This 1972 Nova Represents a Day Two Restomod
Country Honk
Déjà vu all over again
“You want to know who’s responsible for getting me into all this business in the first place?” asked protagonist Vince Morrell. “I got two older brothers with the car disease. I got my driver’s license when I was 16. Even if I tried I couldn’t get away from it.” He had other hot rods, one of them a Nova, before this one so he knew the drill and pretty much what to expect before it occurred.
Sure as shootin’, there’s a neat backstory here, as well. “My wife and I had spent about four years looking for the right Nova,” he said. “Then one day I ran into an old friend, actually the guy I bought my first Nova from 20 years ago! He said he’d gotten one a few years back and was wanting to sell it.”
They haggled, but not for long. A week later, Vince dragged the Nova north from Clearwater to Weeki Wachee, Florida, and into the garage attached to his house. He made lists, big lists. He made plans commensurate—fabrication, fuel delivery, electronics, paint, and all of that. He mentioned that it wouldn’t have been such a good and memorable experience without the ministrations of Debbie, his hot-rodder wife; Dave Steffey Fabrication; and Tommy Lewis at T.E.R. Paint & Restoration.
What was the biggest drag of all? “Working full time,” he muttered. “And going at the car every night and on the weekends. It takes a lot of time to make progress. Maybe I should just quit my job … and work on the car more. LOL.”
Vince said he wasn’t looking at Pro Touring, Pro Street, or Pro anything. His pleasure is a simple one. He finds that getting behind the wheel and doing long cruises (he loves tooling to the Biloxi show every year) is the most enjoyable to him. No dragstrip time cards, no slicks, just driving out for the hell of it and digging every minute. You might get the idea that Vince Morrell’s right foot is bigger and heavier than the other one.
To appreciate the same volatile response every time, he pushes down on a Dart-block 540 built by someone famous in Bohemia, New York. To deal with the twist, he put a Turbo 400 behind it and completed the plan with a 9-inch axle. He freshened up the front suspension with CPP replacement parts and supported the back of the car with traction bars and a drag-race orientation. Though the brakes are discs, they are necessarily small to accommodate 15-inch rollers. Tires are noteworthy for their old-school vibe, raised white letters and not a ZR-rating in sight. But the Nova has lowering springs that create a credible presentation and an eye-catching stance.
So, with the Nova looking fine and all that grunt under the hood that’s one thing, but when you’re inside the car you can’t see much of it at all. Since long-hauling is what you’re after, it makes sense to be as safe and as calm and comfortable as you can be in that inner sanctum. We’ve known Vince for years; we wrote a report on his first Nova and know that he’s a detail man from the get … he’s got a 250-car die-cast collection that might be proof of that.
Before he did a thing, he had Dave Steffey put up a six-point rollcage to address obvious safety concerns as well as the natural chassis tightening that comes with it. Then he set the stage with ACC carpet and flanked the seats with TWE door panels. He complemented the Scat Procar seats with vinyl and settled a TMI console between them. For the self-preservation aspect, he couldn’t resist retractable Seat Belt Solutions. These strips of fabric are nothing more than two-point lap belts, but “I was hard-pressed to tell they weren’t genuine GM,” he said.
When he and Debbie would be spending more time in it than they would anywhere at home, where they couldn’t get up to grab a snack or a drink, they thought about the pleasant distraction of a serious audio ensemble. Vince pulled on his installer’s hat, handled the wire cutters, and satisfied expectation with a Clarion head unit backed by a raft of Diamond speakers, tweeters, and a one-foot-wide Pioneer subwoofer. Right after the photo shoot, Vince said that he must have been unconscious when he didn’t think about supplying conditioned air to the Nova. That’d be fine for Florida’s scant few cooler months, but they’ll be puttin’ up the Gulf to Biloxi in high summer and are going to need something a lot more hospitable than the moisture-laden ambient sluicing through the vents.
Well, you know that when you “complete” a car build that the build will never be complete because humans cannot resist the urge to keep making changes just for the sake of it. Along with cooler than ambient, Vince might be thinking about an overdriven top gear for that Turbo 400, too. And should the dynamic duo want more oats under foot, forged guts, high-flow cylinder heads, and moderate compression ratio could easily exploit a forced-air system on top of that nitrous oxide sap waiting there in its back pocket. Or maybe not.
