Blown 1967 Chevy Nova

[Lydia]

WOW. That car is sweet.

Nice plate too

[SiriusRIMZ]

Wow what a great looking car! I'd LOVE to see this thing at the track! Absolutely beautiful!

[sneek]

ALL I CAN SAY IS WOW!!! ( yes it did need caps!)

[inthedetails]

DAMN!


I have always loved the old Novas....

[indigo s10]

Sweet car. I would race it(I'm crazy though). It's nice to know you did build it to drive on the street, and not just haul around.

[rammsteinmatt]

margaritaman, you have a very beautiful car with a magnificent engine

however, i must bring something to your attention. the racing harnesses that you have installed, but more importantly the mounting of them is quite dangerous. say you put a level on the top of your seat (but more importantly your shoulders) the harnesses should not be mounted more than 45 degrees from the upper most contact (your shoulders or the seat) to them (a -45* angle, and it looks like you are closer to 60*).

now i dont think this will happen, and certainly would not like to see this happen, but in the event of an accident (either hitting someone, or someone rear-ending you) your body will tend to move foreward due to inertial forces. the harness will understandably try and restrain you, but developing tension in the nylon webbing. when you have an object like string, or cable, and tension is applied it immediately tries to relieve tension by becomming as straight as possible. now how this pertains to this situation. assumedly the harnesses are sitting on your shoulders and if they tried to straighten, they would compress your back. depending on the magnitude of the collision, there may be no injury, or you could suffer a serious spinal injury (spine being compressed then broken under the stress)

race cars use a full race bucket that is reinforced to take any load that the seatbelts may transmit (or the mount points are designed to be higher then the shoulders of the driver).

also another concern is the head, but more importantly the neck region of the head (the base of the head). if you watch a video of a crash test dummy, you notice that their heads move at a much higher speed than the rest of their bodies. of course the head has to slowdown sometime and by something. usually this is an airbag. specifically in the case of racing harnesses they restrain the body much better than a normal seatbelt, which makes the deceleration of the body much faster, therefore increasing the speed at which the head slows down (the deceleration). of course the neck keeps the head from just flying to infinity, but there are tremendous forces involved here. there is a condition called the basal or basilar skull fracture, which is sometimes caused by the neck creating a rapid deceleration of the head, to the point where the spine almost rips out of the head (its not as dramatic as that, but the skull is cracked by this). if you notice CART, F1, NASCAR, and other racing drivers wear a HANS device that sits on their shoulders and connects to the back of their helmet to prevent the head from gaining a high angular velocity, and creating this condition.

you do have a roll cage, so i odnt need to go into the roof crushing the body scenario. although a head hitting the roll cage at some speed like those involved in an automobile acciendt would be quite dangerous, if a helmet is not there for protection.

hope this all makes sense, i thought i would just let you know about this, especially because you mentioned that the car can quickly become a handful.

despite the risks, i daily drive wearing 2" racing harnesses. its a risk that i knowingly accept (my car also does not have a roll cage, so i have that to chock up to the list). i would not, however, be comfortable knowing that a person is using them without knowing the risks

[DetailManiac]

All I can say, like the rest is WOW . . . what a great looking car
you got there . . .

[Margaritaman]

Matt and anyone else with an answer,

You know Matt I read your post about the seatbelt angles and thought, hmm, really? Did a bit more research and now you really have me thinking.

Actually the best example I came up with sits behind me everyday in my Camry...my 5 year old daughter's child seat. Looked at the seatbelt arrangement and how they have adjustments for the shoulders and it was a lot clearer.

So without buying new seats to raise the seatbelts what would you do? Does anyone make a hanger that will hang from the top bar of the roll cage?

Let me hear all of you ideas please. I realize this is more or less a detailing forum, but this might be some very useful info for others as well.

Thanks, MM

[rokablok]

wow. awesome looking car

[Wayfarerwalk]

MM, awesome work. Definitely a car to be proud of. Are you going to enter any car shows?

[Margaritaman]

Thanks for the kind words.

Ya, I'm kind of a car show whore, or at least a trophy whore. I do a lot of the car shows in Southern California.

The trophies are a nice bit of recognition, but honestly I really enjoy just spending the day hanging out with other "car crazy" enthusiasts.

And the "hall pass" for the day not having any honey do's isn't so bad either!

MM

[PhantomR/T]

please tell me you have high-res pictures of that car! just beautiful! definately keep up posted if you manage to get that beast to a track

[Brian Catalano]

Let me hear all of you ideas please. I realize this is more or less a detailing forum, but this might be some very useful info for others as well.

That kind of reply is what makes this forum sit head and shoulders above any other automotive forum. Instead of getting all defensive on the lengthy safety-related post, he's actually open to hear all ideas.

[Margaritaman]

You know Brian, 20 years ago I might have been defensive, but being 40 with a wife and daughter I have a good reason to stick around.

To follow up, I stopped by Crow Enterprizes in Anaheim, CA Tuesday as I was in the area. Armed with a picture of my interior and seat belts I explained my concerns. After determining that my shoulders were at the same height as the seat back he told me my current set up was fine, although not perfect, but given the situation it would work.

He stated that the bigger problem would be them being too high and me slipping out the top in the event of a rollover.

So not to say that the prior post is wrong, far from it, he is spot on, just to say every situation is different. Just make sure you check with the experts when it comes to safety equipment.

Now for the blower that sticks up and impairs my vision...


As far as high res pics I have a ton. Let me know if you want any as I'd be happy to share and if you use them commercially then let me know first please.

MM

[benhui86]

sweet ride.

those front brakes look dinky for such a powerful car.....