From low life to the high life
The Chevy II came on the scene in 1962 and was an instant smash in the emerging economy car class. Not only was it rock-solid and reliable, but with the Corvair combined to sell nearly 620,000 units. This gave Chevy an unbeatable one-two punch in this market niche.
But while the Corvair was considered by many to be a sporty car with better-than-average handling (really – look up old road tests), the Chevy II was rather simple, a conventional, entry-level car designed to entice first-time buyers to Bow Tie dealer-ships. Handling was safe and predictable, but not what one would describe as sporting.
Enter Church Boys Racing from Ohio (churchboysracing.com). The gang there has adopted the early Chevy II Nova platform and transformed it from dowdy to dynamite. Simple bolt-ons is the name of the Church Boys Racing game, and it has a full complement of parts for your ’62-67 Nova, as well as tubular control arms for ’68-74 models.
This former six-cylinder ragtop had a host of new-for-’13 Church Boys parts on it: its latest power rack-and-pinion setup (made in Ohio), tubular upper control arms (which, among other things) change the geometry and add camber gain, a new style of front coil-over shock that allows for a lot more travel for improved ride comfort, as well as improved handling. In the rear, there are new coil-overs and a triangulated four link, which allows the use of a much wider tire. According to Chuck Church Jr., you can use the entire width of the stock wheel housing to fit wider, sticky tires (in this case, Nitto NT05 235/40R17 front, 255/40R17 rear).
We loved pretty much everything about this car, from its revamped bench seat and 17-inch American Racing Rally-style rims, to its comfort/grip tradeoff, to the fact that the parts are simple enough for most shade tree mechanics to install in a home garage. The only downside came when Church was out on our .92-mile section of the Streets of Willow racetrack. When the vent tube came off the fuel tank and gas started splashing down on the exhaust, it gave new meaning to the term hot rod. Fortunately, we had fire extinguishers at the ready and put out the blaze.
