cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

Sorry for the long absence, life has been getting busy! The biggest news is that my Wife and I are expecting a baby! Yup, mid-July we will be welcoming a baby…BOY into our world. My weekend have been busy with lessons on car seats and building cribs and reading books and this and that etc...We are both very excited, but I am a little nervous!

In Nova news there has been a lot of progress made, all driven by a local shop holding a DYNO DAY last weekend! Spoiler Alert: Nova makes it on the rollers!

Power steering conversion:

All new linkage including solid adjusters and MOOG tie rods. A fast ratio steering gear from a 97 Grand Cherokee. And the alt/PS pump bracket from a 2003 truck. All painted and looking good.




Steering Gear was larger than the manual gear and required header clearancing and material removal on the aluminum cover.





The pump had the return line facing forward, so I cut it off and added a SMALL flare to the end to act as a hose bead. To keep metal filings out of the pump I plumbed an air nozzle into the pump. Here is the pump-end plumbing I came up with.





My local NAPA crimped the pressure hose with Eaton compression fitting ends that allowed me to use the original GM pump fitting and Cherokee gearbox ends. Worked out pretty well so far. Only cost $30.



Got everything installed, primed the system, and then this happened, the O-ring on the gearbox cover blew out! Spewing fluid every where! Including the ceiling. Looks like I took to much material and cut into the O-ring land.





Another trip to the junkyard landed me a replacement cover, and I also noticed this one had a very nice integrated steel/rubber gasket. I wonder if the first box was a cheap rebuild with a cheapo O-ring?

cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

I scored a set of 1000 mile front discs from a buddy who what upgrading to Wilwoods! Here is the test fit into my 14” Cragars…Its TIGHT. I think I will be grind the caliper brackets a bit just for piece of mind!







Here is an interesting note. The disc brakes weight about 10lb more than the drums!





And POOF, just that easy to install….right! Fresh red paint looks good.





Another Note, be sure to pay attention to which side you mount the calipers on. I was in a hurry and swapped left and right. And the brakes REFUSED to bleed…maybe because the bleed screw was on the bottom of the piston. Boy wouldn’t it be nice if Chevy cast a big ole “L” or “R” into the calipers…



Here are the rest of the parts for the conversion. A Corvette manual master residual pressure valves and an adjustable prop valve. All from Pirate Jack. If I had the chance I would consider using another source next time. The master had different sized ports then described (frustrating) and the residual valves BOTH leaked (REALLY FRUSRATING) I had to remove them, disassembly, clean and rebuild them to get them to seal!



Here is the finished product of the steering and brake upgrades. I spent a great deal of time trying to keep everything clean looking and as easy to access as possible.







Uh Oh, looks like the springs have finally settled! The stance looks awesome, but I am sitting on the bump stops. Great.

cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

So all this hard frustrating work was in an effort to make it to a DYNO DAY event that a local performance shop held on March 29th. It took several nights of staying up until 12AM and getting up at 5 for work, but it was worth it! I took video but my camera decied to just record the first 3 seconds of video! But I did get a couple pics and most important: THE GRAPH!

Quick review or specs:
-2001 5.3 with 106K, now 109K’ish
-Completely stock internals
-Edelbrock dual intake
-Used/rebuild Speed Demon 750
-Ebay 3rd gen SS headers, 1 ¾” Primary, 3” collectors
-3” straight pipes to Thrust mufflers dumped at the axle
-Rebuilt TH350
-2000RPM converter
-Original 2.73 gears

The torque was what I expected, but about 400RPM lower than I expected to see it. The horsepower however was about 40HP less than I expected, and 1100RPM lower then what a 5.3 SHOULD reach peak at?1 WTF! I know I am leaving some on the table in carb and ignition tuning, but this was still a little disappointing.

Now don’t worry, I am no Dyno queen, I know a dyno is best used as a before/after tool and that kicking asphalt is what is REALLY important. As a baseline I am happy with how it performs on the road and on the track. I am going to be creating a thread in the Dyno section to share and discuss the results.



Most importantly, I had FUN, learned a lot and made a connection to some local fellow gearheads! There were some sweet cars, including a Duramax that laid down 475HP and 950LBFT!!

EDIT: The shop sent me the vid of the Nova on the rollers.

cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

In fun and funny news, I have made a couple additions to the Shop. Fisrt is a 50’ ½” hose reel scored on CL! I am in love!



The other is a custom rolling chair I made from some HF casters, 4 ton bottle jack, scrap SS tube and a farm tractor seat. Super comfy and adjustable from 14” to 24”!

bczee

iTrader: (12)

Boy have you been keeping busy !.. good going on the updates (problems and all).. Carbs are not as simple as everyone thinks at times.. getting the max power out of one can be very time consuming with trial and error time spent re-jetting, power valves, accelerator pumps and timing changes.

I have my 71 Nova back on the road and working on minor tweeks.. Was at the Pleasanton Good Guys this past weekend with it. Made a few Auto-X run.. need to work in the brakes and steering some. But it wasn't too bad.

Keep up the good work and Congat's on the coming baby boy! ... guess them rear door will be coming handy now LOL..

BC

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

Huge congrats on the upcoming little one. Is this your first? Kids are life changing. I LOVE being a dad. I hope you get the same out of it.

The car looks highly sanitary, as usual. Power steering and disc brakes? It must feel like a different car! Throw a brake booster on there and you'll be in business.

When you dyno'd the car, did you do any tuning or was this just for baseline? Did they throw a sniffer up the tailpipe to get an idea of O2 readings? I had a 750 Speed Demon on my old 350 and it really took some work to get it dialed in. I knew a guy who was a whiz at setting up a carb and he could get my engine running crisp and snappy, but any time I messed with it the thing just ran like crap. It might be worth finding someone who can help you tune it.

