Feature
TEXT BY Nick Licata
PHOTOS BY Grant Cox
t was in 1967 when the Beatles released one of rock’s highest acclaimed albums “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” Ralph Nader’s book Unsafe at Any Speed set in motion the U.S. government to implement mandated safety standards for new automobiles, and Karl Jones’ fresh little Nova came off the assembly line. Back then, the Chevy II Nova was considered a budget-priced compact car. While the “big dog” SS Nova came with plenty of visual attitude backed up by a 275hp 327ci engine, it was considered a street beast for the time.
No telling if Karl’s Nova began life with a 194ci, 250ci inline-six, or the 283ci V-8, but today it sports a supercharged LSA underhood cranking out over 700 hp. Nader would have totally lost it if he had any idea that kind of power would, or even could, reside between the ’rails of this little econobox.
So, how did Karl, a machinist from Belle Plaine, Kansas, come about this car? “I spotted it at racetracks in my area and had admired it for a long time. I always thought it looked clean and had a great stance,” Karl remembers. “A friend of mine bought it from his grandpa, which then took me 15 years to convince him to sell it to me.”
Tech
swaps are so common these days that it’s easy to get complacent about the project if you’ve never attempted it. After all, swap kits are plentiful, with most tailored to popular A-, F-, and G-bodies, as well as vintage Chevy trucks.
“With all the swap parts available today, dropping in the LS engine and getting it running is the easy part,” Matt Gurjack, the man behind the welder at Detroit-area hot rod and Pro Touring fab shop Sled Alley, says. “It’s everything else to support it that can bog you down, cause headaches, and ratchet up the cost.”
He says that for popular vehicles, such as first-gen Camaros, the muscle car–era Chevelles, and some of the trucks, the aftermarket swap kits and correlating parts enable the do-it-yourselfer to install an LS engine and transmission without the need for a welder and little or no cutting. But there’s more to an LS swap than engine mounts and an oil pan. Regardless of whether you’re using a junkyard 5.3L out of an old truck or one of Chevrolet Performance’s crate engine packages, there are a myriad of details that have to be executed in order to make it all work out correctly. That’s what we’re laying out here—the general steps and helpful tips to make your swap go smoothly.