LQ4 into a 3rd Gen/1972 Nova by frojoe

3 minute(s) of a 891 minute read

To improve my engine cooling amongst some other areas of the car, I've been doing a ton of online reading, including ordering some knowledge slabs!

Plan is to vent the hood in an appropriate area, totally seal off the radiator support, make inner fenders that fit the 275's, make a chin spoiler/air dam, and possibly make a belly pan for under the engine, between the chin spoiler and subframe crossmember, potentially extending all the way back to the firewall. Plan is to keep the pressure in the engine bay as low as possibly, and have the high velocity air flowing over the hood suck out much hot air, as well as keep the pressure in front of the intercooler/radiator as high as possible.

Here's some really good/interesting reading I came across:

1st gen Camaro hood aero testing

2nd gen Trans Am aero testing and mods

General production car aero talk

Ron Sutton's encyclopedia of aero

2-17-2017

I spent a bunch of time scouring the 'net looking for nice quality 3D models of Nova's, just because. I started with finding pretty rough models, like these..

Then another that was a bit better, but left a lot to be desired..

Then I found this one, which look surprisingly good, but the more I looked over the different angles, a couple things started looking strange, like the height and angle of the bumpers, and around the rear quarter window and decklid..

Then I found this model on Hum3D. By far had the best website, the most high-quality pics, and excellent customer service and information..

Downloaded an IGES 3D model of it and loaded it into my work program (PTC CREO, aka renamed ProEngineer)..