I bought my 56 Nomad in 1973 in Kansas City, shortly after a 55 sedan that I just finished building was stolen there. I found the Nomad in the local paper for $500 and drove it home. It was a complete car, but rusty in the floors and lower body for an 18 year old car, I thought. I probably should have bought a more solid car to begin with. It didn't matter, it was a 56 Nomad and I fell in love with the Nomads a few years before when I saw a kid in my high school with a 56Nomad, 396, and fenderwell headers. I was going to A&P mechanics school at the time, and also had a job so I didn't have much time to work on my car. But I started disassembling it, pulled the 265, bought a complete '68 Corvette L-71 435HP Tri-Power 427 for $400 along with a basketcase 327 and dropped it in. The 427 only had 55K miles on it.
I don't remember how I did it, but somehow I got the car back to Colorado after I graduated from school. I got a job working at the airport in Boulder, Colorado, and I tried to work on the car as much as possible. I really didn't get much done, mostly due to lack of equipment, money, and time. I did pull the frame and installed a 12-bolt rear with ladder bars I built. I decided to build a gasser out of my Nomad, since a friend of mine had a '55 gasser that I liked a lot.
A couple of years later, I moved to Wichita, Kansas, to work for Boeing. While there, I removed the frame again and began my first major frame construction project. I installed a front axle out of a '36 Plymouth, and added disc brakes that I adapted myself. I reinstalled the 427 and added a 4-speed transmission.
In 1976 I left Wichita, and moved back to Colorado to continue my education at Colorado State University. I got laid off from Boeing as was the norm in the aircraft industry, and I got tired of the ups and downs. So I decided to get my college degree, which I had always wanted to do. Somehow, I dragged the Nomad back to Colorado again. I don't even remember where I stored it, but I wasn't able to work on it for quite a while.
Finally in 1978 I bought a house with a 2-car garage, and was able to get back to work on my car. I was going to school and working full-time, so it was tough to find time. I changed my plans, and did get another frame built for it.... this time fully independent suspensions with a C3 Corvette rear and stock front end with Nova discs and heavier springs. My idea was to have the car sit higher than stock, which I still don't understand.
I painted the car in my garage by myself with acrylic lacquer, and started assembly. I thought I was well along the way to finish it. Ha!
In 1983 I got divorced, just months before I finished getting my engineering degree. I stopped working on the car months earlier, since I saw the divorce coming for a couple of years. It's a good thing I didn't finish it, or I may not have it today.
After the divorce, the car sat in storage until 1988 when I moved into my new house that I built. It sat in the garage basically untouched until 2003, when I rolled it into my new shop to work on it again. A few months prior I was at a car show and I saw a C4 Corvette with the hood up. I sat there and thought to myself....I can put a suspension like that under my Nomad! So the wheels started to turn. Not long afterward I was looking at a magazine and saw a C4 conversion done by Rick Roush, so I knew it could be done. I had already started building my C4 Corvette conversion frame when I rolled the car into the shop in 2003. It was almost ready for a trial fit of the body at that time.
Since then, I have been working on a lot more major modifications to the car that I kept thinking about. The car is a LOT higher scale car than I intended to build initially, but I'm really happy with it.
The car features a completely home-built C4 conversion seamless tri5 chassis with Aldan coilovers, 13"/12" Baer front and rear brakes, all stainless AN plumbing, a hidden electro-hydraulic brake system from ABS Power Brake, a home-built 23 gallon stainless gas tank and home-built internal pump unit.
The drivetrain consists of a GMPP Ramjet 502 controlled by a Holley Commander 950 and using a Holley 1000 CFM 58mm throttle body, 42 lb/hr injectors, and a chrome S&P serpentine accessory drive system with A/C, power steering pump, and 140 amp alternator. The exhaust is custom fabricated from 3.5" and 3" stainless tubing and mandrel bends and includes an x-pipe, Earle Williams BBC headers, stainless magnaflow mufflers, and 3.5" DMH electric cutouts. It has a new Keisler Engineering Viper T-56 6-speed manual transmission, an 11" Centerforce DF clutch on a GMPP flywheel, custom hydraulic clutch linkage and Hurst Billet Plus shifter. This drives through a Denny's 3.5" MMC driveshaft with 1350 u-joints to the narrowed 4.10 Dana Super 44 IRS rearend.
The body was pretty solid except the floors, quarters, and rockers when I bought the car. It was completely stripped and blasted to bare metal in every square inch of the inside and outside of the body. I replaced the entire floor in the car, and fabbed and installed 4" tubs that I made to look like stock tubs as well as a custom cargo floor that eliminates the spare tire well. I replaced both quarters and both rockers. In doing the tubs, I had to widen the outer wheelwells too. I raised the transmission tunnel for the T-56. I fabbed a new firewall, an all new radiator support, grille support, inner fenders, radiator cover, and cold air intake. The under-hood braces are also custom and I filled the front splash pan. I had a custom crossflow radiator and condenser built by PRC to my design. The A/C is plumbed with AeroQuip braided stainless lines and fittings. I also made front and rear smoothie bumpers by welding 3-piece bumpers together and eliminating the guards.
Inside, I have installed 2000 Cadillac Eldorado 12-way bucket seats, and am working on fabricating a full-length console and a custom rear seat. I wired the car from scratch. It has Vintage Air, power windows, power door locks, electric hood release, keyless entry/alarm, auto-dimming mirror, retained accessory power, automatic headlights, cruise control, dual electric fans, a vss-controlled reverse lockout, level sensors for coolant and brake fluid, courtesy floor lights, and I'm still pondering the stereo system. A Flaming River steering column is topped with a Colorado custom steering wheel that turns the C4 R&P through stainless Borgeson u-joints and shaft.
Front tires are 245/45-17 and rears are 295/35-18. I have room for a 345 rear tire with the custom tubs if I choose to go wider.
The car is ready for final blocking and paint, and I have done 100% of the work on it myself so far. I'm currently building an addition to my shop so I can assemble the car in a clean area. I must have the record for having worked on the same car the longest time.
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Originally Posted by BAM55
