Chevy II "gasser"-from racecar to streetcar

Hi all, since I am at home recovering from surgery to remove a tumor from my inner jaw; I thought I would start a “build post” on my Chevy II “gasser”. I thought it would be cool to show what I started with and how it got to this point. Plus it gives me something to do for a few hours in between taking Oxicodone pills!

I bought the car in early 2007. I bought it as a race car (NOT street legal) and with no title (it DOES still have the VIN plate). My plans were to make the car street legal. It took awhile to get the car delivered due to a huge snow storm we had here, but after the snow melted, Ben D dropped it off at my house.

It was pretty much as I expected. It had been a race car for quite some time and had plenty of scars to show for it. No surprises there. It looked like a lot of "cast-off" parts were used on it, no biggie, I would be changing out most things anyway.

A few days after it arrived:

 

This thing was LOUD! I needed to put some kind of exhaust on it so I could work on it in my garage. I live in a quiet residential neighborhood & I know my neighbors would not hear the beauty in open fenderwell headers and 13.5 : 1 compression for long!

I called Hank at Hanksville Hotrods about running an exhaust and also adding swing-aways on the rollbar to make it easier to get in & out of the car. This is where I ran in to my first obstacle. The headers were rubbing on the tire. I finally found a set of headers that were for a Chevy II, bolted them up and headed to Hanksville.




Loaded up and ready to go to Hanksville:

 

New headers, exhaust, and swingouts.

 

Dead transmission! Pulled the car out in the driveway to clean out the garage, when I tried to pull the car back in the garage, the transmission had apparently had enough. It would not move the car in any gear and was making a strange grinding / clicking sound. No big deal, TH350’s are readily available, plus this one looked like an old junkyard takeout anyway.

I still thought that maybe I could use the current engine (with race gas) so, I decided to turn my attention to wiring the car & getting the interior sorted out. Since it was a race car, it had no lights, charging system, etc. And as you expect, the interior was bare bones.

Pulled all the wires out of the car.

This was ALL of them!

 

Gutted the interior:



Filled a bunch of holes and painted the dash:


Called Rebel Wire for a harness, and started running wires.

 

Made some brackets and added an alternator. Had to mount it on the passenger side on the motor, the steering rod was in the way on the driver’s side:

 

The interior. Added dash bezel, gauges, switches for fuel pump, fan, and line lock, dynamat, carpet, radio from Custom Autosound. Kept the seats but added new covers. It’s not perfect, but I like the way it turned out. The funky green/gold flake steering wheel was on the car but it had a foam cover on it. Surprise!

 

Now on to the trunk. It had an 8-gallon fuel cell and two batteries that were just half-assed mounted. The trunk floor had been cut out and a piece of diamond plate was used to cover the hole.



After I cleaned everything out and gutted it:



New patch installed and seam-sealed:



Painted with Eastwood trunk paint:



New 16-gallon fuel cell & battery:



Fuel pump relay & circuit breaker:

 

Ok, now on to the drive train. I know the transmission was junk, but I thought I could save the engine.
I worked on it for a long time trying get it sorted out, but there was something that was never quite right with it.

Pulled the carbs, the front carb had 65 jets / 3.5 power valve, the rear carb had 54 jets / 2.5 power valve, WTF?!. Put 62 jets / 2.5 power valve in both and it really helped, but I still had a bad misfire I couldn’t figure out.

I checked the ignition wiring over & over again and replaced the distributer pick-up. Since I didn’t really know the history of the engine, I decided to pull it and build another engine for the car. The cam was a solid roller as the previous owner had said, but I didn’t know the specs and there were no markings on the cam.

So out with the old:





Strange, one odd lifter set…..

 

‘Nice” ported & polished 292 angle plug heads with roller springs, roller rockers, screw in studs & guide plates. I was planning on using these heads for the new motor, more on that later.




