When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
The last couple weeks have been great for seat time in the Nova. Being behind the wheel of this car has been putting a smile on my face for almost twenty years now. Somehow it just never gets old! And with the kids in the back seat... even better! I've been taking my 7yo son to baseball practice and my 4yo to the park. Here's a look-back shot of the car at the park the other day.
I even let my wife take our family out to ice cream the other day. Here's a rare view forme from the passenger seat!
I discovered that with the wife and kids in the car the exhaust V-band a at the header scrapes my driveway. I was afraid this might be hanging down too low. I'm not sure if I'll do anything about it. It doesn't seem to drag if it's just me and one of the kids in the car so I may just have to back out of the driveway before loading it with 4 passengers.
Last Friday we packed the Nova for an overnight trip to Santa Paula. They were having their first monthly cruise night for the year and I decided to combine it with an overnight stay at my folks house with the kids. I love how much room there is in the trunk! Plenty of space for overnight bags, swimwear, a dog bed, a pair of scooters, and food. We put the dog in the backseat between the kids and set out on the highway.
It was the first highway trip in the car since all the rearend work and new wheels and tires. The overall gearing difference is noticeable with the smaller diameter rears and I responded by driving a little slower on the freeway. I also noticed a whine that I'm worried could be the rear gears. It seemed to make the whine during cruise or under power, with no change in volume, in the indicated range of 70-75mph (which is probably closer to 60mph now); the noise disappears outside of that speed range and also disappears if I let off the accelerator / decelerate. I heard it more on the way out than I did on the trip back, so perhaps it's something that will go away as the gears break back in. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the gears at all - I'm not sure.
Anyway we made it to the cruise night and it was AWESOME!
There were all kinds of cars lining main street. I only saw one other with an LS swap. I didn't hang around my own car, but the times I passed by there were usually a couple people looking under the hood. I talked to a few of them and met some cool people. The coils on the firewall continue to draw attention. We had to cut out a bit early and drive through the crowds - it was definitely hoppin'.
Another Nova owner I met on Instagram was there and snapped a couple of cool photos of me leaving the show.
So now that I've got the new wheels and tires, rear suspension, and some seat time, I am starting to think about what's next. First, I have a few safety items I'd like to add, namely I want to add a passenger side mirror and a backup camera. I have very bad visibility behind the car and I am really worried about backing over a kid - there are just too many of them playing on my street (including my own) and I'm not sure I'd even hear them yelling over the exhaust. Second, I need to figure out why my engine always has a long crank start. I'll share more details on that later, but basically the engine never starts on the first crank. Third, I am signing up for an autocross event in June and there are a few things I'd like to do to make the car more better before then. That all said - I am just enjoying the hell out of the car!
Clint man what a journey you took us all on with this car, AND this thread. I'm kind of speechless really and that is not a place I find myself often but congrats buddy, you have done it. You pushed through so much and now know things many dont and probably want to forget some of the things you have learned.
Anyways all the best for this year and on I couldnt help but post again when I saw two things in todays post
basically the engine never starts on the first crank.
My guess is the backflow or check valve on the fuel pump is not holding or its the oil pressure safety switch. Iirc a crank relearn is also sometimes in order for this issue although I have no personal experience with this.
More importantly;
I am starting to think about what's next
Enjoy it! Drive it! A lesson I have learned the hard way is never take apart a good running/driving car to "make it better". Not to be confused with off season mods but major reworks that are in mind of improvement rather than required maintenance can derail a good runner into a jack stand dream again in an awful hurry and this is one car Im sure all of us would love to see cruising around a looooooooong time.
Looks like the exhaust vband is fixing its clearance problems all by itself!
LOL. Yes it's self-clearancing- I just hope it doesn't start leaking!
Originally Posted by cam
Clint man what a journey you took us all on with this car, AND this thread. I'm kind of speechless really and that is not a place I find myself often but congrats buddy, you have done it. You pushed through so much and now know things many dont and probably want to forget some of the things you have learned.
Anyways all the best for this year and on
Thank you for the kind post! I appreciate the kudos.
Originally Posted by cam
My guess is the backflow or check valve on the fuel pump is not holding or its the oil pressure safety switch. Iirc a crank relearn is also sometimes in order for this issue although I have no personal experience with this.
