I am on the look out for a 73/74 Apollo and want to put my new 455 TE head motor in it and sell my 66lark. I ahve been looking but was wondering if a NOva body would work and if I could just use the Apollo front end? And Can I geta 10.5 inch tire under the car witha relocation kit? Thank Doug
A Nova will work fine. For you, any Nova from 73-up will have the front steer subframe and the motor is a drop in with BBB frame pads. The front clip bolts right on. I actually prefer the 68-72 Novas so I built mine as a "prototype" 70 Stage1 Apollo. Since my vintage was rear steer it was a little more involved to get the motor to fit using off the shelf GS headers. I put rack and pinion steering from steeroids in it and used smallblock Chevy solid frame mounts with custom spacers to mate with the Buick rubber block mounts. I also slid the motor back 1.5 inches. Fits like it was meant to be there. A 10.5 inch tire will clear the springs with a relocation kit but the wheelhouses aren't wide enough. I actually run a 28x13.50x15 Mickey Thompson ET street on my car with a 12 inch wide Weld wheel. They barely fit. I still had to mod the leaf springs to keep the inner sidewall from rubbing on them. My 12.5's(which are 10.2 inch tread width)on 10 inch wheels fit no problem without modding the springs. I cut my wheel houses in half and moved the inboard side in 3 inches and rewelded it in place directly over the frame rail. Filled the gap between the 2 pieces with a strip of 18 guage sheetmetal and when I open the trunk you cant tell it's been minitubbed. I moved the shocks inside the frame with a shock crossmember from Competition Engineering. As you can tell my "prototype" is more like a prototype Apollo Stage1 10.5 outlaw racecar. It's a streeter though and gets positive feedback constantly. Doesn't hurt that the car runs low10's/high9's either. I hope this info helps since I've been down this road with this GM chassis. Good luck on your project.
Thanks For all the info it really will help me out. Can i use the BBB towers from Ta it fit in the car? The 68-72 ones? what headers do you use? Thank Again Doug
TA or Poston frame pads will work great. After fabbing a set of twin turbo headers for my little bros 427 smallblock 3rd gen Camaro I was plain "brain fried" on building another set for my car. I wussed out and used the headers off my 70 Stage1 thats down for restoration(again). They are an old set of KB 1 7/8" but I borrowed a set of TA 2 1/4" while I was building the car and they fit also. Hated to give those units back to their rightful owner. :ball:
