New Guy - First Project....Nova + ZR1

[Ron in SoCal]

Hiya Bud. Welcome to

First off congrats on your business success and also doing right by your Dad. So very cool! Now onto your project. There are lots of issues in putting ZR1 under your ride. First of which is even finding a rolling chassis. They're new so probably limited inventory out there, but you might get lucky. FYI, there is a pretty new Grand Sport Chasis for sale here and the seller's a good friend so no transaction worries. Next there are lots of packaging issues in using C6 anything under your car starting with physical dimensions such as wheelbase, track width, ride heigth, rack placement, engine location and so on. It can and has been done! There's a guy in Georgia on this site 'Real Bob Johnson' that did it himself w a Z06 under a 69 Camaro. Also, Roger @ Ironworks is pretty well versed in dimensional pacement w two in his shop right now.

Other options include a company - the name escapes me but I saw them at SEMA last year - that has a C4 rolling chasis set up (they use a 66 Chevelle as their shop car I believe) and also Newman's in Central Cali that specializes in C4 chassis under almost anything as well. Lastly, the Roadster shop has a c6 based IFS and their own design IRS that works very well. You could take any of these options and drop a LS9/LSA into your ride.

Good luck Bro! PM me if you want to chat about it and make sure you start a build thread.

[camcojb]

You'll have well north of $100K in just parts to pull all that off, without any labor. The project sounds super cool, but you need a much larger budget than $100K for all that in my opinion. Maybe closer to $200K, but I even doubt that, as the amount of custom fabrication to incorporate all that stuff in a car like the Nova will be huge.

You can have a great car built for your budget, but probably not with that list of parts.

[camcojb]

by the way, I am not trying to discourage you from building your dream. Just making sure you know ahead of time what it'll cost. The biggest reason many projects are never finished is because people dramatically underestimate the costs involved. If you are paying someone to do all the work, it gets pricey in a big hurry.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Those Novas are very cool cars.

[Bud311]

Originally Posted by camcojb

by the way, I am not trying to discourage you from building your dream. Just making sure you know ahead of time what it'll cost. The biggest reason many projects are never finished is because people dramatically underestimate the costs involved. If you are paying someone to do all the work, it gets pricey in a big hurry.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Those Novas are very cool cars.

Hey Jody -

I am not discouraged at all. It is guys like you that are definitely helping me wrap my head around what I am jumping into. I could not be more thankful for everyone's advice / years of wisdom and knowledge.

You are correct on the budget too. I had my first talk with a shop today; it went awesome! It is looking much closer in the $170K - $200K range if we go the route without using the LS9 / ZR1 setup, which I am cool with.


Thanks again!!!

[Bud311]

Hey Ron!

This was definitely brought to my attention today as I talked to my first shop --> The LS9 opens up a lot of issues to other parts / fabrication = much higher cost.

I thought it be cool to merge a ZR1 with a Nova; but that would seem to be much more expensive then going a different route to get to a similar result.
I am learning quick on the what my goals should be and stick to it once I narrow it down.


I got my four shops to talk to this week . Step 1 - in progress!


Thanks!