The point is this: Though it might seem as if high-end, professionally built automobiles are the only ones included between these magazine covers, the vast majority of CHP readers easily aspire to a car like Vince and Debbie’s.
Just sayin’. CHP
Tech Check
Owner: Vincent Morrell, Weeki Wachee, Florida
Vehicle: 1972 Nova
Engine
Type: Dart Mark IV
Displacement: 540 ci
Compression Ratio: 10.5:1
Bore: 4.500 inches
Stroke: 4.250 inches
Cylinder Heads: Dart Pro1 24-degree aluminum, 2.30/1.88 valves, 121cc combustion chambers
Rotating Assembly: Scat 4130 crankshaft, Scat 4130 I-beam rods, JE pistons, Clevite 77H series (file-fit) plasma moly ring packs
Valvetrain: Comp Ultra Pro Magnum 1.7:1 rocker arms, 3/8-inch pushrods, titanium retainers
Camshaft: Comp CB hydraulic roller (0.651/0.651-inch lift; 255/262-deg. duration at 0.050)
Induction: Edelbrock Victor Jr. manifold, Quick Fuel Q-Series 950-cfm carburetor, factory air cleaner housing w/ Edelbrock element, Nitrous Pro-Flow 250-shot plate, Right Stuff fuel tank, Competition Engineering submerged fuel pump
Ignition: MSD Pro-Billet distributor, Digital 6AL box, and primary wires
Exhaust: Hooker Super Comp, 2.125×36-inch primary pipes, 3-inch system, MagnaFlow oval mufflers, system built by Dave Steffey Fabrication (Eustis, FL)
Ancillaries: Maradyne fan, Cold Case aluminum radiator, Edelbrock water pump, Proform one-wire alternator
Machine Work: Scott Shafiroff Racing Engines (Bohemia, NY)
Assembly: SSRE
Output (NA, at the crank): 691 hp at 6,200 rpm, 653 lb-ft at 4,600 rpm
Drivetrain
Transmission: TCI Turbo 400, Neal Chance welded converter (3,500-stall), reverse valvebody, transbrake
Rear Axle: Quick Performance 9-inch, 3.70:1 gears, Eaton Truetrac differential, 35-spline axles, PST 3.5-inch steel driveshaft, 1350 U-joints, chromoly 1350 slip yoke
Chassis
Front Suspension: OE subframe, Chassis Engineering subframe connectors, CPP spindles and tubular control arms, QA1 single-adjustable shocks, Global West 1 1/2-inch drop springs, Hellwig 1 1/8-inch antisway bar, six-point rollcage by Dave Steffey Fabrication
Rear Suspension: Global West 1.5-inch drop leaf springs/shackle kit, CalTracs bars, Chassis Engineering shock relocator kit, QA1 adjustable shocks
Brakes: Wilwood 11-inch discs, four-piston calipers; CPP master cylinder
Wheels & Tires
Wheels: American Racing Custom Shop 501 Magnum 15×7 front, 15×8 rear
Tires: Cooper Cobra 215/65 front, 275/60 rear
Interior
Upholstery: Vince Morrell
Material: Vinyl
Seats: Scat Pro Gear Rally, Seat Belt Solutions two-point retractable safety belts
Steering: Reconditioned factory, factory wheel
Shifter: Hurst Pistol Grip Quarter Stick
Dash: OE steel, Classic Dash six-gauge insert
Instrumentation: Speed Hut
Audio: Clarion CZ305 head unit; Diamond 2-inch tweeters, 6-inch speakers, front and rear; signal processor; Kicker Impulse IX405D amps; Pioneer 12-inch subwoofer; installed by Vince Morrell
HVAC: Vents open
Exterior
Bodywork: Original
Paint By: Tommy Lewis at T.E.R. Paint & Restoration, Mark Morgeson (tech) (Hudson, FL)
Paint: Sequoia Green
Hood: AMD steel, 4-inch cowl
Grille: OE
Bumpers: AMD
The post This 1972 Nova Represents a Day Two Restomod appeared first on Hot Rod Network.