended up building one from scratch.

I had read a lot over on the Corvette forum and LS forums about head, cam and intakes package that Tony Mamo offers through his company, Mamo Motorsports. Tony worked for years as the head of development at Air Flow Research before leaving to go out on his own a few years ago. I called him up and we discussed my project and my objectives and he helped me source some of the parts for my engine. I researched and purchased everything else and we ended up with the following: brand new LS7 block I acquired from GM Performance, Callies forged crank and rods, Wiseco forged pistons, King coated bearings, Mamo Motorsports LS7 heads (brand new castings from Trick Flow Specialties CNC ported by Tony and then hand finished), custom cam spec’d by Tony, Johnson short travel lifters, Yella Terra roller rockers custom made for Tony’s heads, custom length Manton push rods, MSD Atomic intake ported by Tony, Deutschwerks 60 lb injectors, Nick Williams 102mm drive by wire throttle body, etc.

Tony has dozens of these head, cam and intake packages in LS7s in C6 Z06 Corvettes across the country and they flat out make incredible power... usually around 625-640hp at the tire, depending on other mods (air intake, header size, etc). The heads flow over 400 cfm on the intake side, but do so through smaller ports than a stock LS7 head, so they are able to make power not only at high rpms, but also have incredible part throttle response, due to the efficient port design. Plus, the port velocity allows him to build with a higher static compression ratio and a bigger cam, yet still have good drivability. We spec’d mine for around 12:1 (we have 93 octane here in MN). We checked it with a Katech Whistler after assembled, and final compression ratio was 11.8:1

Attached are some pics of the heads...
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‘63 Chevy II Pro-Touring Build

While I have experience working on motors when I grew up (small and big block Chevrolet engines, Mopar wedge motors, etc.), I have no experience with LS engines, so I wasn’t going to build this myself... especially considering the investment I made in all of those parts. Luckily, Doug Rippie, who has significant experience modifying and building LS engines for Corvette owners across the country, is located about a half hour from me. Doug also installed one of Tony Mamo’s H/C/I packages on a customer’s Z06, so he was familiar with Tony’s parts and assembly requirements (like measuring each push rod for custom length). Doug was awesome... very patient in dealing with me and teaching me as I asked a lot of questions.

Motor is assembled now... I’m going for a “stock-like” look for the LS7. Tony offers a “stealth” upgrade for the MSD Atomic intake, drastically changing the look of it. If anyone has seen the MSD Atomic intake, it’s got “MSD AIr Force” in big red letters across the top - I really don’t like the look. Tony shaves those logos off the top of the intake and then paints it a nice textured black. He then takes the LS7 fuel rail covers and shaves the edge where the fuel rail cover meets the intake runners, since the MSD intake is shaped much different than the stock LS7 intake. The result looks pretty close to stock, unless you really have a sharp eye.

I did deviate from stock in that I didn’t use a GM front end accessory drive for it. I didn’t like where the air conditioning compressor was located on the various OEM accessory drives. Holley recently released a new mid-mount accessory drive for LS engines that is really compact. It’s unique because the water pump is a specific Holley design where all of the other accessories mount to the water pump. It eliminates brackets and spacers and makes for a really clean and compact design. I got the black version, which I think really looks sharp. Attached are some photos of the completed motor with the Holley accessories installed. The photo shows a polished NIck Williams throttle body that I had picked up used. I’ve since purchased a black version of the same throttle body and will swap it out as the black version will look much nicer. I’m going to dyno the motor in the coming weeks... we’re expecting around 725hp at the crank...

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