The Last of the Farm Find Nova! Budget Repairs and the Final Send-Off

[@555Gear]

Huh hooo that 305

[@langspeedcycle]

Haha 😆

[@itseithergonnaworkoritaint7852]

A set of 305 Vortec heads, a genuine imitation RPM Airgap and a better cam and that little 305 will wake up a lot. Would probably double the HP depending on the cam that is chosen. A Comp 268 I think it is that has .480"/.480" lift with 230°/230° duration @ .050" with a 110° LSA would work well. Add a set of 1.6:1 roller rockers to get the lift up to, .512"/.512" to grab the max cfm of the heads. Those are light cars, add a 3.73:1 gear and a shift kit and that thing would rip! Would need a 2,200 to 2,500 stall torque converter. For right around $1,500 for the conversion, that's everything, gaskets, lifters, spark plugs, oil change and the above mentioned parts. Headers and gear not included but recommend with dual exhaust.(of coarse) The good thing is the top end parts, cam and lifters can be transferred to a 350 if even more power is wanted later on. To bad you sold it, you could of made a really fun driver out of it. Maybe the new guy will read this?

[@itseithergonnaworkoritaint7852]

Oh yeah, carb not priced in either.

[@langspeedcycle]

I have a Dakota I put a 5.3 Chevy in and redid all the suspension, has a 3.90 posi in it too. That's my fun rig. I also have the 1969 Skylark that I saved too. A 75-79 Nova Hatchback is one ot my bucket list cars, so another one isn't outta the picture! But I am a big Buick guy, and having an X-Body Buick would be really cool to me.

[@itseithergonnaworkoritaint7852]

@@langspeedcycle I use to have a 1975 two door Nova, had a sbc 355 with warmed over double camel hump heads, high rise dual plane intake, the above mentioned cam, 750 dp Holley TH350 with a shift kit, 2,200 to 2,500 stall and 3.55:1 rear gears. Man oh man that was a fun car! That thing ran great and that was about 35 years ago! Would love to recreate that car today, that was the funnest daily driver car I ever owned. It also had headers with dual exhaust. I would settle for a 4 door version of that car because they're just as light as the 2 door version, probably within a couple hundred lbs? It wouldn't matter though because it would get a sbc 383 with either a 200R4 or a 700R4 similar to what my '65 Impala that weighs around 1,400 lbs more has. And at 4,400 lbs plus another 200 with me in it I have gotten the best to date 26 mpg highway and 22 city. Has a sbc 383 700R4 with a 3.07:1 rear gear. Does 13.0s in the QM. At 1,500 lbs lighter = 11.60s in the QM on 87 octane pump gas.(with some premium mixed in when it goes to the track just to be safe) Mileage should be even better with the weight loss?

[@langspeedcycle]

That is pretty amazing MPG!

[@itseithergonnaworkoritaint7852]

@@langspeedcycle It took a lot of feather footing the throttle with the converter lockout switched on and keeping at 70 mph to get that mpg but I did. It's the Comp roller cam that I chose. It has .550"in./.546"ex. lift with the called for 1.6:1 roller rockers 202°/212° duration @ .050" on a 113° LSA. Engine has 9.6:1 static compression, Patriot Performance aluminum cylinder heads, the Weiand version of an RPM Airgap a Holley 850 double pumper setup for fuel economy. The engine is backed by a 700R4 overdrive transmission and a 3.07:1 rear gear. This transmission and gear ratio in first gear is the equivalent to a TH350 with a 3.73:1 rear gear in it. Final drive ratio is 2.149:1 which with the low end torque that cam makes with the sbc 383 it has an easy time cruising on the highway at 70 at about 1,800 RPM with the lockout switch turned on to lockup the converter. Rear tire size is 275/60/15, basically 28" tall. The cylinder heads are equal to the cheap eBay aluminum Chinese sbc heads. They might flow about 10 max cfm on the intake side more, maybe? Comp advertises the cam's power range from idle to 5,000 RPM but keeps pulling to 6,000 RPM. It would probably pull farther than that if I had the proper valve springs on it, 6,000 RPM is where the valves start to float. The springs are the flat tappet springs that came with the assembled heads. IMO what makes LS swaps so popular is the 4L60E transmission that gets installed with the engine. It is basically an electronically controlled 700R4.