Made a trip to Eau Claire recently to meet with Kurt and check out some nice progress on the Nova. Wiring is basically finished up, but for a few items that will require mock up of center console (e.g., power window and lock switches). Kurt got the Vaporworx PWM fuel pump module mounted in the trunk (wiring is nice and tidy), along with the battery and the II Much fuel vent.
The headlights are also mounted and wired up. These headlights are LED units with halos. The halos shine white most of the time, so they serve as daytime running lights when headlights are off. When the headlights are on, I can either leave the halos on or switch them off - I have them wired to a virtual switch on the Holley pro dash. When turn signals are activated, however, the halos shine amber and blink with the turn signals. Pretty cool, and excited to see them in action.
We also got the radiator back from powder coating and it turned out great! We powder coated the tanks, top, bottom and sides. The fins weren’t powder coated in traditional way, but coated in a very thin coat of similar color to ensure no degradation of thermal transmission of the fins. We still need to deal with the radiator cap. We didn’t want to coat the cap as it has a rubber gasket that we were concerned about putting in the oven as part of the curing process. Instead, we’re going to have the cap coated with Cerakote, a product similar to a powder coat, but thinner and can be air cured rather than oven cured.
We also got the catch can mounted. Went with a Mighty Mouse catch can. Will connect via a -8AN adaptor on the valve cover oil filler. We had to modify the fuel rail cover - drilled a hole and will connect a 90 degree elbow fitting with push lock hose that will connect to the catch can. Other line out of the catch can will plug into nipple on the intake manifold.
Kurt had moved the Nova on to a four post lift as we’ll be working on the exhaust next. Was cool to get under the car and see some of the work close up. QA1 carbon fiber driveshaft installed, and good look at the aluminum center section 9 inch rear end.
Was able to get a few pics of the inner wheels.. calipers clear, but not by much!
Got a nice view of some of the wiring that was done under the car. I mentioned previously that the C6 Corvette PWM fan unit is wired with a nice splitter harness from Vintage Air that splits the output signal from the fan control unit in two into pigtails that plug directly into the Spal fan pigtail harnesses. Works awesome... we will need to secure the harnesses so that they don’t block the air flaps in the shroud, but is super clean.
I also installed multiple temperature sensors to monitor oil temps and power steering fluid temps. My C&R radiator has oil and power steering coolers. We wired in temperature sensors in the input and output lines so that we can monitor oil and power steering fluid temps as they enter the cooling unit and after they exit the cooling unit. Because these all feed the digital dash (rather than a physical gauge), it is easy and inexpensive to monitor this data in a digital environment where you don’t need physical gauges.
A couple of under car shots where you can see where we will run the exhaust from the headers...
For exhaust, I’m using Spintech oval tubing from the headers to an X-pipe to their 3000 series mufflers. The oval tubing is 3 1/2” wide and 2 1/4” tall, and the equivalent to 3” round tubing. The oval tubing will give us a little more ground clearance to tuck the exhaust up tighter to the floors. The mufflers are oval inlets and 3” round outlets. The round tubing will exit the mufflers and go over the rear end, angle toward the back corner of the rear of the car (the fuel tank has clipped corners) and will exit near the rear bumper. System will be Tig welded together but for a handful of V band clamps to take it off in sections. Once completed, we’ll coat the exhaust black. You can see one of the mufflers, the X-pipe and other oval tubing in the photo below. The exhaust components are sitting on lift in front of the rear tire.
A handful of shots of the Nova on the lift. First time it’s had front fenders on it in a long, long time. Kurt adjusted the front shocks and the rake is pretty close... looks great! We’ll tweak it again after all fluids are in and weight is settled in.
Great to see the continued progress! PFTE fuel line should be in this week and will be installed. Also, as mentioned above, exhaust will be a priority this week as well. Stay safe,
Brian
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Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
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It's like a ball of yarn unwinding, that has no end... Author DKz Garage
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