RECKLESS

1974 CHEVY NOVA HATCHBACK

Owned By Joshua Edgar
San Diego, CA
Age 23

This car started its life with me as a almost bone stock 1974 chevy nova. The only things that were not stock were a open air cleaner and a set of non working gauges under the dash.

Before I had even returned from my first tour to Iraq I know what I wanted from a car. I also knew that it would be a long hard road of work and parts along the way. Many nights of working in a tiny garage and busted knuckles would follow.

I think that no matter how much planning and prep go into a build at my level there will be changes to plans and problems that come up with out warning. I have done my best to use what I had avaiable to me and read as much about everything as I could. In a attempt to save bucks sometimes I bought parts that were not normaly used on a street car but would give me the performance I was looking for.

The car sits right now on 17x9 and 17x8 hot wheels from kmc with 275 and 245 falkin tires back to front. The performance from these tires has been amazing to say the least. If i am drag racing i swap the back rims and tires for 15x8 in m/t drag wheels with 255/60/15 drag radial tires.

Rear suspension is speedway motors 250# leaf springs with kyb gas adjust shocks and cal trac bars. The rear end itself is the second 8.5 that has been in the car. The first one, after the cal trac install decided to twist both new superior axles and put the pinion into the floor when the housing rotated on the axle tubes. This was the first time the car had ever hooked up after Being rebuilt. After locating a new housing and getting it all welded up and new bearings and two new superior shrome molly axles (upgrades from the previous ones) first time out with that rear end it snaped one of thoes axles in half drivers side about 7 or 8 inches from the wheel end.

Sub frame connectors stifen up the frame for now, soon I will be installing a roll cage to tighten it up some more. and for safty sakes as the factory lap belts dont give me a warm and fuzzy.

The car has been treated to a full poly rebuild of the bushings. The front suspension has factory upper and lower control arms with the upper mounting locations redrilled for the guldstrand mod. Front springs are speedway motors 5 in 550 lb springs with a spring spacer/adapter to fit inside the top nice and snug. Hotchkis sway bar helps the springs keep the car nice and level in corning.

The car came from the factory with with 4 wheel drum brakes. Way to many crazy people talking on cellphones to chance not having great stopping brakes. The front has been upgraded to a wilwood 12.1 4 piston setup, the rear is factory drums with good shoes. The master cylinder is a cpp mpv1 that you can make adjustments for brake bias and so on right on the master cylinder with no more then a wrench and a allen key. This setup works great for me and can haul the car down at the end of the 1/8 mile with no tire squeel hard enough to leave a mark where the lapbelt is crossing my body.

The engine is cooled by a speedway motors alum radiator and a alum water pump and never has a problem keeping the car under 180 even stuck in traffic on 100+ days.

The engine is a 355 chevy with ported and polished vortec heads with 2.02 1.60 valves. It is a crate motor and can be found on the year one web site. The engine has a roller cam and with the 1.6 rocker arms specs out at .525-.525 lift and 220ish duration. Toped with a holley 750 double pumper carb. It has been the best carb I have used yet in my young life. i have been tuning it with a dual fast wideband 02 meter that really helps to give you a idea on how the car is running at all times.

Ignition is taken care of by a summit small body dizzy hooked up to a mallory 858 box and a crane sp60 coil. I am running autolite plugs and jegs brand Spark plug wires.