Nice build John, you certainly have all of the details on the Franken Nova. This certainly is a cool car and an amazing history. I sure like 383 engine platforms. Good balance of Horsepower and torque. And reliable, dependable Performance. 👍 Thank for sharing the story of the Nova. Good job.👍👍🇺🇸
Glad to see the Nova ran well and yall made it home safely. If I knew one of your checkpoints was at Yellow Belly I would have been there to meet you. I don't live far from there. I'll try to meet you in Lufkin or Monroe if you do the next drag and drive. Please try to do at least one video before your next drag and drive and maybe some of us subscribers can meet you in person. Thanks for the videos and good luck!
@@Shop209 I hope I can meet you there. I'll bring my one family owned stock 73 Hatchback Nova 307. Zero to 60 takes an hour or two but I've been doing the maintenance to make it a true daily from watching your videos and asking questions during your live events.
Next time you're around southern Oklahoma, I could use all the help i can get with my '72! Stripped it all the way down and found more rust than I expected. Now it's at that overwhelming stage and I could use a lot guidance and an extra set of hands from someone who knows what they are doing! Haha Love the videos, Sir!
Bought my 74 , No engine , No trans , Came with a 49 and 1/2 hood that didn't fit , finally got a 50 inch hood , added a built 327 , aluminum intake, 750cfm carb, Stainless Steel Headers, MSD distributor and multi-spark box, SFI Certified flywheel,11 inch clutch, M-21 Muncie 4 speed , 12 bolt posi , traction bars , new gas tank , new oil and Tach , bucket seats , rear mount battery , rear mount Radiator , Yes the Radiator is in the Trunk .
As I was building it , it came in pieces and boxes , it had the rear bumper shocks , but not on the front , I seen how much the rear shocks weighed , I thought the more weight that was moved to the rear the better , I have 2 aluminum tubes feeding the Radiator. No fan to rob power either , Electric fan on Radiator and modified rear tail lights to let hot air escape out . I'll send a video , Working on my S-10 V-8 Truck right now .
Nice build. I can kind of relate to things getting out of hand. I'm in the process of putting together a low buck rebuild for my street car. It started off with the plan for no new "big" parts. I bought an RPM Air Gap off marketplace, had a used solid flat tappet cam, put new rings and bearings in a stock short block, and was going to freshen up the iron heads. Turned out I couldn't bring myself to use the lousy factory iron heads, and now the motor has a set of AFR Enforcers sitting on top of it.
Well, I'm betting that the Ford 9 inch will help and maybe change the "slapper bars" to some cal tracs, and maybe relocate the leaf springs, or change the whole setup in the future and you could have bigger tires. If you find an early 70's 400 block, you could really have fun with that as well. Just remember to steamport the heads going on it. Take the cylinders 0.60 and add a half inch to the cranks stroke and you have a 427 small block. I'm figuring you already know that could get you going a good bit faster, but I gotta suggest using those floor vents and getting a heater in the car, because if I remember right, it has to have heat to be street legal. That way, if the windows need defogging, you can do that and safely drive it.
Change the back door glass from a 73 to a 72 model I hope you understand me okay sorry. 1968 threw 1972 are my favorite nova’s on the earth and no 4doors ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Wow!! Thats definitely a heart and soul build and absolutely one of a kind. The lauches looked pretty good to me i see it getting to them 10s soon 👍🏽🏁🏁🏁 quick question..do you run a locked out distributor?
