LQ4 into a 3rd Gen/1972 Nova by frojoe

4 minute(s) of a 891 minute read

Ok so I should probably apologize to anyone following my thread, I have a tenancy to jump around a lot, maybe that's just my way of not becoming burned out just working on one thing till completion. I'll try to make things a little more streamlined in the future...

These are just some teaser shots because I liked them. PS... safety wiring sucks...



Everything fits real nicely...



This is with stock drum spindles, 1.25" spacer adapters, and 40mm offset 8" wide wheels (equivalent to 4.325" backspacing when using the spacers)...



The Wilwood brakes will move the mounting face out 0.38" on either side from the stock drum face.

To keep the wheels in the same place they are now, with the Wilwoods I would need 0.87" spacers, which is too thick of a spacer for the 2" studs supplied in Wilwood kit, so I'm going to get 3" studs & use 0.5" spacers to bring the wheel in just a bit closer to the tie rod end than in the picture above.

I decided to try as best I could to clean up the firewall. I'm not about to plug weld and bondo the thing, function over form. But I did give it a quick respray "while I'm at it"... and this'll likely be the only body-related paint I do to the car for a long time. It didn't make a huge difference, but enough to make the effort worth while.

Before...



After...



Randomly decided to start working on the interior. Apart from a couple ACC splices and stereo wires, this's all the previous owner(s) handiwork, geez more stuff to clean up...



A while ago I picked up a tilt column from an '80 Camaro for dirt cheap, and figured if GM were smart they'd keep a good thing going and have as many parts interchangeable as possible.

Looks like I was right, the '80 Camaro column (top) is damn near identical to my stock '72 Nova column (bottom)...



Except for the output shaft attachments...



And firewall cover plates...



Thanks to Marktainium, picked up this 1 1/8" power brake aluminum master cylinder for cheap, looks nice on there...



Old manual brake rod is 5.25" long from firewall to pivot point...



New setup is 5.75" from firewall to pivot...



...I think I'm gonna make a custom brake/clutch pivot bracket moving them closer to the firewall for my long legs (I'm 6'2"), so I'll have to figure out whether to shorten the rod or not, more on that later.