WOW, moving along quick!

Nice progress - looks great!


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Nice progress - looks great!


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Looking good Shane. What transmission are you using? It didn’t appear your tunnel was raised or enlarged.

Thank you! I’m planning on running a 4L65E. I wanted to avoid modding the trans tunnel and therefore having to raise the driveshaft tunnel.

Well, been a minute since I’ve posted any updates on the Nova. I took a break to do some home projects, rewired my Dad’s street rod and bought an enclosed trailer where my OCD kicked in as I was building out the interior. I was a little burned out on the car after getting it to roller status but now I’m fired up again and ready to make some progress. I started by getting the remaining few trim items I needed as well as the bumpers, hood, headlight buckets, bumper brackets, etc. to complete the front end. It’s scheduled to go to the body shop to get the front sheet metal fitted at the end of this month. Lots more to come so stay tuned. In the meantime, here’s a few pics…

GM NOS headlight bezels I scored…Attachment 77065

Attachment 77066


Got the transmission in today as well…4L70E

Glad to see you back in action! I've been wondering what happened to your build as you seem to make a lot of progress quickly. Your build threads are killer!

Thank you, I appreciate that! It feels good to be back at it!

Here’s some pics of the front brake lines, battery mount, fuel tank vent and battery shutoff I got done as well…trying to get everything situated that’ll allow me to set the engine/trans in the car as well as get the front sheet metal stuck back on it so I can transport it easier to the body shop. Also wanting to get some of the components situated so I can get other smaller items done around them as well. Thought I had everything necessary to mount my steering column until I figured out the swinging pedal assembly I bought a long time ago was for a 66, not a 67…turns out there’s a big difference so got one located and waiting on it to show up but it set me back about a week on my timeline…guess I should’ve done a test fit a long time ago!

Very clean, nice!! :thumbsup:

So I had a little snag in that the swinging pedal assembly I bought a long time ago was actually for a 66 Nova and as it turns out, they don’t interchange with 67’s so I got the correct bracket, got it cleaned, swapped the brake pedal over with all new stuff and was finally able to get my steering column halfway installed to determine where to drill the hole for the column to go thru the firewall. Worked up the nerve to drill the hole after experimenting with a couple different methods and got that checked off the list. Also got the AC bulkheads mounted to the firewall and mocked up on the inner fender and then shifted my attention to the transmission. Got the torque converter installed and verified it was seated properly and noticed that the bellhousing must be for an LS based engine as the 12 o clock bolt hole and the one to the right of it are in the wrong spot. This sucks cause I specifically called to ask the company if I needed to buy the LT bellhousing and they said it was already on the part number trans I was looking at. It bolts up fine everywhere else except the 2 positions but I guess I’m gonna have to pull it back apart and swap the bellhousing. This business of having to order and wait on parts to make progress is getting old, especially when you think you’ve got everything you need. If anyone has any insight as to the differences between the two bellhousings (besides the two bolt holes) I’d like to hear it. Here’s some pics…Also, for anyone else having trouble identifying 1st/2nd Gen Nova pedal brackets, the guy I bought the correct one from sent me a pic of the three early types…the left one is 62-65 I think, middle is 66 and right is 67.

VERY nice attention to detail! :thumbsup:

Finally, got the engine and transmission in today! Been looking forward to this for some time now but it wasn’t without some challenges. Sorry for the lengthy post but I would’ve died to have this info when I got started but there’s basically little to nothing out there for this scenario, so here’s a few things of note for those wanting to swap a GenV LT1 into a Second Gen Nova.

First, the factory Camaro oil pan with integrated oil cooler did fit when I mocked it up in the subframe before the subframe was installed on the car, however, once you attach the transmission and account for working within the confines of the firewall, you can’t fit the engine/trans assembly in the car due to contact with the firewall before the oil pan sump clears the crossmember. One thing I did not try was removing the transmission and installing the engine and trans separately…I didn’t want that kind of hassle. I was pretty bummed about this in particular because I was really hoping to utilize the factory engine oil cooler setup. I also wasn’t wanting to spend $500 on a new oil pan.

Speaking of oil pans, there’s a limited number of “swap” oil pans currently made for the GenV motors and really only one cast oil pan like the factory uses (what I wanted) which is Holley’s 302-20. This is the first Holley swap pan I’ve used (I used a Mast Motorsports pan on my Camaro) and I’m not very happy about a couple of specific items you have to deal with to make it work. The first being that I had to”open up” one of the windage tray hole that’s shared with the oil pickup tube hold down in order to get the bolt in without binding up the pickup tube. For the cost of this pan, you should never have to deal with that. The second thing that pisses me off on principle alone is that nowhere in my research of the Holley 302-20 oil pan and nowhere in their bullet points of features on their website does it mention that they moved the dipstick location from the passenger side (where the factory put it) to the driver side. This means that you have more crap to deal with on what’s already the more crowded side of the engine but it also means that your $450 oil pan is now a $550 oil pan once you buy the necessary and recommended GM dipstick and tube since the nice new one you got with your crate motor is worthless as it’s bent in all the wrong ways. But never fear, Holley gave you a worthless hole to plug on the passenger side in place of the dipstick boss. Ok, rant is over.

