1967 Chevy Nova Head-Turner Makes Over 900 Horsepower
Let us bow our heads in praise of the loud pedal“While visiting my ’56 Chevy that was being built by Roman Performance and Fabrication,” Dennis Schroeder told us, “I spoke with the owner Ed Romanowski about the Nova that I’d spied off in a corner. Yes, I wanted what you’d think I would, a street and strip car that I could cruise to shows and to meetings with my club, the Chicago Gear Heads.”
Sure enough, this particular Chicago Gear Head soon had a pristine ’67 hardtop among his other stuff. His vision was nothing if not ambitious, so much so that veteran Romanowski actually did a double take. But it was all natural causes, all legitimate. Dennis got snared in the never-ending spiral when he was a little man because his dad worked on cars and raced them, too.
Romanowski set the older Chevrolet aside. The Nova stayed right where it was while Ed made his plans, set this thing up for a goliath engine swilling pump gas and to anticipate cruel output that was never meant for a unibody paper cup.
We’ve lived with a 632-cubic-inch honker. It was a real torque-pig, a real spark-plug gobbler that was excessively noisy and made you sweat. And if you tipped the throttle a little too much the car completely swapped ends quicker than you could blink (the locals near our shop followed its progress and loved this unruly quality). It wasn’t a place that you dreamed of, not some place you’d want to be in for very long with that character gnashing in front of you just a few inches away. For abiding that abuse, we gotta hand it to Dennis, then.
Ed began making moves, set the stage for the new suspension, which entailed adjustable spring mounts, a notched framerail, mini-tubs, and custom mounts for the AFCO shocks. Familiar Heidts Mustang II components grew from the Heidts spindles and were joined with QA1 shocks and an antisway bar to promote wheel control and minimal body lean. The Heidts assembly includes a power steering rack.
On the rubber-burning end, Ed based the suspension on Calvert split mono-leaf springs and Competition Engineering Slide-A-Link bars. AFCO shock absorbers are attached to a Moser M9 housing packed with a nasty spool and nastier 35-spline axleshafts. To fit the package, Roman Performance relocated the Calvert leaves a few digits inboard.
