Free Counter
since 7/25/01
The History of Craig's '73 Nova. (Click on any picture for a full-sized image)

I've owned this Nova since November 7, 1990. That was my 17th birthday. It started life as a 307 powered, 115hp weakling, but it didn't stay in that form long. I started hopping up the 307 almost as soon as I got it home and haven't stopped since. The 307 was eventually built up to about 225 hp with headers, Q-jet and 1.6 rockers. The stock induction and exhaust really had it choked up.

It's not a real SS. I blacked out the grille and replaced the bowtie on the grille with an SS emblem. I also have SS fender emblems and an SS trunk emblem which I'll be adding next time the car gets painted. The existing paint has been on the car since 1990.

The old (pre-'98) motor...
The stock 307 was replaced with a 350, which went with a Turbo 350 tranny, 3.70:1 positraction rearend, and produced a best quarter-mile E.T. of 13.61 @ 101.23 (8.7 in the eighth). I then made some changes (Performer RPM cam, etc.) and dropped to an 8.34 @ 82 eighth-mile and an 1.81 sec. 60' time which would be a very low 13 or maybe a high 12 in the quarter.
This is what the 350 looked like:

The old 383...
I finished building a 383 for my Nova in late 1998. I learned a lot building that engine...from a racing and a street perspective. It pushed my Nova to a best ET of 11.976@111.67 in April of 2000 and I drove it all over the place. It consisted of Dart II heads, Reed custom ground hydraulic cam, Victor Jr. 1 3/4" headers, etc and made about 475-500 hp. Going 11s in a street car had been a goal of mine for a while. But for some strange reason, I sold the Dart heads and Reed custom cam promptly after reaching my goal. Then I started shooting for 10.90s in a streetable package.

Here's the 1998 motor build-up:

And the finished product...

Hmmmm, was it a 200 hp stocker or a raging 475+ hp stroker motor? Here's a timeslip from April 22, 2000, so judge for yourself (that's me on the right).



By the way, that was an all-steel 3,600 pound car.

I backed that up with a 11.989@111.67 on a pass against a very fast looking and sounding race only Mustang. Too bad he could only muster a 12.27! The Nova ran a best of 111.94 mph with the old 383.


The stock 307...
While building my next 383, I put the orignal stock 307 back in the Nova and it performed rather well, even with mismatched components such as 4.56 gears, 4800 stall converter, single plane intake and 3" exhaust. It went 14.35@93 mph at the 2nd Annual Nova Listserv Gathering in June of 2000. Not bad for a low compression 307 with stock heads and cam.

The new motor...

I finished building a second 383 for my Nova in April 2001. It took over a year to gather all the necessary parts, but it was worth the wait. The somewhat stock look under the hood is gone now, but I don't think that I would have been fooling anyone by painting those aluminum Brodix heads. That mountain of an intake manifold would have been hard to disguise too, so I just left them as is. As a matter of fact, the intake was so tall that the hood wouldn't close, even with the air cleaner and its stud removed. So I had to buy a cowl induction hood. I didn't want to do it, but I didn't have much choice. That engine combo consisted of:

The first runs down the track with that 383 were in the 11.90s and with continued tuning, a few part changes and lots of learning, it went a best of 6.63@105 and 10.40@129 on the motor. I toyed with nitrous at the end of the 2004 season and went 6.48@106 with gears and a converter that were not well suited to the nitrous at all. In fact, it was blowing through the converter so badly that it was turning 9000 rpm through the traps! But it survived and the bearings looked great when inspected a couple months later.