I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy. I'm really not worthy.
I'm not really into racing (or rather "my guy" isn't, I'm a cd and he does the car stuff), and he's been slowed down considerably since we've become somewhat mature. And he's a "road" sports car kind of person, not a "drag" person (well, at least in terms of automobiles) since we live in the hills. But we've both always wanted a late '50's, very early "60's hi po vette. But the insurance. But the worry. But the tickets.
So he's been working on a "stealth" vette (for way too many years now). He's got a '65 cuda. It was an old lady's car, slant 6/auto which have been removed now. Sitting underneath it is a "62 chevy iron 4 speed with gearvendor od, waiting to be eased up into the tunnel (Ah, and what did you do yesterday? Cut the tunnel open so the shifter can poke up and through when the ->-bleeped-<- is eased up). And then sitting over in the corner is a '56 265, bored out to a 283, with a double hump heads and roller rockers, a dundov 097, and an edelbrock thunder on a high rise with very good set of exhaust manifords.
("Infidel!" cry the Mopar Heads. And to think he turned down a never started 273 replacement engine someone once offered me. What can I say? He likes the sbc.)
So the weight is about the same as a late '50s vette, the power/transmission is pretty much the same, the handling will be pretty much the same. (And, yes, the rear axle has been swapped out to a ford ranger posi, the front brakes to disks and the torsion bars upped to 273's and a new fast ratio power steering box has been installed. And I've got a spare back window hidden away in the big metal building.)
So its engine/trans swap fabrication issues that I've been (worrying about, avoiding, fighting, cussing) trying to accomplish. But he's not in a hurry. Its been a 15 year project at this point and -- like I said -- he opened up the transmission hump yesterday.
Carolina