Network
Drag racing, at its very core, is about raw power, speed, the competitive spirit, and an unadulterated love for the automobile. But for as long as the sport has existed, its also been about family. It’s been generational. For Tennessee native Nathan Stinson, the racing hobby begins and ends with the support and involvement of those closest to him and one of the sleekest small-tire race cars in the country, that was handed down to him by his father.
a
Stinson, who calls Greenbrier, Tennessee home, campaigns this unique 1974 Chevrolet Nova that has been in the family since the mid-1980s, in the popular and fiercely-competitive X275 ranks. It’s been a long road—25 years in the making — in transforming the classic piece of Chevrolet iron from a road-going warrior to the lean, mean racing machine you see here.
The Stinson family took ownership of the Nova in 1986. It was routinely bracket-raced by his father, RL, and a partner of his in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. It was later handed over to Stinson at the age of 15, and as soon as he had his driver’s license, was off and running in the high school and bracket racing divisions. “We’ve had this car in one form or another since my dad started bracket racing it. There’s a lot of history and fun times working on and racing this car through the years,” Nathan says.
By 2000, however, the itch to go heads-up racing set in and it was off to the races, in a figurative sense.
“We had a couple of local series that we ran in. Our local track had what they called the Big Dog series, and it didn’t really have a lot of rules. It was anything goes, and so we put a nitrous kit on the car and played with it from there. At that time, the car was still stock suspension and all,” he explains.
Around the same time, Stinson discovered the grass roots Outlaw Street Car Association (OSCA), which was conducting events close to home, and the series seemed the perfect fit. With his participation, the Nova gradually began to morph into a no-holds-barred race car to meet the competitive demands of the OSCA’s True Street class, which was on a path of performance advancement from the sixes, to the fives, and later down into the four-second range in the eighth-mile.
Over the course of a decade, however, the Nova’s chassis and its nitrous oxide-assisted engine combination began to fall behind what was necessary to compete, leaving Stinson at a crossroads. It just so happened that at that point in time, John Sears was nurturing the then-new X275 category that would eventually take the drag racing world by storm. The promising future of the eliminator provided Stinson with the motivation he needed to take a hiatus from racing to build the car that would carry him where he wanted to go.
We’d already reached a stage where we needed a four-second car anyway, and so we decided we were going to build a new motor and be as quick as we could be. – Nathan Stinson
The result of more than two years of tireless effort on the part of several key individuals, as you can see, is nothing short of amazing.
Stinson left no detail unattended to in the process of rebuilding the Nova, beginning in 2011 with the complete disassembly of the body down to the steel shell, inside and out. This soon became a full-on rotisserie rebuild.
“We had to take the car so far apart to do the work that we did, that it was just a no-brainer to put it on a rotisserie and paint the underside. We basically took a 40-year old car and made it a body-in-white again. We had it stripped down to bare metal, in virtually the same condition it was when it went down that assembly line at General Motors,” Nathan explained.
Stinson commissioned the award-winning team at B&B Race Cars to build the 25.3-spec chassis and handle much of the early fabrication work. To keep the project within budget, he then completed a significant amount of the work—including the plumbing, mounting the turbo, intercooler, fuel tank, and other odds and ends—at home using his self-taught fabrication skills. “I was proud of how all of that turned out, since we did it all here in-house,” he says.
Stinson’s Nova back in its bracket racing days.
Stinson completed the project in 2014 and has been steadily chipping away at the performance ever since, laying down a best lap of 4.65 seconds at 151 mph.
During the two-plus years spent working on the Nova, he kept the fire burning by racing with cousin, Cory Gray, sharing driving and tuning duties of his turbocharged Ford Mustang. He also admits that, along the way, he nearly charted a different course with his racing endeavors, as he purchased a fourth-gen Chevrolet Camaro with intentions of building it and sparing the Nova of any further molestation.
“I wasn’t going to get rid of the Nova, but I thought maybe I’d build something a little more modern, more aerodynamic. I got the car and started working on it, and thought ‘that’s just not the route I want to go. I’d raced this car for so many years, I think I’m just going to focus on it.’ And that’s what we did—I sold the Camaro and the rest is history.”
The Nova gets its motivation from a 400 cubic inch small-block Chevrolet built by Bennett Racing Engines that’s been stocked with a Lunati crankshaft, CP Pistons, GRP connecting rods, and a Bennett-spec’ed Comp camshaft. Stinson utilizes Brodix DB2000 symmetrical port cylinder heads filled with T&D shaft rockers and Manley valves. Atop the heads is a Brodix intake manifold plumbed with Billet Atomizer injectors and fuel injection setup consisting of a Wilson Manifolds 120mm throttle body controlled and a FAST ECU.
A Precision Turbo large frame 88mm snail provides the boost. A custom set of headers fabricated by Stinson, along with a Chiseled Performance intercooler and ice tank and TiAL blowoff valves and wastegates handle the hot and cold side of the turbo and exhaust system. An MSD 7720 and 7730 Power Grid and MSD HVC2 coil handle the ignition, and a FAST XFI system manages the fuel injection.
A Powerglide transmission prepared by Dale Whitaker, composed of a Reid Racing case and TCI pump, and a PTC bolt-together converter deliver the horsepower via a Dynotech aluminum driveshaft to a modified Ford 9-inch rear with a Moser Engineering third member spinning Richmond gears and Moser 40-spline axles. Aerospace brakes on all four corners help bring the car to a safe stop.
When people see this car in its current state it’s hard to imagine the time that went into this build. – Nathan Stinson
Inside the cockpit you’ll find custom upholstery work throughout, Kirkey seats, a Grant steering wheel, FAST dash, and all the electronic goodies including an AMS 1000 boost controller and Spaghetti Menders wiring and switch panel. Stinson has tried to keep as much of the original look of the car intact, including the factory door panels, much of the stock interior, headliner, and even the glass windows that still roll up and down.
It all culminates into a piece that Stinson is particularly proud of, not only because of the work he personally put into it, but for its unique characteristics.
“When people see this car in its current state it’s hard to imagine the time that went into this build. A newer car would have been easier to do because the bodies are in better shape and interior parts are easy to find,” he says.
“The fact that it’s a 1974 makes it kind of unique, as far as Novas go. You don’t see many ‘74s out there at all, as most are older than that. So that was another reason why I wanted to keep running it. It’s just something different from all the Mustangs and Camaros, and I like the challenge of that. There’s just a lot more information out there with a Mustang for getting down the track,” Nathan continued.
Stinson has benefited from the vast experience of Darrin Breaud at B&B and the team at KBX Performance, by providing him with immeasurable information and support in fine-tuning the drivetrain and the chassis to get the car up to speed in a short amount of time.
“We were trying some suspension stuff initially when we brought the car out, based on what we had learned with a Mustang, and it just didn’t work for my car, due to the wheelbase difference between a Mustang and a Nova,” he said. “Once we got around that, we started making some real progress. We’ve still got some room to improve, but we’ve made some real progress thus far.”
Stinson (right) is pictured with brother, Brandon Stinson (left), nephew Cameron Stinson (front), and father, RL Stinson.
For Stinson, racing is and always has been very much a family affair, and he credits them for their support from start to finish on the project.
“My whole family has been a big help, and have been completely supportive of this along the way. I couldn’t do it without my dad and my brother for sure, and my cousin has been a big help, too. I’m out of town nearly half the year for my job, so it’s hard to maintain the car and everything, so I get a lot of help from my family at home and at the track. Anything we need to do, they’ll jump in there and help.”
