Building our Chevy II Nova Gasser a Wicked Foundation
On Monday, the California golden sunshine extended a warm, less humid welcome to our team on their way to MotorTrend Group’s tech center in Santa Ana. Our team of three joined Car Craft Magazine’s group for another round of Week to Wicked, and this year won’t look anything like the last. Back in 2017, we built a 1952 Chevy Truck. This time, we’re going racing, Gasser-style.
The car began life as a straight-six powered Chevy II Nova. By the time we found it, time had worn some rough edges and introduced some rust everywhere. Which suit us just right. We love Novas as much as anyone and didn’t want to chop up something too near and dear to the Nova-loving hearts. We still might break a few, but that’s the Gasser way.
After a fresh coat of paint and a roll cage, we sent it out West to await transformation. By the end of the week, it’ll be a bonafide Gasser.
Yesterday, the Car Craft guys and our build team ripped off everything from the firewall forward to make room for our straight axle suspension kit for 1962-1967 Chevy II cars. The Week to Wicked team filled the ensuing gap with Speedway Motors 9-inch housing w/3.89 gears in a high-strength nodular iron case, a Power Track limited-slip differential, and 31-spline axles.
That’s a pretty good start for a Monday.
They haven’t even touched work of art that Zach Woods whipped up over at our Engine Shop, specifically for this project. It’s a 496 Big Block Chevy we convinced Zach to part with. He’s worked some magic on it with Speedway Motors brand parts, and we topped it off with valve covers the Speedway Motors Museum of American Speed kindly loaned. They’re NOS, still in the box Cal-Custom die-cast pieces with black wrinkle finish.
Talk about a real cherry on top!
There’s a whole lot more going on, but we’ll let Jeff Huneycutt of HotRod.com tell his own story. Read his article “How to Build a Nova Gasser in a Week: Day 1” for all the nitty gritty going into the build.
