Nip And Tuck
Building the supercharged LSX engine--and even tuning it for three distinct fuels--was a lot easier than installing it in the Chevy II.
Fitting the LS within the Chevy II's chassis involved obtaining an aftermarket, racing-style, sheetmetal oil pan and modifying it to make the front section fit around the car's old-school, recirculating ball steering linkage. The result is, essentially, a notched pan that works very well. Fourth-generation F-car LS1 oil pans have a fairly straightforward, low-profile oil pan design, but they won't work in all retrofit applications (and stay away from the winged Corvette production pans).
While numerous aftermarket suppliers now make bolt-in engine-swap mounts for LSX conversions, for Strayhorn's Nova, Martin Motorsports fabbed up a set of mounts as part of a chassis-clearancing initiative required to make room for the headers.
Likewise, Martin fabricated custom undercar headers for the Chevy II rather than using one of the many small-tube engine swap header kits that are available today. Martin Motorsports fabricated the bends before sending them out for coating. The result looks great, and Martin can replicate the swap parts for others.
With more than 800 hp so easy to achieve in a thoroughly streetable project, it looks like E85, a Roots blower, and the LS engine are the cornerstones of a powerful homestead.