@@1Also He said it's .060" over bored, that makes it a 388. And yes you can put a sbc 400 crank in a sbc 307 but the mains will have to be ground down to 2.450" from 2.650" because the 400 mains are bigger than the other sbc blocks. Then you'll either have to get custom pistons or use 4.0L Jeep L6 cylinder pistons with sbc 400 rods. It has to be a sbc 400 crank though because an aftermarket cast steel 383 crank needs a 5.7" long or longer rod. So with an aftermarket crank you'll need custom pistons or have the 307 bored to a 4.00" bore because to save on production costs Chevy used the same molds for the 307 and 350 blocks is why all 307 blocks are so thick.😎👍
@@1Also A .030" over sbc 307 with a 400 crank would be 359 cubic inch displacement. Depending on the heads cam and intake will dictate what kind of power you will make.😎👍
Hey John, you forgot to mention the roll bar and what QM times your car is good to?🤷 I didn't know you had that in there And thought you were shooting for 11.50s. The roll bar changes everything. Eric Wiengarter who has a cylinder head porting business and channel on here just did a video comparing an LS to the sbc. He said you can make the same kind of power for 1k less with a sbc vs an LS. If you build a sbc 434 and go with the better flowing affordable aluminum heads like Promaxx, 600 + HP at the crank would be pretty easy to do. With the right cam 650 to as much as 700 HP? If you want more you can step up to the altered valve angle cylinder heads for way more flow, up to 400 + CFM intake. This will get you to 800 + N/A HP if you want that much. But that extra 200 HP comes at a premium. You'll need an aftermarket block, a crank rated for that much HP, better rod bolts in your aftermarket forged rods rated for that much power and RPM you'll have to spin it....... Yeah if the pressure relief hole isn't drilled out a th400 will take out the thrust every time with an engine that spins more than 6,000 rpm while still making more power. The Powerglide and th350 have a pressure relief valve is why you very rarely hear about one of those taking out a thrust bearing. A performance transmission shop should know about this mod. Make sure to ask if they do before you bring a shop your th400 transmission for a performance build because they'll try to blame the engine builder when it's their fault.(Ask me how I know)😎👍
Yeah. If I go with a 427 SBC I’m going with aftermarket block. With LS I can use a factory aluminum block and the LS heads flow WAY more. So making power is much easier with LS.
@@Shop209 The factory LS heads do flow way more than the factory sbc heads, yes. But when you go aftermarket all that goes out the window, especially with the altered valve angle sbc heads. They don't have LS heads that can flow 400 CFM as of yet but those ARE available for a sbc. And if you're going to build an LS instead of turboing a junkyard 5.3L, according to Eric Wiengarter it will cost you 1,000k more to get the same power you can get from a sbc. Look up his channel, he ports heads for a living and just did a video on this very topic. He has been doing a whole lot of dyno testing so he has data to back up what he says.😎👍
@@Shop209 Plus if you go with a sbc 427 aftermarket block you can set it up to run on pump gas about 10:1 static to get you in the 10.0s QM times. And if you build a car with a full cage you can add about 10 lbs of boost with race gas or up to 30 lbs of boost if you have E85 available in your area. But with your 383 you should be able to get in the 10.0s with a cam, valve springs and intake swap. If you have a forged rotating assembly and it's good to spin to 7,500 RPM, I could recommend a cam to get you there. This would be a minimum of 100 more HP to the rear wheels. The engine would only need to be 11:1 static too.😎👍
Because I’m doing drag n drives. I go from Georgia to Colorado and if I need to adjust for altitude or driving I can do it quickly and while riding in the car when my wife is driving. I like carbs fine but EFI is nice. The learning curve sucks and it’s picky but once you get it figured out it’s great.
When you mounted your front seats did you use the seat brackets for the seats or did you make your seat mounts? I’m having to wait couple months for my brackets and I’m ready to mount my seat. I’m 6’tall so I need them low can you give me some pointers? Do you have any video of your seats being mounted
I really should have done a video but I was in a rush. I bought the brackets but took them back. I’m 6’ 1 and with the brackets they were way too tall. I bent the tabs on bottom of sliders parallel to floor and welded strips in to floor to mount seats as low as possible. The still function normally with sliders.
Ok. So a 350 has a 4” bore and a 3.48” stroke. For every .030 you gain 5 cubic inches. If you put a 3.75 inch stroke crank in a 4.030 block you get a 383. If the block is .040 over it’s a 385 and a 388 if it’s .060.