Thanks for the ideas. I really hope it is not a crank relearn. I still have a code for that and I can't get it to do the crank relearn due to the lack of VSS. My E38 is setup for an auto and I have no TCM to route the VSS signal through. I can't run a manual OS because I am running VVT. So I think the only way to get the VSS and therefore be able to do a crank relearn would be to add a TCM.
Originally Posted by cam
]Enjoy it! Drive it! A lesson I have learned the hard way is never take apart a good running/driving car to "make it better". Not to be confused with off season mods but major reworks that are in mind of improvement rather than required maintenance can derail a good runner into a jack stand dream again in an awful hurry and this is one car Im sure all of us would love to see cruising around a looooooooong time.
I am right there with you on this! My car was a jack stand dream for nearly six years. I plan to stick with short term mods (weekend, afternoon) at least until winter. Driving the car is such a blast and for now I don't have any big projects in mind.
Did another cruise night this Saturday. It's fun explaining to older guys what those things on the firewall are: "Are those the injectors?" "No buddy those are the points and condensers!"
This time my neighbor brought his Factory Five Cobra. He gets a lot of attention with this car.
Hey Bandit, converting from your V-band clamps to the Torca coupler clamps shown in this photo should provide you with a quick and easy fix to your ground clearance issue...they are much more forgiving.
I love that, haha. I think that should be my project cars name!
Congrats on the shows Bandit! I am going to be coping your frame notches when I get my car back from paint! I am also going to take some of your ideas on the carseats!
Man, I would NOT change a thing on that Nova! And I even USUALLY don't care for vinyl tops! lol And those wheels just flat MAKE IT! It just looks RIGHT. Plus I bet it runs more than right!
Fuel pump backflow/check valve is an easy test with a fuel pressure gauge on the rail. Turn the key on see if it primes, dont start, see if it drops off. If it does there is a problem there, its pretty common although shouldnt negatively impact performance aside from starting difficulties.
That said the e38 is not a swap friendly "ecm" because its missing all the other data feeds the system needs to work smoothly. I wrestled with mine for farrrrrr too long and eventually gave up living with some aspects I didnt like much. No rev limiter presently being the worst of them but I am again working on the tune to see if I can get it dialed in a little better.
As for no off season? Rub it in why dont ya! I'm buried in ice and snow up here. Blah
I am blessed with lots of good weather days, especially being near the coast. Cruises and shows tend to be scheduled during daylight savings time - 8 out of the 12 months per year. But we do pay a hefty "sunshine tax". Housing costs where I live are roughly 3x the national average. Overall cost of living is about 65% higher than national average.
Originally Posted by ryeguy2006a
Congrats on the shows Bandit! I am going to be coping your frame notches when I get my car back from paint! I am also going to take some of your ideas on the carseats!
Thank you! If you need any more info or help let me know. It was definitely worth it to me to have the accessories down low.
Originally Posted by G Atsma
Man, I would NOT change a thing on that Nova! And I even USUALLY don't care for vinyl tops! lol And those wheels just flat MAKE IT! It just looks RIGHT. Plus I bet it runs more than right!
Thank you! Very kind of you.
Originally Posted by cam
Fuel pump backflow/check valve is an easy test with a fuel pressure gauge on the rail. Turn the key on see if it primes, dont start, see if it drops off. If it does there is a problem there, its pretty common although shouldnt negatively impact performance aside from starting difficulties.
Agreed that is the very first thing I need to do. Before I ever started the car I got a loaner pressure gauge from the local auto store and I confirmed it made good pressure with the pump running, but I wasn't looking to see if it bled off when the pump turned off. I just need to carve out a little time to pick up the tool and do that check.
Continuing to have fun with the car over the last few weeks. I took it to work a few times, took my daughter to school, and have been shaking things down a bit. It always stands out in the parking lot.
I finally had a chance to work on adjusting the rear proportioning valve and I ended up opening the prop valve all the way. The stock disc front calipers have very large pistons; even though the rear rotor diameter (12") is larger than the front (11"), I calculate brake bias at about 71/29 primarily due to piston areas. The fronts still lock before the rear, or maybe I should say the FRONT LEFT locks before anything else. I've been having a problem with car pulling left since I got the car running again.
