Milton’s Paradise Lost detailed the fall of mankind, from the temptation of Adam and Eve to ideals and themes that we struggle with today. Paradise Lost is considered one of the greatest literary works in the English language which details an odyssey that parallels the journey of our very own project car. Our very first real project car, an early 70’s Nova that we call “Project Swinger” has the same classic references as Milton’s literary masterpiece, with one exception: we have rediscovered the true bliss in this project.

Swinger’s return to prominence began with the arrival of a new set of Forgeline SP3P gunmetal gray rims back in July. When we mounted the rims to the rotors of our previously wheelless chassis, a flash of greatness returned to the seasoned warhorse. Even without rubber wrapping the rims, the car’s appearance went from bow-wow to simply “WOW” in one upgrade.

Shortly after mounting the wheels to the car, we found a set of tires that fit into our project scope and appearance. Getting the rubber mounted on the rims and the car lowered to the ground greatly enhanced the effort to see this project through to completion. The BF Goodrich’s G-Force235/40/ZR18 T/A tires dressed up the car nicely. Dressed up with no place to go, and no way to get there. The latter problem was fixed by installing a McLeod RXT race style clutch, McLeod custom fabricated high performance flywhee and machined adapter plate to fit the engine’s 8-bolt pattern on the crankshaft.

The next step in returning our project car to glory was accomplished with some serious technical help from our friends at Aeromotive Inc., our project car was plumbed with everything that was needed to deliver fuel to the monster under the hood. From the Aeromotive fuel cell, electric fuel pump, and a whole lot of steel braided line, the fuel system was installed and ready for the next round of upgrades.

After the fuel plumbing was finished, we took on the brake line plumbing for the Stainless Steel Brake Company (SSBC) brakes that we had previously installed. Running the brake lines around the rear end, down the length of the chassis and along the face of the firewall turned out to be an effortless upgrade with the right tools and “know-how.”

Next, we got back to ground level with Swinger with the Air Ride Suspension from Ride Tech, the job of setting the ride height was much more simplified than a stock suspension system. Getting the wheels to fit inside the body panels was critical before we could move on to getting the car ready for paint. In addition to setting ride heights and footprint, we needed to get all the body panels fitted to the car so that any welding that needed to be done could take place before the paint was sprayed. We documented our efforts to fit all the pieces together in this update.

A couple of final pieces of the puzzle came together. To get our engine cooling system to work perfectly, we sought out AFCO Performance and Red Line Oil for help. The guys at AFCO set us up with the perfect LS Radiator and fan conversion for our application.  This is not a one size fits all deal and we talk about calling the experts at AFCO for each particular application in article. Cameron Evans at Red Line Oil guided us in the right direction for corrosion prevention and cooling properties in our cooling system by using Red Line’s Water Wetter.

With the plumbing and suspension upgrades completed, our attention turned to getting the body work and exterior paint scheduled. We were getting closer to realizing the end of this dream.  With visions of gun metal gray exterior paint dancing in our heads, we came to the conclusion that in our Swinger project car, we have experienced “paradise found.”