LQ4 into a 3rd Gen/1972 Nova by frojoe

5 minute(s) of a 891 minute read

Got some pretty good progress done this weekend. Since I hacked up my radiator support and I'm free to put the radiator/intercooler wherever I can reasonably fit them, it's been a pretty interesting juggling act adjusting the radiator+intercooler stack up/down and front/back, to best accommodate fitting the grill and having non-weird looking top charge pipe.

I ended up pinching the end of the cut 3.5" mandrel bend, and it blended pretty well with the multi-piece 2.5" elbow that I made. The only area where the profile didn't match was the underside had a bit of a gap, but I think I will notch this underside part of the ovalized bend, to make it flush and give the radiator a bit more clearance..

Here you can see how the edges of the rad are resting on the underside of the charge pipe. I'm going to lower the rad maybe 1/2", which will allow the pipe to flatten a bit, then slide the pipe forward ~1/2" to clear the front edge of the rad, and notch the 3.5" ovalized bend so it has clearance to the back edge of the rad..

Then got started on making the intercooler bottom end tanks. These prettymuch have to be a specific size/location, so it's no issue just getting them done away from the car.

I used some paper just to get the rough tapered cut lines in order to have some taper to the shape, but everything after that was just winging it.

Don't have a press brake at work, but do have lots of rectangular and round pieces of metal. Oi did this suck, work hardening 0.100" 5052 around a 2.25" pipe to get a ~2.5" bend...

I needed to pinch the bend tighter as I was only able to hand/hammer bend it to about 4-4.5" wide once the length was cut down, so use an arbor press to pinch it down to 3.5" width..

Next I had to trim the subframe horns to make room for the 2.5" turbo->intercooler piping. I'll also be hacking up the bumper support brackets and reinforcing afterwards.

And here is about as much of the stock radiator support I will leave... time to start fabbing in new support structure to reinforce and hold the radiator and intercooler!