Frank Saponara’s Chevy II Wagon Build Uses TCI’s Bolt In Front Clip

Maryland resident Frank Saponara is no stranger to fast Chevy II builds; over the last few years he’s put together a sick (and we mean sick!) twin-turbo Chevy II that was resurrected from the dead in his home garage. He’s in the process of constructing another insane machine that we found over on Yellowbullet that is – you guessed it – also going together in his home garage.

The 1967 Chevy II wagon is slated for Hot Rod Drag Week competition, if he can get it completed in time. The car uses a 25.3 chassis that will harness the power from a 540-cubic-inch big-block Chevrolet pumped up by a pair of 82mm Borg Warner turbochargers. Other upgrades include an electronic fuel injection system, power steering, power brakes, air conditioning, and a fabricated nine-inch rearend holding 315-wide Mickey Thompson ET Drag Radial tires.

His ultimate goal is to build a seven-second street car with all of the creature comforts available, and have it done in time for Drag Week this September. Not only is he building this incredible machine, but he’s on a short timeline. He just started the build in January with a rusted-out, mostly straight Wagon that had the majority of the pieces he’d need.

The amount of work he’s managed to finish in such a short amount of time is astonishing, especially when you factor in that he still has to go to his day job as an electrician — all of this work is completed in his spare time. The car started with rotten lower quarter-panels and wheel lips, rotten rockers, and more cancer on the upper firewall. 

As part of the car’s construction, he’s using a complete front end kit from the guys at Total Cost Involved Engineering to replace the home-built front clip with Corvair suspension pieces that was in the car when he picked it up. After all, at 180 MPH steering control is critical —  the TCI products are designed to perform in this application. The front-end system includes tubular upper and lower A-arms, coil-over shocks, anti-roll bar, and manual rack and pinion.

Saponara has dozens of photos documenting the car’s build to date, from rust repair to cage installation to primer work, so head on over to Yellowbullet and check it out. You won’t be sorry. After checking out this build, we were impressed with the quality of the workmanship, and got lost in his build thread on the Chevy II on LS1Tech. Kudos to you, Frank, on a pair of bad-ass builds. And thanks for taking up an hour of our morning — we can’t think of a better way to spend it.

For more information on the complete line of TCI’s chassis products, check out their website

About the author

Jason Reiss

Jason draws on over 15 years of experience in the automotive publishing industry, and collaborates with many of the industry's movers and shakers to create compelling technical articles and high-quality race coverage.
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