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

Fat chick rated

cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

Thanks Bandit! Yes, this is our first and I am very excited to begin our family. I think the Wife's extra estrogen is starting to affect me too. I find myself waving back to little kids at the store, and there was a 2 year old boy at the dyno days with his mom while dad was on the rollers and I got all misty eyed thinking "that'll be mah' boy someday!"

The PS and disc conversion had a lot of headaches to overcome so I had no time for tuning, and I was pretty bummed that I only got 2 runs and that they did not use a sniffer! I think a AFR gauge is the next investment I need to make and finding a carb guru to help me out would be aweomse!

And finally, no fat chicks allowed in my garage! Well just my preggo Wife:
"No honey you don't look fat"
"Well yes of course people know you are preggo and its not a beer belly."
"Yes I still find you beautiful."
"No the Nova is not an evil money and husband eating Mistress."
"No dont start crying. Yes of course I will take a break from the Nova and go get you chocolate ice cream."

Slim80

Congrats on expecting! Summer birthdays are the best too, my son's is in June and there is so much more to do in June than in the winter time. Normally I would tell you to hurry up and get the things done on your car that you want to before the baby comes, but it looks like you have an awesome start on your car and you should be happy for awhile. I took 5 years off from the car scene when my son came, but after awhile the itch comes back.

I'm glad that power steering is back on, and it still looks good with the stock alternator location and all. That is weird with how low the hp was on the dyno compared to what you ran at the drag strip. Did you ever weigh the car? I'm assuming 3,200-3,500 range... should be interesting to calculate the time you ran vs the weight of the car to get a hp number and see what that is.

thebwlife

I'm looking at doing the same swap, what did you do for the driveshaft? Will the stock one work or did you order a new one?

With the Holley engine mounts does the transmission end up in the OEM location?

cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

Update time. I have made some real improvments to the Nova in the past few months and she is a whole new beast!

-TSP224R .581”/.581” 112LSA
-Comp Chromoly 7.400” pushrods
-Comp 918 springs

The best part: the performance shop I did my previous dyno run at had another dyno day and I was able to get the Nova on the rollers so now I have a before/after comparison!

PEAK:
Before: 233hp/286lbft
After: 310hp/300lbft



Here is the vid:
They tried to run the in 3rd gear on the first run. That dyno must have been at about 150MPH! haha. The second run was in 2nd and actually ran the engine to 6500RPM.

cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

The new cam makes the Nova feel ALIVE! At least above 4000RPM. So its time for the stock 2.73s to GO. I was planning on 3.23, but than I made this graph comparing RPM to MPH. Now I am thinking 3.42 or perhaps even 3.73 may be a possibility without sacrificing MPG too much.

Thoughts?

BTW: stock TH350, 2200 stall, 26” tire, 3500lb w/driver

darren roar

iTrader: (1)

Sounds good! I had a foxbody with a 3:50 gear and it was the best of both worlds.

cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

Thanks Darren! I love the sounds too. I'm thinking 3.73 will be the winner, espeically as I hope to move to a 4L60/80E in the next couple years...along with EFI! So tired of endlessy chasing the perfect tune with this carb!

hookemdevils22

iTrader: (12)

3.73 is just about perfect. I also liked the 3.55s in my 66 GTO after I put a 5-speed in. 3.90s in my Nova were a touch high, even with the 4L80e. Of course, that's been mitigated by the T56...

Slim80

Looks and sounds awesome dude! Stick with the 3.20 or 3.40 gears for when you decide to put a turbo on it. ha ha. It will work awesome with that.

cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

I'm leaning towards the 3.73s as well. 3.42s may be a better balance, but I am willing to sacrifice for the performance and fun of the 3.73s! I am also researching the later GM 1/2-ton trucks with the 8.6" diff as a donor for high quality 3.73 gears.

Hookem, I also wanted to question you on running a 4L80E in your Nova. How did handle shift controls and column indicator? I'm starting early research on swapping to an OD trans. Thanks!

Thanks Slim! Good point on the gears. The idea of a turbo keeps bouncing around in my mind. How is your turbo Camaro running? It seems like you are starting to get some good times out of it!

Slim80

I'm going to the track again tonight for an RSD, the car is running good but I'm not going to turn it up anymore until I get disk brakes on the front and rear. I think 110mph is about as fast as I can go and still make that first turn off, with drum brakes.

cruisin'73

iTrader: (8)

YES Jeeze man! Get some damn discs on that things! I bet with some smart shopping you could do both ends for <$600! Even just adding the slotted/drilled front discs to my Nova made the car feel much safer and made me more confident. You have power steering right? Converting over to the fast ratio Grand Cherokee box was the best improvement I have made to the car. In terms of fun, it almost rivaling the damn engine swap!

110mph and mid 12s isn’t bad at all, but I would be expecting a little better from a turbo car. Are you having a hard time launching? Is the tune not finished yet? I’d think you should be ripping low 12s, or high 11s!...Ya you better get those discs on ASAP!

Slim80

Yep, I always had the power steering and I did find a front and rear disk kit at Summit for $700.

Yeah I've been kind of testing and tuning with my car and the turbo project is not 100% finished so the times I'm getting is what I expected. I still have the 4.11 gears in the rear and the stock cam in the motor, after the 1/8th mile the car doesn't gain much speed and power. I'm already doing 90mph in the 1/8th mile, so it will be a big improvement next year with gears and cam change.