LQ4 into a 3rd Gen/1972 Nova by frojoe

5 minute(s) of a 891 minute read

I picked up the replacement for the gouged exhaust valve today... not! I got a delivery notification that the replacement valve had arrived and went to pick it up and guess what, I got nothing but a 12"x18" cardboard box filled with nothing but a single piece of brown wrapping paper and a plastic tray that looks like it is what's used to hold an order-in-progress at a warehouse... frustrating!! An angry phone call will be going out Monday morning..

Then I got the Holley oil pan and re-sealed rear main cover installed, which was smooth sailing... aligned to rear bellhousing mounting face and all...

So this is something that I've realized since the start of making the driver side downpipe, but maybe haven't shared... the driver side engine mount needs to move forward for both mount life (heat) as well as plain old clearance for the downpipe to the subframe-side motor mount bracket.

This is what the downpipe clearance would look like if I didn't ovalize the 3" downpipe...

Here's what the mount normally looks like (the short-and-wide SBC motor mount shares the middle-top mount hole with the forward/upper LS block mount hole...

Here's the new setup, I moved the motor mount 1.75" forward, which is the same offset between the middle-top mount hole and the bottom right mount hole. I used 1/4" L-bracket instead of plate just to introduce some rigidity into the plate instead of just using flat stock, since the plate has the majority of motor mount hanging in front of the forward block mounts, instead of half in front of the block mounts...

I had to clearance the backside of the L-plate in these two areas to clear a boss as well as a rib on the block...

This meant I also needed to move the solid subframe-side motor mount bracket 1.75" forward. I used some 7/16" all-thread to align the mount hole, and made a 1.75" long aluminum tube spacer to flip on either side of the solid mount bracket for before/after cutting....