Nova passion is strong in our family.

It was 2008. After I had completed a 1967 Nova wagon restoration on a car which had been in my family since about 1978, I started to appreciate the shorter body panels of the 4-Doors and Wagons.

I buy all my catalog items from Junior. Radiator and shroud kit, bumpers, interior parts, clutch linkage, Hurst shifter kit, and weather stripping. Many pickup truckloads of Chevy2Only parts have come in and out of Carlisle for my last project, this project, and I’m sure the next one. I was most impressed with Junior’s weld-in frame connectors. Reasonable price and great fit. You need to get way under the car to even see they are there.

In 2011, I was in the mood to build a fun street Nova and decided to start shopping.

I knew I wanted a deck lid this time, so I decided to look for a 4-Door Sedan. I came across a deal I couldn’t refuse: two 1967 wagons and a 1967 4-door sedan. My Uncle Steve Barbato agreed to buy the better of the two wagons, and I was thrilled that I found my 4-Door project.

After quickly selling the second wagon for seed money, I began disassembly. Upon breaking down my new 4-Door, I found it was an extremely clean car. It had ~64k original miles, a small 6-cylinder with an air-cooled Powerglide and a factory Posi. It came with the original protecto plate, too!

The original 6-cyl had been swapped for an earlier ’62 model and the original posi carrier had been replaced with an odd-ball ’66 carrier. Original color was one of my favorites — deepwater blue. The interior had blue vinyl with the cloth insert option. I decided I wanted the look to be stock but I wanted modern performance.

I also decided I wanted to have fun shifting gears, so I quickly decided a 283 and a 4-Speed would be a fun combo while keeping the stock look with the bench seat. The next tradeoff due to the choice of a non-OD trans was highway engine RPM vs. bottom end. I decided mid-range and highway drivability was more important than hole shots, so I decided to keep the original 3.08 gears and try the M22-Z gear set in the 4-speed. This is an ultra-wide gear ratio where first and second is pushed lower for more bottom end when using higher rear end ratios. I am quite happy with it for street performance.

After some research on front suspension I decided on the Church Boys setup and I am absolutely thrilled with the handling. While I was doing the metalwork on the unibody, I did some design work to see how to get some tread under the back without doing a mini tub or destroying the quarter. I was able to trim and roll the flange by the rocker forward a bit and I also trimmed and rolled the rear-end bump stops in a bit. I moved the rear end back .3” and used a custom offset 4.625” rear wheel to pull it in toward the leaf. Those 235/70-15’s fit like a glove back there.

I installed a factory style shift hump. It took a little hammer and dolly work to flatten a rib in the auto tunnel, but it worked out great. I replaced both floor supports, both trunk corners, both lower quarter patches and installed GM Classics weld-in frame connectors. Top and bottom of the car were painted in the original Deepwater Blue with a Base-Clear combo. Love it.

All panels are original to the car. I was able to get the front bench seat cover with the vinyl fisheye pattern but unfortunately couldn’t get a match for the cloth insert. Between Kentucky, Florida and Nevada I was able to come up with a full set of factory blue tinted glass for the car which is a subtle compliment to the overall look.

When I was deciding on the motor, as tempted as I was to order a ZZ4 350, I really wanted to honor the wackiness of the ChevyII by using an original Nova block. Fortunately my Uncle Steve of B&B ChevyII Performance still had some parts around from the street racing days. We found a stock-bore 67 Nova 283 Block, a set of high performance GM “yellow” connecting rods and set of forged TRW flat top pistons in his inventory. I set the bottom end up like a Z-28 with a rear sump and windage tray. I static balanced the rods and pistons and built the motor myself. Not only does the small stroke of a 283 make for high RPM, but the small volume engine offers a number of other cost-saving advantages. 1) You can get away with smaller valves and lower lift cam. 2) You can get away with smaller exhaust manifolds/pipes 3) The ~9:1 compression lets you enjoy 87 octane at the pump.

I decided I wanted to use stock exhaust manifolds, so I chose to use GM small port Iron Vortec heads. They are limited in lift but the small exhaust ports were close enough that I was able to port match the stock exhaust manifolds to the heads. The only tricky part was getting a high RPM low lift CAM. I started with the Lunati bracket master 285/285. It pulled great to 6800 RPM but just wasn’t drivable at low RPM, which I needed for the 3.08 rear and tall tires. I later changed to the Lunati Voodoo 256/262.

It now runs way better down low and pulls to about 5800 RPM. Live and learn!

I feed fuel and air with an Edelbrock Air-Gap RPM manifold, a 1406 carb and I topped it with a repro 66 L-79 Air cleaner. I squeezed a GMPP serpentine system on the front of the engine. It is tight but it fits if you use a smaller battery. The combination turned out great.

It looks great, sounds great and is very fun driver. I smile every time I pull the cover off and take it out!

I buy all my catalog items from Junior. Radiator and shroud kit, bumpers, interior parts, clutch linkage, Hurst shifter kit, and weather stripping. Many pickup truckloads of Chevy2Only parts have come in and out of Carlisle for my last project, this project, and I’m sure the next one. I was most impressed with Junior’s weld-in frame connectors. Reasonable price and great fit. You need to get way under the car to even see they are there.