So there's been a few developments..... As I've torn farther into the car, I keep finding stuff that's going to take a lot of time and money to fix. At least to repair to my "vision". I'm trying to think logically about this whole thing and the reality is that if I want to see this thing up and running any time soon, I should go forward with the bare bones gasser idea and then down the road if I feel like it, transform it from there once I have honed my sheet metal skills a little better and have all the proper equipment for the undertaking.
So I stuffed the straight axle under her. Took out the lowering block from the rear. Looks pretty decent. Stance is a bit off, but that will be fixed once I have some slicks on the rear and skinnys on the front.
I've been working on getting the floorboards into shape and replacing the firewall. That part is going slow.
Picked up the motor I'm going to use. It's a 1963 Pontiac 389 bored .060 over to 400ci. I got lucky and found it on CL. It was advertised as rebuilt, but I tore it down anyway to check and so I could re-assemble it my way. What I found inside was: new pistons, a new lunati Bracket master II cam, double-roller timing chain, new melling oil pump, New connecting rod hardware, and a few other nice little things.
I mocked up the engine with the 6x2 and magneto I plan to use. I posted some pics.
I'm going to try to adapt a set of SBC fenderwell headers to Pontiac flanges. We'll see how it goes. The middle port might mess things up.
Still trying to decide on trans. Thinking maybe a TH-400 with a 2800-3200stall converter.