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Installation Pics/Article on Tremec in Nova

5K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  aron69nova 
#1 · (Edited)
First of all I bought my transmission from fortesparts.com out of Pennsylvania. They sold me the trans and the trans crossmember. The trans I purchased was one of their early ones for the Nova which still has the shifter come out of the middle of the trans tunnel. I believe you can order one from them with an offset shifter and still use your factory console with the factory plate. Regardless, you will have to cut your trans tunnel as the pictures will show. I had my driveshaft shortened by a local shop, which isn't too bad. That driveshaft has survived several hundred launches at 4500 rpm and 1.60 60ft times when it was in a mid 11 second 71 Nova. The clutch and flywheel are from centerforce, and have survived many launches as well. The bellhousing I used is a Mcleoud unit and has survived an explodified clutch without a problem. So here are the pics.



This pic shows the original, uncut floor. The car started out as a 6-cylinder gramma car.



I installed the trans on the back of the bellhousing and brought it up to mark the spot where this hole is. I cut the hole where the shifter hit the floor initially


This pic shows how wide the hole needs to be cut to accomodate the trans. Mine was a little bigger than necessary, but that doesn't matter because you cover it up anyways.


There are two ridges at the front of the trans tunnel where it meets the firewall panel. From the furthest forward ridge you cut one inch back, which will cut through the overlap of the panels. This is where the width needs to start the same as the previous pic.


The hole needs to come back roughly 14 1/2 inches, more or less. This also doesn't matter that much because you will be covering this up anyways.







The trans tunnel section came from a 67-69 Camaro. Yes, they come square to start with, so I had to fandangle it to be a slight curve. You will have to cut it, and that's entirely up to you how far down you want the section to come down. This will take some patience and banging with a hammer. It will not line up exactly like it should at the top of the trans tunnel, but that's where weld, body caulking, patience, a console, insulation and carpet come in. It looks fine in the final product. If you notice, the back part of the panel is not flush, so I had to make an angle piece to make the tunnel look somewhat flush.



Here is my solution for the non-flushness.


This pic shows how the tunnel looked right after I cut a hole for the shifter, but I had not cut anything or bent anything else.


A little body sealer...


A little paint...


The shifter comes perfectly up the center of the new trans tunnel.


From the side with a few things in the way. You can see in the picture that I used a Nova shifter boot for a console. It fit nicely over the shifter. I used the Nova console shifter shift boot retaining plate as well. Both these parts were purchased from Classic Industries.


I made an aluminum plate and painted it black to go in the console. Sorry the pic isn't too nice.


A side view with the console installed. I used a stock console bracket for Nova. I'm sure the one for Camaro would work as well. You can see the gap on the side of the console. With a Nova console this is inevitable. I'd have preferred use a Camaro console that goes between the seats and fits the tunnel nicer, but it would have been like $400 to do that. I already had the Nova console and gauges, so I used what I had. When the car gets carpet I'll have them bolster it up to fill in the gap.


This is from between the seats. You can see the console is centered. Those are Beard Racing seats. You can get them at www.redart.com. They're meant for off road, but are super comfy. They're light years ahead of your plastic bucket seats. They are a suspension design seat on a light steel frame. They might weigh something like 2 lbs. more than a plastic seat, but look and feel way better.



I mounted them with angle aluminum. 1 inch by 1 inch on the outside rail, and 1 inch by inch and a half on the inboard rail. I fiddled with them till they felt right reaching for both the shifter and the steering wheel. I used the stock outer mounts from the bench seat that was in the car, and riv-nutted the inside rails so I can easily remove them.


If you have any questions, feel free to ask or comment. This was a lot of work and I hope I am able to help someone out.
 
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