LQ4 into a 3rd Gen/1972 Nova by frojoe

3 minute(s) of a 891 minute read

This weekend I'll be taking some detailed Nova body reference measurements to see how close the car is. Purely size-wise I'm not sure how close the model is to real life, but as far as surface detail and overall curvature & muscle lines, I gotta say I think the model is pretty damn accurate.

Some more 3D model fiddling.. luckily I'm picking up a ton of stuff tomorrow so I can pry myself away from whacky ideas on the computer and actually get some real stuff done!

Idea for hood vents, I would make them and likely just cut holes in the hoodand paint match the vents and insert them into the hood, at least to start.. instead of trying to do a bunch of metal blending. I could always graft the vents into the hood at a later date when bodywork happens, or more realistically just transfer them over to a lighter hood (fiberglass.. aluminum... carbon.... who knows what the future holds). Think I'd weld studs on the underside of the vent flange to fasten them to the hood, instead of just sticky tape or epoxy'ing them on.

I'm liking the width/length overall size of the vents as well as the number of louvers.. I feel it looks kinda balanced visually on the hood, not too ricey or "gilly". Vents are located so that they more or less line up right over all of the pre-turbo hot piping. Sizing of the vents side-to-side is roughly from the valvecover over to the inner fender, and front-to-back from the turbo center section back to the center of the exhaust manifold.

Another idea is for the tailpipes. I'm a big fan of the quarterpanel 45* dumps half hidden/tucked up under the quarter panel, which is what I currently have. Mark's Camaro executed this well.. only a bit of the tip is showing to hint at what's underneath.  

That being side, almost since I got the car I've been curious what integrated/frenched exhaust tips could look like. I think since I'm doing a full 3.5" dual exhaust, the tips could actually be big enough to visually look balanced on the rear.

The Nova has a HUGE rear bumper, so small tips (2.5", even 3") look a bit out of place and small, especially if they're hanging 100% under the bumper. Also don't like when the tips come straight back from beside the framerails.. spacing looks too wide and unbalanced in my eyes. Case-in-point is how I originally did my exhaust when I first got the car, 2.5" slash cut chrome tips hanging below the bumper and outboard of the framerails, they look like an obvious add-on and not really integrated at all.