As promised in the eco-rodding article, I am working on what I consider to be an exciting and important project for my future and my frugal lifestyle.  Right now, I’m subscribing to the old adage “It takes money to make money” or in my case, save money in the future.  I bought a 1963 Nova project from a friend and then set about radically transforming it.

I first started by pulling the 350 engine and 4 spd manual transmission.  Both of these I am recycling for future flips, so they will not go to waste, hopefully that flip will offset the original cost of the car.  The rest of the car was basically in pieces.  At one point I was dreaming of a 1,000hp screamer but then I realized that would be the least practical most expensive project I could tackle.

As you know, I have been enamored with the 3800 V6 engine.  It makes great power, produces low emissions, and has the potential for great fuel economy.  I personally have taken this engine out to 40mpg.  The goal for the Nova is 50.  While the car originally came from the factory with very little weight, weight is a major drag on fuel economy.  I have read previous articles that suggest every 100 pounds of extra weight in your car hurts fuel economy by 2%.

Here’s a list of the modifications I’ve made to reduce weight and increase fuel economy.  I have been scrounging around Craigslist and various swap meets looking for fiberglass body parts to reduce weight.  So far I have fiberglass fenders, hood, trunk deck, and headlight buckets.  Because this car is such a popular drag car, these parts actually aren’t too difficult or expensive to pick up, or at least not for me.  The car now has aluminum Camaro rims to reduce weight and hopefully rolling resistance (I’m not an engineer so maybe not). I added an aluminum drive shaft from an s10 to reduce rotating mass.  I then installed lightweight racing seats and a 4 point racing harness for safety, this is way before airbags obviously.  I had a 5 speed laying around the shop, I came by this for free, so that’s a huge benefit.

Obviously I am running my favorite fuel sipping, low emission, and yet quite powerful 3800 engine.  I bought a series III engine because they have better internal components and I scored the engine for 200 bucks, but I did get quite a good deal.  I then bought a camaro upper intake that I ported and polished myself to increase air flow (remember the easier they breathe the more efficient they run generally speaking.  I have added headers, and if I really decide to blow my budget I will add aluminum heads that will reduce weight and increase the engines breathing ability if you will.

I realize that this post leaves a lot to be desired in terms of details.  The car is currently at a friends shop, we kick around different projects, and is currently in another state.  When I return home to visit family I will try to get some weight measurements of the original parts versus the fiberglass ones to give you all a better idea of the actual weight savings I have achieved.

Finally, I know many of you view this as a huge money and time suck.  So far you wouldn’t be wrong.  I have been working on the car sparingly for several years now.  I estimate that I have about 5k in the car and still have wiring, some minor interior and paint to go.  Hopefully this can be achieved for a grand total of 7k dollars.  That’s a lot of money, I’m sure many bloggers can tell you how much that money would grow to at such and such percent in so many years, that’s all well and good but it’s not me.  I plan on this being the last car I will ever drive.  It suits my pretentious attitude toward vehicles, allows me to travel whenever I need economically, and I can do all the maintenance to this car myself in the future effectively eliminating all trips to the mechanic and only spending money on parts.  Yes it will take a while to recoup my initial investment but when you figure that some people need a car (as in it’s not a luxury) and this vehicle likely won’t depreciate in value no matter how many miles I put on it, I will pay less in taxes and insurance than on a newer vehicle, and I can complete all future repairs myself (many mechanics charge $100/hr or more) it seems likely I will make my money back while also having an asset that I could borrow against should future investments present themselves or if I endure some sort of financial hardship.  Again, this approach is only really viable for a frugal minded person (if at all) if you can do the work yourself and plan on holding on to the vehicle indefinitely.

This is where the project stands now.