'Editorially, we call this vamping. It's what happens when a magazine launches a new project car, and then it stalls. Often it's never seen again, and nothing is more annoying to readers. We've promised life for the '77 Disco Nova drag-race project we introduced in the May issue, and we've sworn you'll hear the whole truth about it, and nothing but. So here's the truth: We hoped to have our new small-block running in time for this issue, but thanks to our busy lives and a bunch of parts not showing up in time, the thing is still a ways off. We do most of our own wrenching here at Car Craft, and it happens on the same schedule that your car probably does: during evenings and weekends, and never quickly enough. There's no magic la-la land where cars disappear to and come back cleaned and assembled and presented in five tidy captions thanking the sponsors like you see in some magazines. We're living the life one bolt at a time just like you are. We know we can't show you every little step, but we can reveal the entire reality and, as readers have demanded, that includes every little penny we had to spend.
 We've never showed you the...  We've never showed you the tar pit we started with under the hood of the Nova we got from a reader for $400. So here it is. The 350 and TH350 automatic were removed a few months ago, but there was still a huge mess to deal with in here. |  If cars got built by staring...  If cars got built by staring at them then this thing would have been running three months ago. |  Craftsman offers pressure...  Craftsman offers pressure washers from a basic $270 model to a full-on, paint-stripping, $1,150 model. Our shop's unit is actually an older, discontinued version, but it still cranks nasty grime off almost anything we drag home. It's totally indispensable. Get one from Sears or through the Craftsman Power and Hand Tool Catalog. We figure ours saved us at least three days of Gunking and hand-scraping our double-nasty engine compartment. |
Speaking of which, to keep the running price list as accurate as possible, we've done some adjustments this month, removing all the costs associated with the 350 we heisted from former editor Matt King in the June issue, since now we won't be using that engine. A new one is being machined at Speed-O-Motive, and when we install it, we'll print a new and updated price list. Meanwhile, we did what we could this month, cleaning up an engine bay that looked like it had been dipped in 90-weight just prior to racing the Baja 500, as well as handling a few other tidbits. By the time the Disco returns to print (probably a few issues down the road at this point) we'll have it running on the dragstrip. Meanwhile, join the spirited debates about the car on the message boards at CarCraft.com. Seems more people like the '75-'79s than we thought. Go get one now before some guy pays a million bucks for a '75 Rally and they all shoot to five figures. OK, so that won't really happen. Carry on.