Out with the trans and tiny converter:

 

Compression! The short block actually looked pretty good, cylinders look good too. It’s an early block, February 1968; I still have the short block/rotating assembly sitting in my garage. I may use it for something else someday.

 

Took the heads to the machine shop (F&M Performance Machine) for a going over. A few days later they called and wanted me to swing by the shop to look at the heads. They had disassembled the heads and tanked them. The heads were totally worn out.

Almost all the guides and seats were severely worn out and 4 valves were bent. A few chambers were badly beat up from something coming loose at one time. The springs were not roller springs either .

And, probably the cause of my misfire, the port & polish job made the intake runners so thin they had actually broke through in a few spots. These things were not worth saving. I sold the bare heads at a swap meet for $25, what a shame....

 

The new engine! I built a nice stroker motor for the gasser. It is 385 ci (.040 383). I went with a pair of Dart Iron Eagle heads, 64cc chamber, 200cc runners. The cam is a Comp Cams hydraulic roller, XR288HR, lift is .520/.540, and duration is 288/294. Pistons are forged flat tops; the rotating assembly is from Eagle. It’s a nice motor with plenty of power.





Rod bolt clearance for the stroker crank.

 

Picked up a rebuilt TH350 trans and put a shift kit in it as well as a 3000 stall converter.
Got the motor buttoned up and in the car. I decided to use the tunnel ram first to see how I liked it and how the car ran.

 

The big day, time to start the car! Cranked it over, all of sudden I heard a clanging noise and I heard something fall on the ground! YIKES!

Well, I used the starter that was on the old race motor, and some genius at one time tried to weld the broken pot-metal nose of the starter.

This is what happened.

Picked up a new starter, and she fired right up!

 

I picked up these Fenton Gyro’s from a HAMBer, and bought some chrome steel wheels for the rear. The maiden voyage:

 

After driving it around a bit, the master cylinder started leaking, so replaced that, but I had no rear brakes. I couldn’t get anything through the rear wheel cylinders. It ended up that the rear flex hose was clogged/collapsed. Hell, it has probably been like that for a LONG time and nobody ever knew it!

I also switched out the 3rd member (Ford 9-inch). It had 4:11 and a spool, I switched to 3:50 and a Detroit Locker.

 

I took off the headers and exhaust and had them ceramic coated, it looks much better!

 

I ran the tunnel ram for awhile, but it is an Edelbrock Pro Ram II, and not at all good for street use. I am now running an old Edelbrock TM-1, however I picked up an Edelbrock Scorpion that I will put on this winter.

Edelbrock TM-1 and swap meet score scoop:

 

This summer I added some bias tires from Coker and got a new windshield and seal installed, but mostly I have been enjoying driving the car around!

Well, that is the short story! I had to obtain a title for the car, which wasn’t too bad, and I had to pass a one-time emissions test, which was a pain in the ass and took me months to get through all of that.

I really dig this thing, and people that know what they are looking at seem to “get it”.


Summer 2010 at the Road Devils show at Lakeside Amusement Park:

 

Badass! :d

 

Very Very Cool!

 

Your Nova is coming along very nice. It's always nice to see what was once a hack job turned into a good looking and running car.

 

Love it !!!!!! Very Very Nice. Tom (Tired Old Man)

 

fuckin killer car man! I love it!

 

Considering the condition of the previous engine, I wonder whether your street engine would be quicker in the quarter with the 4.11 gears. Nice look to your car and that carpet was not only the perfect color to choose but it made all the difference in your interior.

 

wow way way cool great lookin car.

 

Thats a very cool car!!!

 

My favorite nova II of all times,

Love the color ,

Love the interior,

Love the wheels and tire combo....

All around just a very nice car ...

Thats what I think of from being a teen in the 60 's

That's what we all would have killed for....

The ONLY thing better for me WOULD be a four speed.....

I love it Man , have fun and drive the shit out of it now...

Hope you are feeling better ................

 

Very nice car...really like the cutout's integrated with the fender headers...gives me ideas