Nova

1st round of eliminations at a Mako race in 2008 we learned how to put your hood into low earth orbit!

   

After this I realized how much air was getting trapped under the hood and that 4 hood pins is not enough! The hood pins actually sheared letting the hood come off... I added two dzus fasteners on the front edge of the hood after this to prevent it from doing it again.

The biggest project during the winter of 2008 was redoing the wheel tubs and narrowing the rear end. As I mentioned in the 2007 update, I was having problems with the tire rubbing the outer quarters when I put the bigger wheels on it. In addition, I found out the rear end was toed in a little bit, I assume that I warped it when welding brackets on it at some time or other.  The rear end came out and was narrowed about 1.5" on each side, while I was at it since it needed new axles I upgraded to 40 Spline Strange Gundrilled axles, a Aerospace rear brake kit and a Dewco Aluminum Centerchunk which all helped drop the weight on the rear end quite a bit. Here's what it looked like after putting back together with the 28x10.5W's on 12"s Much more clearance, I could finally get a finger between the outer lip and the tire.  The fun part of the project was redoing the mini-tubs, what a project! I need to go take some pictures of that work sometime, and will add them to this post later. Here's a picture of the new 615 in the car all ready to go eat some nitrous... We race the car a few times during the first part of the year and struggled with misc problems at ever race. Finally during July we went to Wichita to run a shootout to get ready for a MAKO race the first of August. The car started to finally come around and we were gaining about a tenth every pass making adjustments. The car was getting loose about 300' out on every pass but we were going rounds and ended up in the final round for the first time ever. Well I made the wrong call on the setup, I stepped it up some more figuring after the sun set and the track cooled off it would take more power, but it didn't. In the final round it go loose on my at the transistion smoking the tires and I ended up putting it in the guardrail that night. Talk about depressing! Chris and I worked on the car and got it back together again in time to get one more race in and some testing before the end of the year. It went 5.29@136 at the Mako race in Tulsa in October which was a new personal best.  Below is a pic during a Mako Race at MoKan, got knocked out second round at that one becuase I lifted when the car got loose going over a bump in the right lane. Notice the racing tape on the bumper... She's patched up for sure lol. So as we conclude the 2008 season the Ol' Nova is pretty scratched up and in dire need of some body work and TLC. We're getting ready to pull the engine and trans out now and send the car to the Body Shop to get her fixed up. No major plans on upgrades other than rewiring the car when it gets back from body work. I won't be making any major changes to the engine this winter other than having the heads gone over and some new springs put in. Looking forward to the 2009 racing season and get this ol car down in the 5 teens!