So talking with some co-workers and showing some photos of the progress, I was looking at how far the rear tire was tucked up in, then looking at my 914 and realized the front tire on the 914 is almost completely visible thru the fenderwell. That car was meant to be 5" off of the ground... the Nova, not so much. I grabbed a fender out for the Nova, placed that 245/50/15 tire and wheel at ride height on those blocks of wood, and I can say there is no good way I can put the car that low and turn the tires! The tire runs right into the fender immediately. If I spaced it in about 1-1/4" I could get enough motion to make a turn, and I planned to run steering stops for track use anyway (going near full lock with 11" tires and manual steering can rip the wheel out of your hand pretty easy) - but I don't like the look of the tire tucked in that far, nor do I like the idea of loosing another 2.5" of track width - the flared 914 already has a 2" wider track than the Nova.
So I am at an interesting point in the build already - either narrow the track which while being low would look cool and keep weight low, I think will look weird overall, or I raise the car up a couple more inches and see if that helps. I can keep the center part of the frame low, physically just raise the body up, which keeps the bulk of the car (all the drivetrain) at a 4" ride height which is probably what I will do at this point. Gives me more room under the hood for the tall intake and so forth, just sort of a bummer to not have the car as low as I wanted. Guess I didn't need to french the center frame into the floor after all which is also a pisser. Good excuse to replace the rusty floors anyway I guess - look at the bright side, right!
The joy of going from paper to the real world! The other thing is those old cars have a fair amount of scrub which sweeps the tire around when turning - my custom suspension I designed on the 914 to have 1" of scrub on an 11" wheel so the tire pivots more than it sweeps, which while good for track use, I think exacerbates this issue.