Speedtech Project: 68 Red Nova
 

Hey Everyone-

Posting up another cool car out in the shop today. This one is a '68 Nova, recently purchased by our client with a fairly nice restoration and a few upgrades. It has a beautiful deep red metallic paint, came with a warmed over 383 small block backed by a Camaro T5, 17" TTs, and most everything else was restored stock.

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Nice looking. What's the plan of attack on it?

When it arrived at the shop it was obvious it needed some suspension upgrades, a ride height adjustment and some fatter meats. We knocked out the first two on the first round of the build. After dropping out the stock suspension, we installed our Road Assault front suspension, including our tubular upper and lower control arms, tubular sway bar, billet adjuster sleeves, and Viking hybrid double adjustable coilover shocks. Keeping the stock spindles we added 13" rotors with 6 piston Wilwoods. Out back we installed our Torque Arm suspension with the car's 12 bolt rear, and topped it off with 4 piston Wilwoods surrounding 13" rotors. The original exhaust consisted of exhaust manifolds through 2.25" pipes, so to help things breathe better we wrapped it up with a set of our stainless headers and stainless custom 3" duals. All these changes made a tremendous difference in handling and braking, and helped squeeze a few more ponies out of the 383. With the new suspension also came getting the ride height where it needed to be.

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Now, 6 months later the car is back to get a little more serious. First order of business was to drop the subframe for cleaning and paint. This included setting the 383 and old school T5 aside for a crate 525 hp LS3 and T56 trans. This new motorvation combo had to work with factory spindles and a new rear mount power rack and pinion steering, so we swapped on one of our new road race oil pans to help with clearance. Doing this swap also gave us opportunity to develop some new parts that we'll have available soon on our website. Basically we're putting together a complete LS to GM frame swap package, including all new motor mount stands, Nova specific transmission tunnel cover, headers, oil pan, etc. The package will be set up to work with both the factory steering box and rear mount rack and pinion steering.

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Next step was to fix up the firewall. It had several random holes in it and had some nasty undercoating all over it. We took it down to bare metal, welded up all the holes and smoothed the dents. Then a coat of primer laid the foundation for the same red base coat sprayed on the body, only for some cool contrast we hit it with satin clear.

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While waiting on the paint booth activities we removed the rear axle and torque arm. The axle is getting narrowed to fit some really cool brand new style B Forged 18x12 wheels and 335 tires, more on that later. To fit the massive tires we cut the old wheel tubs out and installed a set of minitubs. Wayne makes easy work of it, and finished it up with dark grey paint in the trunk and a smooth shot of bed liner underneath.

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Returning the subframe to the engine bay came next. We snapped a few shots while Wayne was beginning hooking up the engine components. The satin sheen gives the firewall and engine covers a smooth and cool look. notice the ATS hand fabricated and TIG welded sheet metal Road Race pan, and the hookups for the oil cooler and remote filter mount. This pan fits great with that rear mount rack and pinion, and our Speedtech headers help create more clearance. The T56 is a little tight with the relatively short Nova trans tunnel, so we developed an exclusive T56 tunnel cover and just saw photos of the first sample from the laser cutter today. When we get them back, we'll weld it up and install it in the Nova. If fitment checks out like our prototype we should have them available for production soon!

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More coming soon...

Thanks Brent! This car is even better looking in person!

Guess I was to quick on the trigger to ask what the plan was! LOL! Should have waited for you to post all of the pics! Looks great! Very nice improvements!

This type of build is more and more becoming my favorite...

Take an older car with a nice restoration on it already, and repower and drive train it to make it run and handle as well as it looks...all while leaving the looks that it came with basically alone.

Nicely done. Love the color of that car.

Sexy, love it!

Very cool!!!!!!.

I really like the satin used in the engine bay... creates are really nice look in there.


That 525 LS3 is one bad hombre for the money... and a simple swap.

Great job guys! Car stance is nice!

Very nice work guys.

It looks great in there I love it.

Could you show us some shots of your t56 crossmember ?

Great car, you guys are doing some cool things to that Nova.

Nice work guys,very sharp Nova:thumbsup:

Thanks everyone!

Pavell- I'll include that in a couple days when I have some more shots to post up. :D

Front drive
 

I have an LS1/T56 that I'm going to put in a 70 nova. I would be interested in the engine/trans mount as well as the tunnel you have posted. My question is, are you using factory serpentine set up on the engine or something else. I know there is an issue with the factory parts, such as A/C compressor, not sure what else, hitting the frame. Thanks for your help or suggestions!

There are a few different factory drive systems, some work and some don't. On the systems with the a/c compressor on the lower pass. side it interferes with the frame. Folks used to notch the frame but there are better alternatives now. We used an Eddie Motorsposrts drive on this Nova. It's compact and has no clearance issues at all.

Since I've posted we've had a huge response to these items from the forums and through phone calls to us. Hang in there, they will be available very soon. As soon as they are we will post pricing and more details here and on our website. Thanks for your interest, patience, and as always, thanks for your support!

More updates on this one...

Focus lately has been on the interior. Super nice dash insert and gauge panel...

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Our exclusive Nova T56 Transmission tunnel cover...

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Custom center console is painted to match the underhood satin and wrapped to match the seats. Billet Specialties shift boot surround and steering wheel add some really nice design elements.

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Shots of the T56 x member. This set up helps get the pinion angle right where it needs to be. Our trans x member is adjustable to work with most any engine mount configuration, although we recommend using our mounts for optimum total package placement. The x member at the top of photo 1 is the rear suspension Torque Arm's front mount.

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We replaced the factory seats with these Corbeaus, and had the rear seat reworked to match.

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We took the Nova to a car show this past weekend, it took Best Chevy Overall! We were definitely excited! Here are a few new photos of it...

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that nova is amazing,love the color,wheels and stance:trophy-1302:

Congrats,:trophy-1302:

Thanks! Lots of talent and effort went into it and we're real pleased with the results.

We didn't touch the paint at all, and there is a possibility we may be doing a respray in the near future to clean up some of the imperfections and chips. After that I think we're just about done with it and will turn it loose to the owner for some fun cruising.

That is killer.
Looks great guys!:thumbsup:

Looks great!

really nice! the interior looks fantastic!

That Nova looks great. Makes me want to get one now.

Thanks everyone!

Wheels
 

Could you please do me a huge favor and tell me Brand, Model of wheels those are and the deminsions please. Much appreciated, thank you.

That car has class and additude, great work

Thanks!

B Forged from Billet Specialties
18x8, 5.25 BS
18x11, 5" BS

Of course they're specific to this car's set up but that will put you in the ball park.

What is the width of your 3rd member. wms to wms very nice build curious about this. And did you guys run the 335 tire on a 11" rim

Did you guys make the dash insert, if not where is it from?

I can not remember the width but the rear would have been a 11" rim with 5" BS