I decided I better troubleshoot that issue before I panic brake into oncoming traffic. First I checked the steering linkage. All the tie rods, idler, and pitman joints seem to be fine. The steering box itself has had a lot of slop for a long time, so I adjusted that out (took about 1-1/4 turns on the box adjustment - probably time for a replacement/rebuild). Next I rebled the front brakes and inspected the right front caliper to make sure things were working. It seemed to be getting fluid and the piston was moving. I pulled it off and checked the pins for binding. They were moving, but not as smoothly as I'd like so I cleaned and lubricated them with some high temp wheel bearing grease. Unfortunately none of this seemed to eliminate the issue. The car continues to pull left under braking.
While I still want to find the problem, I am also not excited about chasing ghosts on this old system so I decided to get the ball rolling early on the next upgrade.
Those are C6 front calipers. My intention was to run Z51 (13.4" rotor) brakes up front, but when I checked clearance using templates from Kore3 I found the caliper would not quite clear the spoke. So I will have to use the base (12.8" rotor) system which should provide enough wheel clearance.
Parts have been showing up. I normally hate posting parts photos because all it really shows is that I'm spending money, but this will give you an idea of what's going on. Kore3 brackets, Kore3 stainless hoses, Kore3 aluminum hubs with 1/2" ARP screw-in wheel studs, Powerslot rotors and Hawk HPS pads.
The hubs are very nice. I was on the fence about going this route or buying used drum hubs and machining them plus upgrading the studs. I could have saved a little money on the drum hubs but I decided I would prefer new parts. These are very nice.
While I wait on the C6 booster and a RHD S10 master, I also tackled another project. Houndstooth!
Your brake pulling issue is probably a caliper loading issue. One piston is not pushing the pads as smooth as the other side causing the pull. C5/6 brakes are great. Cost effective parts, good grip, and plenty of stock everywhere.
Your brake pulling issue is probably a caliper loading issue. One piston is not pushing the pads as smooth as the other side causing the pull. C5/6 brakes are great. Cost effective parts, good grip, and plenty of stock everywhere.
Me agree w him ^^^ - something to check. And again like the seats a lot!
Sorry for the scant details in my previous post. Here is some more detail and my impressions on the seats:
These are Procar Rally Houndstooth seats (80-1000-41R & 80-1000-41L) and I am using the Procar bench seat conversion brackets (81506 & 81507) for '68-74 Nova, because my car was originally a bench. The brackets use the two factory 5/16" outside mounting holes (near the doorsill), but require drilling two new holes into the floorpan on the inside near the tunnel (I used 3/8" hardware for those two). The seat tracks have 3 mounting options for mounting and I am using the positions that put the seat as low as it will possibly go (hole slot closest to the top of the bracket). Unlike some applications I did not have to cut the mounting tabs in order to use the lowest mounting position, which tells me there is still room to move these down if I want to modify the mounting brackets or make my own. In terms of head clearance, the height seems to be okay for me at 6'0" tall but I haven't installed the driver's side yet or driven the car with them so it's hard to say. Once I get the driver's side in, I will try on my helmet and see how I fit. I would say if you want these seats, try sitting in them first to see if you need the standard width or the wide version. These are the standard width. They fit me just right at 189lb (about 5lb overweight with a BMI of 25.4), but they are tight widthwise on my wife - she and I have similar build but she has naturally wider hips than I do. The bolsters will have to break in some for her to be comfortable. If I were doing this again I might spring for the wide versions to accommodate my wife and other people more comfortably, but they would probably be custom order directly from Procar since they don't have a stock number for the houndstooth version.
In terms of left-right positioning, I noticed the seat seems to be shifted closer to the door than where I had mounted the old Maxima seats. I don't think this is a problem necessarily but I'll be interested to see how well centered the driver's seat will be with respect to the steering wheel.
Overall I'd say the seat dimensions are shrunk slightly compared to modern seats, so you might find they feel miniaturized to some degree. They definitely are smaller in all directions compared to the early 90s Maxima seats I had in the car before. I'd say they're much more comparable to an original bucket in terms of size.
I LOVE the styling of the black vinyl with houndstooth center - I absolutely fell in love when I saw these for the first time. Procar charges a huge premium for the houndstooth center and the brackets, but I bought them on an eBay 20% off promotion that ran a couple months ago. Pro will make a matching rear seat cover for me if I want to order one, but I'm not sure if I want to do that until my youngest is in a booster.
I like the fit/comfort, especially having bolstering to hold me in. We'll see how my opinion changes after I get a chance to use them for a while. I am going to get the other side installed soon then I will work on the brake system.
04-12-2018, 04:35 PM
