Great for you! That looks amazing!

 

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

 

Some people mentioned the belt wrap issue before :-/ Glad you're working it out. You're missing about 120hp, right?

Andrew

 

Dyno pull at Nickey Chicago.........This pull was still with the slipping belt and cast iron exhaust manifolds

 

I always use mandrel bent exhaust tubing. No squishing of the tubing in the bends. You do very nice work.

 

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



[/

 

Stopped at Frame Up on the way home and in my mind I knew that the drivers side header was not going to fit............we had talked about cutting , welding, and recoating.......LOL.........both sides were installed when I got there, just some slight dimpling was all that was required.......Should be finished tomorrow.......LOL......By the way.........the Headers came from Speedway ....................

Drivers side



Passenger side............

 

Cool! Cant wait to see what kind of HP you put down now. Those hood hinges sure are purdy too!

 

Headers in..........Check





Hinges in and Hood Aligned.......Check...







And since the weather is nice.........Drive it to work......Check




Gonna be interesting to get it back to Nickey Chicago and see what if any power gains were made.........Again.......I should have put the Headers on during the initial install.....

Ken

 

Super nice build and car!

 

Been a while for an update.........We were going to take the Nomad on the Good-Guys Road Tour last fall........That was the plan anyway.....The tour started in Mooresville, N.C. and ended in Dallas/Ft. Worth.....We were going to drive to Mooresville and have the car shipped back home from Dallas......During the mod's to the car, we had to eliminate the stock Emergency Brake linkage and cable assy due to clearance issues......So...We ordered an E-Force electric E-Brake actuator (Need E-Brake for shipping)......While waiting for the assy to show up I noticed that the A/C system lost it's charge.....Damm!!.........Did some checking and found that the front drive compressor manifold that came with the kit had a leak in it at where the Tube was welded to plate.......Darn........Called Concept one and they said they would ship one out.......well....It came the day we were supposed to leave.......No time to get it fixed so we took the Impala instead.........Meanwhile.......I left the car at Frame-up for Donnie to fix the A/C, install the E-Force unit and replace the Shorty Headers that had some clearance and vibration issues......we ordered some "Real" headers........Hooker long tubes.... When we returned Donnie had the car all finished.........So, it is ready for this years Road-Tour........Also after the new header install and a pulley change (another long story) we got the Supercharger belt slippage resolved....It now makes 12 lbs of boost and made 520 RWHP thru the mufflers........By the way....The Impala got an overall average of 23.7 MPG over 2880 miles........









Put Dye in the system and found the leak





Ken

 

I love this car! Great work.

 

WOW. Thats great.

What rear gear do you have in the Impala? This one doesn't have the Eddy SC right?

 

3:55 and yes the Impala has the Edelbrock Supercharger

 

So...….The story continues...… The seat was at three different upholstery shops over the last 2 1/2 years trying to get a decent job..... Now.....This is a Glide Engineering seat ordered for a 57 Chevrolet...….The upholstery shops (all except the last one, had a issue with the stupid way that Glide designed the pivot arms for the seat backs...….They are about 4" in from the seat sides...….Normal seats the swing arms are outside the cushion (common sense)…….So.. After throwing away two sets of covers that were terrible... I went back to Dave who did the 37 Ford....So... Dave did a great job on the seat except I would have preferred a more rounded form on the top of the seat backs..... Picked it up today and wanted to get it installed right away as we are taking the Nomad on the Good-Guys Road Tour and she wanted a comfy seat in the car...… Well......I get the old seat out and get the new one in and after getting it bolted in I went to raise the seat backs and guess what...……..The seat back frames are 1" per side too wide ……..Great Job Glide.....Here we go again !!! All I want is to be a person that gets what he wanted and paid for that actually fits and works...… I guess that is asking too much...…….Glide Engineering Sucks !!!!!

 

At this point, ditch the bench and get some buckets! I went with Scat, they have a frame to bolt them in. They do custom upholstery as well.

 

Ken I have some seat mods going myself. Looking forward to meeting you at TMS!

 

Since it pains me to say that the car season is basically over for the year....The refining process will now continue over the fall and winter season.....Couple things I'm not comfortable with...… Ordered a new GM Ignition switch to hopefully solve the intermittent starting issue...… #2... I'm going to bite the Bullet and change out the Concept 1 Front drive set-up(single belt for everything) for a Wegner LSA front drive ( two belt drive) ……. In the 57 the single belt C1 set-up moves everything forward to align with the Blower Belt position...… In this position everything fits, But.…..There is no clearance between the drive and the fans and radiator...… So, in driving the car like we do across the country, if anything would happen to fail …….. the only way to access the components is to basically remove the radiator and or Core support (another reason I was hesitant to take the Nomad on the Road Tour this year)...… Don't want to be in that position..... With the Wegner set-up, there will be another 1 1/2" of room to at least have room to access the Pulley's Etc... One of these things you learn as the process moves along..... Gonna make it more Gooder !!!..... LOL

 

Ken it was a pleasure visiting with you at TMS! I'm certain you will get your front drive system like you want it. More soon - Kharp

 

After buying the Glide Engineering seat 2 1/2 years ago...…. It's been a struggle trying to get the foam and covers made to have a comfortable decent looking seat...…. After being in three different shops and finally getting a decent job in the third shop, then finding out the seat was too wide and didn't fit...… I've had it with that seat..... Glide made new seat back frames so the seat would now fit, but, after being on the Road Tour a couple weeks ago and talking to Greg Weld and sitting in Bret Vogel's car...… I have decided to sent the original seat to Tracy Weaver in Nebraska and get him to recontour and work his magic on it as he has done many of these conversions………. Here are some pictures of the seat after receiving it from upholsterer #2 …….What a waste of time and her money !!!