My first L78 was a grey Nova SS. I found the car in the Auto Trader magazine. I still have the ad. The car had well-faded grey paint and needed lower quarters. I let a buddy of mine buy it as I had my Vega and a 454 Chevelle. He had also owned an L78 Nova back in the day. He took the car to a friend of ours who painted most of our cars. It turned out great. He also added headers, a Tarantula intake and a 750 DP Holley. The car was a rocket right from the start. He had the car for about a year and then I bought it off him. I added 9.00 x 27 slicks, a shift kit and true dual exhaust, and a 4.56 gear. It ran 12.40s all day and a best of 12.20 during a funny car meet with Rosin on the track for extra hook. I'm sure the car would have ran a 12.0 with a little more tuning in the right air.
I did well at the track beating some fast cars. Hemis,440 SIX PACKs, 428 CJs were a joke. I'm not saying I never lost, as I did. But on the street where I could pick and choose my runs, I never lost. I ran L78 x 15 tires to knock down the 4.56 gear. Believe it or not, they were regular street tires and hooked very well most of the time.
One of the best times I had with this car was on a weekend when a group of guys from our Harveys at Brimley and Eglinton took a trip to the Harveys at Jane and Wilson. Jane and Wilson was at the time the most famous hangout for fast cars in Toronto. It was also about 1 mile from Belmont Chev Olds, one of Toronto's largest GM performance dealers in the GTA.
Long story short. I set up a run with a guy named Tony who had a fast LS6 Chevelle. He now drives Pro Mods. Really nice guy. Tony asked me what gear I had. He wouldn't run anyone who had more gear than he did. He had 4.10s. I had 4.56. I told him 4.10s. Little white lies were OK as long as you didn't take a guy's money Emoji I remember when we got back from the race he said to me. It sure sounded like you were revving awfully high on the highway for 4.10s. I told him I was in 2nd gear just to shake him up. While we were talking a guy named Ralph was listening. There were always some sarcastic remarks which was all part of the deal. I finally said to Tony that next time I will have to give him a couple of lengths. Everyone was laughing except Ralph. He said f*ck this, let's go. I asked him how many lengths he wanted. That just pissed him off even more. Ralph is one of the best Mopar mechanics in the country. He had a 340 Challenger at that time which I thought was going to be a waste of time. No one as far as I knew had a fast 340. When we went out with a bunch of cars to the country at 3 AM the preliminaries were usually 340s, 383s,302s,327s, and 390 Fords.
Back then races were more exciting because we didn't have drag radials and the technology we have today. If a slower car hooked because it had less power or the more powerful car spun it was a whole new race. I remember one night there was a 427/435 Vette that was racing a 440 Cuda Auto. Of course, the Vette was a 4 SPD and he really had to walk it out of the hole in 1ST and 2ND to get the car to hook and lay into it in 3RD. The Cuda would always get 2 or 3 lengths on the Vette and then the Vette would start pulling and catch the Cuda just after the finish line. Like clockwork. Every time. After about 4 runs the Vette gave up and left. He came back about 1 hour later and wanted to go again. I talked to his passenger who told me he went and got a full tank of gas and let some air out of the tires. Rumor has it his fat ass brother was in the back under a blanket. lol.
Everything went about the same as in the previous races. 1ST gear the Vette is all over the road. In 2ND gear, the Vette was still spinning but it wasn't going sideways as before. Now the Cuda barely had a 1/2 car on the Vette going into 3RD gear. The Vette driver powers 3RD into 4th and I thought, OH YA. HERE WE GO. We got a race here. "Like a Freight Train" was the saying back then describing a car catching another car on the high end with big power. Now it was the Vette that put 3 cars on the Cuda. It was an exciting race.
When I ran Ralph we were pretty even out of the hole. When I hit second gear I jumped a 1/2 car ahead and into 3RD the race was over. What a great night.
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