Chevrolet Nova TCI Tubular Front Clip Install - What A Drag

Here's our detailed and assembled TCI front clip. This tubular work of art will bring the Nova into the 21st century as far as roadworthiness goes. It will also shave 140 pounds off the nose to make up for the 509's extra weight. The weight savings will change the front-to-rear weight ratio. Stock big-block Novas were close to 60/40 front-to-rear weight bias, which is atrocious. We'll be happy if the Nova ends up being 55/45. The aluminum Dart heads and intake will help, too.

One last look at the grungy, stock subframe assembly. We removed the car's old 396 with help from the previous owner when we purchased the Nova. The radiator, trans and trans crossmember need to be removed before unbolting the factory clip.

The only part of the front body clip needing removal is the front bumper-it's connected to the front subframe. The new front clip has predrilled holes for easy reinstall and alignment of the front bumper.

Our Nova already had weld-on subframe connectors. They just needed a little clearance grinding in order to separate the connectors...

...Our Nova already had weld-on subframe connectors. They just needed a little clearance grinding in order to separate the connectors

...There are two body bolts at the rear, cowl, and core support area (six-bolts total) that need removal to unbolt the stock subframe from the body. Before unbolting,

... The jacking points were behind the firewall on the rocker's flat side and at the rear leaf spring hanger area.

Before raising the body off the subframe, we disconnected the front brake lines, power steering hoses and the rag joint from the steering box shaft.

The body was slowly lifted up inch by inch as we made sure the rag joint was sliding off the steering shaft. Here's a look after lifting the body a few inches. We looked around to be sure there weren't any hang-ups between the body and subframe.

There's an edge flange (lip) in the cowl support/firewall mounting area that needs to ground off.

The TCI front clip has a mounting area that needs to be mounted flush to the cowl support/firewall area. Both the left and right cowl supports need to be ground smooth.

At this point, we only needed to remove the wheels and tires and mount them onto our assembled TCI front clip. Besides being 140 lbs lighter, the new clip is much more attractive and functionally superior with its tubular construction, coilover shocks and rack-and-pinion steering.

Shore Wheels' other Steve (Steve Guenot) was on hand to help roll and guide the clip underneath the body. We lined-up the body mount holes the best we could before Steve Letts carefully lowered the body onto the new clip....

...With the body roughly 1-inch from the subframe, the boltholes were lined up enough to see if we could start to thread (two turns) the supplied bolts. Be sure to use anti-seize on the threads of the provided body mount bolts.

That's where Energy Suspension's ultra-durable polyurethane body mount bushings were installed. The '68-74 Nova shares the same subframe and related components as the '67-69 Camaro.

We couldn't mate the frame flush to the body at the four major mounting points-the steering column rag joint was in the way.

Once the rag joint was removed, we were able to tighten all of the body mount bolts to flush-mount the clip.

Here at the rear-most mounting point, it's noticeable the body is flush against the subframe. We'll also rejoin and weld the subframe connectors to the new clip for extra chassis stiffness.

The freshly bolted-on TCI front clip shows off its attributes. It should be a dream to drive this Nova once the steering column, steering shaft with U-joints, and drivetrain are installed.

The original steering column will not clear the TCI clip or hook up to the rack-and-pinion unit. TCI recommends this ididit bolt-in steering column. It adds a multi-position tilt feature, and accepts stock (or many aftermarket) steering wheels. A column ignition key, signals and four-way flashers are also built in. We got ours in satin-black, but ididit offers the column in chrome if you prefer.

It's obvious the added clearance gained from the new ididit steering column. The splined shaft at the base of the column is attached to the Borgeson U-joint.

These two Borgeson stainless steel steering joints and the DD-shaped steering shaft will connect the ididit column to the steering rack. We had to shorten the DD shaft for proper fit.

Lock-to-lock steering is now only 2.25 turns, with virtually no steering wheel lash (looseness). Stock steering was about 3 turns lock-to-lock with the typical 1- to 2-inch of steering wheel lash.

The finishing touch was to drill a 3/8-inch hole through the cowl/firewall support using the bolthole in the mounting bracket as a guide. The 3/8-24x1 button head bolt (finger touching) is fastened with a washer and locknut from the inside of the car. This area of the body is reinforced triple sheetmetal and roughly 1/8-inch thick.

The stock subframe does not have this strengthened support area for extra body to frame stiffness. We just can't wait to drive this new school Nova! Check in with us next time as we install the engine and get this car buttoned up and running.