Even with the Holley oil pan which has a 2” shorter (front to back) sump then the Camaro pan, I still had to remove the motor mounts in order to have enough room to get the motor as low as possible so it could go back towards the firewall enough to get the engine all the way in. Putting the motor mounts back on was really tight but manageable. I think if the wiper motor mounting area didn’t protrude out as far out as it does, this wouldn’t be such an issue.

So anyway, that’s what I can tell you for sure at this point but now that it’s in there, there’s actually sufficient room on the backside, even with the factory high pressure fuel pump that sits on the back of the engine. As a side note, you have to pull the crank pulley to get the oil pan off and I’d like to send a homemade bomb to the guy who made the decision to put thread locker on the crank pulley bolt and use a team of wild elephants to torque it down. Thanks for looking!

Thanks for the feedback and update. :thumbsup:

Happy Halloween! Haven’t updated here in a minute so figured I’d post up some pics. I last left off getting the car ready to haul into the body shop for fitting the front sheet metal/trim, etc. I was thrashing to get as much of the front end components together as possible so had the inner fenders and hood hinge supports powder coated as well as some misc items. Got my HVAC lines planned out and roughed in even though they’d have to come back off. Also got the transmission installed with CBR’s trans crossmember, which bolted right up (thank you, Jesus). I took the car to the body shop back in mid Feb and they’ve had it ever since. I’ve made a few changes along the way and then the usual delays from pausing to work on other cars. It should be ready to come home next week finally! Here’s some random pics and thanks for looking!

p.s. my oldest was rubbing it in that he was technically the first to “drive” the Nova. I find myself arguing a lot of technicalities with my teenagers these days!

While the car’s been in the shop, I’ve been stockpiling parts. I’ve got basically everything needed to complete the brakes, HVAC, fuel system, chassis and engine wiring, wheels/tires, cooling system, transmission cooling lines and shifter, accessory drive, etc. I had them fit the front windshield/trim, headlight bezels grill and bumpers. Ended up buying a couple different core supports to get one that fit decent and had to modify the new hood where the hinge bolts up on one side because it was made like crap. At one point we even stuck the GM hood back on I bought that turned out to be garbage. Also had to cut the headlight bucket mounting brackets off both new fenders and reattach them in the proper location so things fit right. Up to this point, I’d had pretty good fortune with the repop metal but it all caught up to me on the front end! It’s mo better now, though…

While all the hustle and bustle of fitting the sheet metal was happening, I was looking at all that wiring that needed to be crammed under the dash for the engine wiring (as well as the size of the GenV LT ECM) and borrowed an idea I’d seen on another Nova build and decided to go ahead and have them modify the firewall for some electrical bulkhead connectors. I don’t care for the way the GM harness is arranged as it’s intended to be mounted in the engine bay. My plan is to unwrap it, separate the connectors according to which side of the firewall I need them and section the harness using the bulkhead connectors and re-wrap it with a nicer woven fabric wrap that’s less bulky. Not exactly my idea of a low stress situation but it’ll yield the best result and I knew it was now or never. A guy can really geek out on all the heat shrink boots, connectors, tools, etc. with that stuff. Learned more then I even knew existed about auto sport wiring harnesses in doing my research. It’s truly an art form in itself. Anyway, here’s some pics of the firewall mods…

Looks great. Can't wait to see color on this one. Those Forgelines are going to look sharp!

Daniel

Great job!!

Nice work! I like the frenched in Deutsch connectors on the firewall.

Where did you source your connectors from?



Jeff-

I sourced everything from WireCare.com.

Wire are is a great supplier. You need to search all of what they have to offer. I used the F6 wrap & slit wrap. great stuff

Yeah, for sure. I was like a kid in a candy store, especially with the heat shrink boots…lots of cool stuff!

Picked up the Nova today. Excited to be able to get some stuff done before it goes back in for final paint in February. Need to get all the trim and door guts mocked up just to be sure I don’t have any fitment issues and then hopefully on to some the fun stuff! Stay tuned…

Finally had some time to dedicate to working in the garage. Wanted to get the Holley accessory drive installed so I could see what needed to be done to get the radiator to fit. I knew it was gonna be extremely close but ended up having to remove the fans from the Entropy radiator. Their fans are huge both in physical size and output but I’ll need to find some lower profile units to get the clearance I need.

I managed to get the front/rear brakes installed and after that, I couldn’t resist sticking the wheels on there. I knew the rears would be a pain to install given the quarter panel shape and it didn’t disappoint…between the brakes, fat tires and lack of suspension sag, if I ever get a flat tire, I’m gonna be in it deep!

Anyway, thanks for looking and Happy Thanksgiving!

Looks killer with those wheels! Happy Thanksgiving.

I agree. Looks killer. I really dig the wheels.

Car looks killer.

I ended up making a wiring specific tool box and wow does it help. Since all the tools are fairly light you won’t need a heavy duty box.

And yes I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars at wire care.com.

If you have spare time when the car is at the body shop look up Ryan from Rywire as he does some amazing stuff.

Also get yourself a Dymo label printer and printable heat shrink tubing and clear to protect it. It has saved me hours of time as I know what every wire in my car is.


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