Everyone loves seeing upscale custom car builds at shows like Goodguys, The Detroit Autorama, or SEMA. The attention to detail and the spared-no-expense build motto brings things we can only dream of to reality. Shops can flex their skills with body and paint, fabrication, new innovative ideas, and the bottomless budget of the car’s owner. If it takes seemingly endless hours and money to build these award-winning cars, what is it like to do it twice? That’s what John Wargo, owner of The Custom Shop in Flanagan, Illinois, found out when he bought back a customer’s Chevy Nova almost three decades after building it. And now the 1966 “ReNOVAtor” Nova has been born again.
John Wargo has been building cars since 1988 and is more than just a business owner. His experience outside the shop is as impressive as his builds, with a history in drag racing and autocross, and even working the pits of the Rolex 24 in Daytona and the Baja 1000 in Mexico. In 1995, The Custom Shop finished the then-named Torched, a 1966 Chevy Nova owned by John Shrewsbury. Underneath its flawless bodywork and speeding ticket inciting red paint with flames was a build popular in the ‘90s known as ‘Street Machine.’
John Shrewsbury and his wife standing next to their “Torched” ’66 Nova at a car show in the mid-90s.
John’s Nova went on to win several awards over the years, including the Super Chevy Best of Show. Being no stranger to building Novas himself, Shrewsbury decided after roughly 13 years of ownership to take his Nova to the next level with a smoothed and painted underside and disassembled the car into thousands of pieces. But,as time went on, life got in the way. So, in late 2022, John Wargo bought it from Shrewsbury to build it into a modern killer street machine. The only goal in mind was to have it ready for the Sony booth at SEMA 2023, which was only eight months away.
Hammering Out The Bodywork
The car was completely stripped down, all the way to the bare chassis and sheet metal. Rich Lloyd and Justin Rambo of The Custom Shop started on the body mods, like shaved and filled door handles, trim, and emblems. The monochromatic look was all the rage in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but the plan to modernize the look of the Nova meant replacing the color-matched bumpers and trim.
The bumpers are made out of forged carbon and tucked tight against the body.
They fitted custom-made bumpers made out of forged carbon like other bits and trim on the car, and painted Carbon Flash metallic. Another custom touch to match the new look is side skirts also made out of forged carbon. Out went the red grille in favor of a Garage Dog Creations laser-cut custom grill, and the body was resprayed by Wargo himself in glossy Torch Red paint.
A forward-tilting hood with a three-inch cowl hides the screaming big-inch small-block.
Trimming The Cockpit
While certainly not what catches our eyes at first, an interior can really take all the hard work on the exterior of a high-end build down a notch if it’s left mundane and simple. That certainly isn’t the case with ReNOVAtor. The dashboard has been smoothed, painted, and then fitted with two digital displays. The display on the right can be custom-programmed to do whatever your heart desires, while the left display is a matching housing that holds the Holley Pro Dash, feeding the driver with all the information they need.
The custom center console, door panels, seats, and more are trimmed in Apex leather by TMI.
More one-off customization was done in-house by John, Dennis Sullivan, and Mario Vietti, with the center stack and console featuring a Sony touch-screen stereo and a Hurst shifter with a forged-carbon knob to match the rest of the car’s theme. TMI Chicane seats custom trimmed with Apex leather, Grant harnesses, and a TMI chrome tri-spoke steering wheel to match. TMI also trimmed the door panels to tie the interior together.
Instead of a traditional gauge cluster, the dash was smoothed and fitted with a pair of matching digital displays.
There is no off-the-shelf trim used on this ’66 Nova, and no detail forgotten; the trunk was also trimmed with the same materials as the interior and then furnished with an in-house-built subwoofer box and motorized amp rack that utilizes a fingerprint scanner to operate. Talk about high-tech gadgetry; eat your heart out, James Bond! You would think a small lightweight classic car with a race-spec small-block would want to save some weight and forgo the audio system, Hushmat sound deadening, and leather interior, but Wargo and Shrewsbury both still wanted the Nova to be a killer street machine, not a full-blown race car.
The trunk is trimmed in the same Apex leather from TMI. Note the motorized amp rack that is activated by a fingerprint scanner.
Tough-As-Nails Short Block
A Nova this good-looking has to have some “go” to match the “show,” and what’s under the hood doesn’t disappoint. Instead of the ever-common crate engine or LS swap, John had a 427 cubic-inch small-block built by Hixson Engines of Gibson City, IL. Starting with an aluminum Brodix block, no expense was spared, filling it with a Crower Ultra 4.000-inch stroke crankshaft, Crower 6.000-inch titanium connecting rods, and custom 4.125-inch bore forged domed high-compression Diamond Racing pistons. The goal was to build a bottom end that could handle as much horsepower they could make naturally aspirated at any RPM needed.
The minimalist engine bay houses a 427 cubic-inch all-aluminum small block Chevy.
