If you fancy the idea of turning your grandmother's grocery-getter Nova into the next Chevy Enthusiast cover car, take this bit of free advice from Brent VanDervort at Fat Man Fabrications.
"Novas can be great performance cars," he told us on a recent visit to his Charlotte, North Carolina, shop, "but their suspensions are very fragile. Everything ahead of the firewall needs to be beefed up and modified; otherwise, a powerful engine is just wasted."
Power was the last thing on the minds of Chevrolet's engineers when, in the late 1950s, they drew up specs for the new small car.
The Chevy II was designed to be an economical daily driver for the budget-minded buyer. It was cheap to build, and the lightweight unit-body chassis was fitted with unhurried four- and six-cylinder engines exclusively during 1962-63.
"Although V-8s fit under the hood just fine," VanDervort said, "one look at the subframe - especially on the early cars - shows they were not designed for high-performance. For one thing, there is no cross bracing from the radiator until you get to the transmission. Chevy was using the engine itself as a structural support."
For the past 18 years, Fat Man has been selling a kit engineered to bring the Nova's subframe into the modern world. This month, VanDervort and crew finished researching an updated Nova design that should be in the catalog by the time you read this.
Unlike other kits that require torching the front rails and substituting atubular subframe built around Mustang II mechanicals, the Fat Man conversion has bolt-on components that can be installed more easily and with greater accuracy. The centerpiece of the new design is a cross member made from 5/ie-inch plate steel that allows the car to be converted to McPherson struts, rack-and-pinion steering, and disc brakes - all with parts you can buy off the shelf at a local store (or junkyard) or as a complete kit from Fat Man.
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