1988 Chevrolet Nova Twin Cam review from North America

It burns a little oil, 1 quart per thousand miles using 20/50 weight.

I replaced the driver's seat with one from a Nova CL, it has more adjustments and was in better shape.

All maintinance was past due when I got it. Brakes, shocks, belts and hoses.

This car is a very close cousin to a Corolla FX-16, a 3-door hatchback; both share the MR2 engine and manual Transmission. I haven't seen one with an auto transmission. The engine red lines at 7300 rpm and the high gear on the 5 speed puts me at 3900 rpm at 70 MPH, usually 4th will be 3500 rpm @ 70 mph and 5th would be overdrive. Oh well it's a little motor to be making 112 Horsepower.

I've only seen one other Twin Cam (Chevy's name on the fender), also black with a red pin stripe.

I've replaced the struts (4 KYB's), the originals at 120k were a little loose, but not bad yet. They were marked with Toyota and KYB part numbers.

I upgraded to performance (carbon/metallic, for street) brake pads, surfaced or replaced all rotors, upgraded to 14" MR2 wheels with 185/60X14 Michelins and reworked all the rubber on the sway bars front and rear. Yes, this jewel comes with factory sway bars, front shock tower bracing and four-wheel disk brakes just like the FX-16 and the MR2. Toyota also made a rear wheel drive corolla with this engine etc, the GTS.

I got mine around 120 k, it now has 178k miles, I've done the clutch, radiator, timing belt and all belts and hoses. Two O2 sensors, I couldn't order for a Nova, every listing gave one-wire O2 sensors, and even the 87 FX-16 is one wire. But the 88 FX-16 O2 sensor is moved back to the first exhaust pipe from the exhaust manifold, and has four wires like my Nova. The cheap aftermarket O2 sensor died in 2 years and 20k miles, and ruined a new Catalytic converter. California's biannual inspections keep us honest! So that's two cats and two O2 sensors, the last from the Toyota dealer, the Chevy dealer was $ 50 bucks more! That's why I always lie at the Toyota dealer and get FX-16 parts. I wouldn't try it for a body part and the keys are chevy import keys, but a lot of it is the same and bolts right on. For the O2 sensor it was the only working option except for Chevy, and since I didn't order one from them I'm not sure if they would have gotten the right one. Everyone else got it wrong.

I love the handling, it's roughly a 16 second car (1/4 mile time) that burns regular gas and gets around 28 miles per gallon, mixed city/freeway driving. It now has a white paint job, so it's even more of a sleeper (rarely given a second look).