57 Nomad Project

[kwhizz]

New exhaust system is in......New Tires as the old ones although good.......were 10 years old, and the rear tires were a pain to get in as they were so wide......the rear end had to have the shocks unbolted to get them on or off......so....I went to a slightly taller and narrower tire to make the car more user friendly.........and the new storage pan is in and in use......So........The car is pretty much finished and the conversion has taken the car to a new level, the Coil-over rear suspension has improved the ride considerably........I also added new tubular upper and lower front control arms........the one thing that is not finished yet is I bought a Glide Engineering contoured foam front seat that is being upholstered to match the existing pattern ........Here are some pic's..

[kwhizz]

Update.........After getting the Lift gate straightened by Mike at Madmooks and getting it installed........The next thing I was concerned with was the 25 year paint on parts of the car that were untouched by Pulera's.......the paint was in good shape, but had Orange Peel and areas of shrinkage in it......and I didn't want to open a can of Worms, but.......After thinking about it......I got in touch with Joe Miller who wet sanded and buffed the 66 Biscayne to perfection 10 years ago.....Joe started his own Restoration shop in Forreston, Il (J. Miller Restorations).......Anyhow, Joe said he could get it in and two weeks later I dropped it off....Joe was concerned about some of the shrinkage areas and obviously about how much paint was on the car for wet sanding.........8 days later I get a call saying that the car was finished.....(no paint jail here)........Joe ended up having to repaint the roof, and then continued with the wet sanding and buffing..........All I can say is that Joe is a Miracle worker........Check out the pictures........all the area's of shrinkage are finished and buffed to perfection......absolutely no imperfections at all......Crazy!!!!.......We will be shipping the car out to Phoenix in early May for the Spring Good-Guys Hall of Fame Road Tour that starts there.......I'm really starting to like this car.....LOL

[GregWeld]

Looks great Ken!!!!!

[waynieZ]

Wow, very nice Ken. I always said that's a Beuatiful car.

[glassman]

Very nice Ken!! You can sleep in the back instead of all those nice hotels....

[kwhizz]

Update........A couple of things........Took the car to Nickey Chicago for tuning......during the tuning process a couple of issues popped up.........#1....I put a Concept 1 front drive set-up on the car to allow for the A/C compressor to be mounted up top ( no room in the stock low position due to cross member clearance issues)....this setup drives everything off of one 8 rib belt.........and in the Dyno tuning process when given full throttle, the belt squeal made it apparent the Belt wrap on the crank pulley was not the best along with the belt dust all over the engine..........I had a Gatorback belt on the car which has cross grooves which make the belt quieter,........But the guys at Nickey told me to get a Gates Fleet Runner Belt which doesn't have the cross grooves and will give more gripping surface..........Only made 7lbs of boost with the slippage.........New Belt installed..........2nd.......the Horsepower on the Dyno was lower than I expected..(442 RWHP).....Also in driving the car home it ran good but just didn't have the power of the LSA powered 66 Chevelle) ............After getting the car home I put it up on the lift and after looking at the exhaust system..........I now realized that I should have not used the stock cast iron manifolds........and when the exhaust was fabricated, the 90 degree bend put in the pipe coming down from the manifolds actually reduced the pipe diameter quite a bit..........so....as I looked at this set-up, I really realized the Choke point of trying to push all the exhaust at RPM thru that area of pipe........So..........Here we go again......LOL......Ordered a set of 4 tube headers........(pic's to follow).........It will be interesting to see what the numbers will be after getting everything installed and tuned again............I'm also going to install a set of Ring Bros Hood Hinges........

Ken

[waynieZ]

This car just keeps getting better and better!

[kwhizz]

Dyno pull at Nickey Chicago



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXa36XQL7sU

[kwhizz]

Fleet Runner Belt installed




Ring Bros Hood hinges installed





And the Headers arrived.....I should have done this right from the beginning.......



I talked to Donnie at Frame-up in Beach Park, Ill about putting the headers on and he had an opening.......so I drove the car over there without the hood .......I'll bring the Hood over there also so after finishing the exhaust they can install and align the hood......then I need to take it back to Stefano for some final tweaking..........Then I hope I'm finished........LOL



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[nicks67ca]

looks good Ken, I may have missed it but what brand headers did you buy? Those look like "mid" Length design.

Also on your Chevelle you you are running the LSA in stock pulley configuration not the LFP 2.5" upper pulley?

I'm curious to see your numbers after the header install.

Thanks!