1969 Nova L78/L89 question

[PLATINUM6BBL]

Back 20 some years ago I had a customer in that told me when he came home from Vietnam he first stopped at Stu’s Chrysler Dodge and handed over a check to purchase a T/A Challenger 4spd. After finishing up paperwork Stu said “that there car is a race car so there is no warranty!” Guy snatched back his check and tore it up. Left there and went to the Chevrolet dealer where he said he purchased new a brown, aluminum headed 70 SS396 Nova. This car would have been in the New Bethlehem, PA area and would have raced quite often at Newbie Dragstrip. Now trying to remember who the guy was and the township he worked for.

One of my former neighbors raced an aluminum headed 69 Nova in B/MP but I don’t remember if he said he bought it new or not.

[Copo_Cartel]

The guy that went to inspect the car for authenticity was Brian Henderson (BKH) if memory serves me correctly .

[PeteLeathersac]

'

I always understood the BKH inspection/comments were of block stamping appearance only, not the car itself or other engine/drivetrain components/paperwork etc?

~ Pete

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[Copo_Cartel]

The authenticity of the block stamping could not be correct because that configuration was not offered so there is no way to authenticate something that was never available/offered as an engine configuration . And from what we remember he went up there to authenticate the car as being a real L89 optioned car

[kwhizz]

Not to beat a dead horse...… But, I took my 70 Nova L-89 clone to Vettefest?? back in the mid 2000's and the Black car was parked right with mine...… The owner of the Black car came over and was looking at mine...…. He tells me I have the wrong Rivets holding the TCS relay to the firewall wire gutter...… I acted surprised...… I asked him if he noticed anything else that wasn't correct.....said no...… I told him I was surprised that he didn't notice the 69 high rise intake …….Hummm !!!...… He said he had all the right stuff on his car...….. I asked about the 074 heads..... He told me that the original heads were the true value of the car and were too valuable to leave on the car (a lot more to that story … LOL) ………… I wonder if he included those valuable heads during the Auction of the car.....LOL

[Copo_Cartel]

Ken ...I remember being at that show and hearing that .

[kwhizz]

Originally Posted by kwhizz

Not to beat a dead horse...… But, I took my 70 Nova L-89 clone to Vettefest?? back in the mid 2000's and the Black car was parked right with mine...… The owner of the Black car came over and was looking at mine...…. He tells me I have the wrong Rivets holding the TCS relay to the firewall wire gutter...… I acted surprised...… I asked him if he noticed anything else that wasn't correct.....said no...… I told him I was surprised that he didn't notice the 69 high rise intake …….Hummm !!!...… He said he had all the right stuff on his car...….. I asked about the 074 heads..... He told me that the original heads were the true value of the car and were too valuable to leave on the car (a lot more to that story … LOL) ………… I wonder if he included those valuable heads during the Auction of the car.....LOL

Forgot...……. He didn't notice that I didn't have a brown Distributor cap either..... The horror of it all ……

[92646]

I always thought there were issues with the open chamber heads on the 396 / 402 blocks because of the bore size.

[big gear head]

It has to do with the valve sizes, not the chamber shape. The larger valves in the high performance heads are too close to the cylinder walls and it shrouds the valve on that side. The 4 bolt blocks had reliefs cut into the top of the cylinders for the larger valves. The only issue with the open chamber heads is the way they lower the compression ratio. It will lower the compression more on a 396 or 402 than it will with larger displacement engines.

[jerry j]

All 396 blocks have notches