Race-Spec Top End
This top-dollar short-block was then topped with CNC-ported Brodix aluminum heads. This big-inch small-block needed a lightweight valvetrain and those high-flow heads to meet their lofty power goals. Titanium intake valves and sodium-filled stainless exhaust valves are held in place with Crower dual valve springs and titanium retainers. A custom spec’d Comp Cams solid roller camshaft rides on 55mm roller bearings and actuates those valves through Crower solid roller lifters, custom length 3/8-inch-diameter Crower pushrods, and a Jesel Pro Aluminum Series shaft rocker arm system.
Induction And Style
A max-effort engine build like this needs something more than a typical single-plane intake and four-barrel carb, so they reached out to Imagine Injection to acquire one of their stacked EFI intake manifolds. Not only does an individual throttle body system like this favor high-RPM horsepower that this 427 makes, but it also makes a visual impression as radical as the component list inside the engine. Tuning a stacked-style port injection system can be challenging, especially when it’s a 7.0-liter small-block Chevy that makes very little vacuum with its race-spec valvetrain, so a highly capable EFI system is needed.
The Imagine Injection stack EFI intake isn’t just for looks, it helps this 427 small block spin to 8,500 rpm and make over 700 horses.
Bob Ream Sr. at Imagine Injection set up the original tune on the Holley Dominator EFI system and then was fine-tuned by Matt Bell, Redline Motorsports in Bloomington, IL. A high-pressure fuel pump and gas tank from Tanks Inc. feed this high-demand EFI system. The high-compression bang of all eight cylinders is exhausted through Cerakote-coated Hooker long-tube headers and a full 3.0-inch stainless steel Pypes exhaust system with electric exhaust cutouts. The end result with this combination of parts is a 427 cubic-inch all-aluminum small block Chevy that makes a roar out of the tailpipes that could wake the dead and around 720 horsepower on 110-octane race gas with a redline of 8,500 rpm.
Putting The Power Down
There is no off-the-shelf transmission that can handle over 700 horsepower and shifts north of 8,000 rpm, so the guys at The Custom Shop went to Hughes to have a custom TH400 built. Just like the 427, the parts list to build this transmission is something out of an NHRA Super Street drag car. Hughes fitted this transmission with their full-manual valve body with transbrake, Alto Red Race clutches with Kolene steels, and a Kevlar band.
Tanks Inc. supplied the gas tank and pump to feed the Holley EFI. Note the mono-leaf springs with sliders instead of shackles.
The 427 makes all of its power in the upper rev range, so an 8-inch Hughes Pro Series torque converter was spec’d to stall at 5,800 rpm with silicon spot brazed fins, a forged aluminum stator, a 4130 chrome moly turbine tub, dual anti-ballooning plates, and much more. Out back is a narrowed, fabricated 9-inch Ford housing with Strange Engineering axles, an aluminum center section, and 3.90 gears. A custom-made carbon fiber driveshaft from Precision Shaft Technologies with forged aluminum ends mates the TH400 transmission to the axle.
ReNOVAtor runs a full 3-inch dual exhaust with an X-pipe and mufflers from Pypes. Oh, your neighbors don’t hate you enough? It’s a good thing you have a pair of electric exhaust cutouts!
Light As A Feather, Stiff As A Board
The second-generation Nova may have timeless looks, but its semi-unibody design was simple and pedestrian. Remember, it was Chevy’s compact car for the 1960s, not some budget-friendly sports car under the Corvette. So to make it drive like a modern car that’s rigid enough to handle 700-plus horses, the stock subframe and rear suspension wouldn’t cut it. Mike Vallow of Vallow Chassis in Pontiac, IL, built a front subframe with Strange Pro Mod adjustable coilovers, Strange spindles, tubular control arms, and a Flaming River steering rack.
This new one-off front clip was then mated to custom weld-in subframe connectors and a mono-leaf spring system with sliders instead of shackles and Caltrac traction bars. Once Aerospace Lite brakes with slotted rotors were added to all four corners, ReNOVAtor now had a well-rounded chassis that could handle corners as well as it handled that screaming 427 small-block.
The stock subframe is long gone. ReNOVAtor now has a custom chassis with coilovers and rack and pinion steering.
Hoops And Rubber
If you’re wondering why you’ve never seen those wheels before, there’s a good reason. They are custom-made by RVRN Wheels and consist of a three-piece design with a forged billet aluminum center section that was CNC machined and chrome plated. The inner barrel and outer lip are made out of forged carbon for that modern wow factor and are lightweight. They measure 18×7-inches in front and 20×10-inches in the rear and are wrapped with Toyo Proxies, 215/40R18 in the front and 295/30R20 in the rear.
Wheels and stance can make or break the look of a custom car. These 18-inch and 20-inch three-piece wheels fit perfectly.
Now Born Again
It’s wild to think a shop can build a hot street machine in the 90s and then take the car back after almost three decades to one-up themselves with the renovation they did on John’s 1966 Nova. But the team at The Custom Shop is used to pushing the envelope. Up next in their shop is a ’69 Trans-Am with a big-cube LSX, a ‘66 Catalina 2+2 with a Roadster Shop chassis with a custom tri-power EFI LSX376, a ’49 COE Chevy pickup with an LT1/8L90e combo, and more. So keep your eyes out for more from John Wargo and the guys at The Custom Shop.
