Well Worth The Wait

Christiansen is the son of former Top Alcohol Funny Car racer Chris Christiansen, one of the founding fathers of the West Coast BB/funny car movement. “Those were some really great times competing against the likes of Ken Veney, ‘AA/Dale’ Armstrong, ‘Wild Wilfred’ Boutilier, ‘Bad Brad’ Anderson, Frank ‘Hawk’ Harris and others,” Chris says.

However, these days Chris stays busy building street rods, which are a lot more fun to drive, less costly to maintain and a lot easier to keep off the guardrail…just kidding, Chris!

“I bought this car from a friend of my mother’s from work. I already had a ’70 Nova sitting at home in the garage, but I just couldn’t pass this one up. It’s a genuine SS 350 four-speed car!”

Would you believe that Kevin paid a whopping $300 for the SS in today’s dollars? Call it the deal of the decade if you will. Don’t think that these deals are not out there. You just have to look around because apparently, the seller’s teenage son used to drive the Nova to high school and had smashed up the front fender. The story goes that the lad’s erratic driving habits worried his mother. She feared that all that power might cause him bodily harm, not to mention knock the remaining three fenders off of this valuable ’70s GM muscle car, so she put the Nova up for sale.

Once back home, Kevin and Chris stripped off the rumpled front sheetmetal, only to discover that the Nova had a bent upper and lower A-frame. In the process of completely re-building the ’70s front suspension, the two re-drilled and relocated the front control arms to increase castor. Upgrades also include a pair of Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC) front disc brakes, a GM quick-ratio power steering box, Hotchkiss specific-rate, 2-inch lowered front springs and anti-sway bar, and a pair of KYB gas-charged front shocks.

The Nova’s leaf spring-suspended, 3.73:1-geared, 12-bolt live rear axle was also upgraded with a set of lowered Hotchkiss rear leaf springs and a pair of KYB gas-charged shocks. Wheels and tires on the Nova come in the form of a set of polished 17×7-inch American Racing Torq-Thrust IIs rolling on P235/45xZR17 front and P255/45xZR17 Kuhmo radial rubber on the rear.

Powering the SS is the original serial number 350 four-bolt main block, which was machined and balanced by Dave Eckhard at Burbank Speed & Marine. Installed within is an Eagle engine stroker kit featuring an Eagle/GM forged steel crank riding on Clevite engine bearings, along with a set of 7/16-inch ARP cap screw-equipped Eagle H-beam connecting rods and Childs & Albert-equipped 9.8:1-compression Speed Pro pistons. The cam choice is an Edelbrock Performer RPM while the remainder of the valvetrain components are from the Competition Cams and Crane Cams catalogs.

Up top, you’ll find a set of Edelbrock Performer RPM Bow Tie heads featuring an Edelbrock 2.02-inch stainless steel intake and 1.60-inch Edelbrock stainless steel exhaust valves. Also along for the ride are the aforementioned Comp Cams valvetrain parts, secured in place by ARP engine fasteners. The valve covers are from Mena, Arkansas’s Street & Performance, as is the air cleaner. Bolted in between is an Edelbrock Air Gap 4-bbl intake fed by a 650cfm Edelbrock Performer carburetor. Ignition duties are handled by an MSD Pro Billet distributor while a pair of thermal-coated Doug’s Headers and MagnaFlow stainless steel mufflers handle the exhaust. Backing up Kevin’s potent small-block is a correct date-code GM Saginaw four-speed transmission equipped with a Centerforce clutch and Hurst linkage. The final link in the powertrain is a Wenco custom-fabricated driveshaft.

“After we stripped the Nova to the bare metal, Kevin and I repaired any dents and thoroughly block-sanded the body prior to repainting the car in PPG Chevy Blue metallic and Porsche Silver,” Chris says. “Of course, Kevin’s other ’70 came in really handy whenever we needed to scrounge parts, like the front sheetmetal.”

On the inside, a little paint trim was about all that was needed to clean up the OE factory black vinyl interior. Of course, no street machine would be complete without a killer audio system, so Kevin installed one of Panasonic’s best, complete with Kicker speakers and amp. Completed earlier this year at a cost of approximately $10,000, Christensen’s SS won “Best of Show” on its first outing. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for years, and now that it’s come, I’m going to enjoy it,” he says.

Incidentally, the proverbial apple doesn’t really fall too far from the tree. Although Kevin has yet to test the quarter-mile with his Nova, he is the five-time reigning International Karting Federation (IKF) and one-time World Karting Association (WKA) champion. He also won the WKA Stars Tournament, which earned him a free trip to ELF School and qualified him for a ride behind the wheel of one of Bobby Rahal’s Indy racecars!