Skip's '69 Nova

OK, I guess it's time for a little update. Not as far along as I would like to be, but have some progress though.
Been slicing and dicing on the chassis working on the rear suspension.

Here I marked out the rear axle line on the Nova chassis.


This is the Corvette C5 chassis and trying to decide just how much of the rear chassis I'm going to use to graft it to the Nova chassis.


First I got rid of the very rear portion as it is definitely not needed.


Then I marked out where I wanted to start trimming away the front portion.


This is my rough cut out of the C5 rear suspension cradle so I can start fitting it to the Nova.


Started conservatively marking my first cut on the rear of the Nova chassis to start fitting the cradle.


Fast forward a bit to where I have the final hole cut in the Nova chassis, the cradle trimmed, and a couple spacer/fillers made for mounting the forward part of the cradle cut.


The fillers are placed on each side of the front of the hole, next to the rear frame rails of the Nova chassis.


The C5 suspension cradle now sitting in the Nova chassis where it needs to be. The axle ride height is now 3 scale inches lower than the stock Nova axle, but the total ride height should only be 1 scale inch lower due to the tire/wheel combination I'm using.


Just need to rework the wheel tubs, widening them a bit for the tires and upper control arms, and fill the floor over top of the cradle, then final detail filling and sanding to blend it all together. After that it is on to the front suspension/engine cradle.
Hope to work on it some more this evening.

Some really great work Skip looking good smileyCA9464IN_zpsd9ee499f

Holy Moly guy, that is so cool. Wish I had that talent

Wow Skip!! Dude thats some fine talented work there!!I tried to think how i would have done that,then i looked at what you did.OMG What was i way off base.! Awesome applause-smiley-emoticon

Nice conversion...

Thanks Doc, tubbs, junkman, and tbill.
Yeah tubbs and Doc, I initially was thinking about modifying the Corvette chassis, but the more I looked at it, the more wrong it was looking in my head. Doing it this way lets me keep the Nova fuel tank and underside floor pan as is. On the 1:1 cars I have been involved with building like this, we will modify the rear cradle, usually narrowing it, and mount it to a newly fabricated frame or frame section in the car it's going in. At the front of the car we don't use the front cradle and fab a new frame or frame section to mount the suspension pieces and the steering rack. I guess I kind of let that experience influence how to achieve that effect with this scale build.

Thanks Santa. I can't wait to see it finished too. Hope to get some more done today while the wife is out tending to her farmer's market booth and I'm home alone for a while before it's time to take the moms out to dinner this evening.