That steering wheel... cannot unsee

Even beyond that, this car was a complete rotisserie restoration. Total rustproofing and every nut and bolt gone over. Cody has a ludicrous attention to detail.

Exhaust clearance is measured in millimeters from the starter and steering rack. Right now it has modified blockhugger headers. Most people use stock cast manifolds on these SBCs but those rob an unreasonable amount of power.

New adaptations for A/C and power steering, and the exhaust routing will require from-scratch custom headers. Other than that I guess not *too* bad, as the trans and motor will physically bolt to the mounts just fine but it’s a whooole lot of fiddly nonsense and custom parts that need to be taken care of to get an…

It really isn’t. A 5.3 is in my future but I dread the amount of work that is going to be, even coming from a small block chevy.

The ‘08 and then the ‘19. I don’t recognize the SN95 as a real car. I saw an ‘08 Bullitt in person for the first time and it renewed my want for an S197 pre-facelift manual GT. Such nice looking cars that have aged wonderfully.

Trolling purists is one of my joys in this. I’d love to get it painted though. The red is flaking in more places than it’s actually stuck to the car, and super cracked but it photographs well and looks okay for a distance. Dark blue or BRG looks the definition of classy on these cars.

Far from a beauty. Very much a work in progress. It’s a ‘77 pre-facelift Jaguar XJ-S with a small block Chevy 350 swapped into it with a TH350 trans. Lots of rust, lots of wear and tear that I’m trying to mitigate. I have new floor pans to weld in and am currently fitting some more modern seats to replace the trashed…

Do the Jag. Put a SBC in it like mine. It’s worth it.

I found a writeup I did on it with pictures. https://oppositelock.kinja.com/removing-a-97-riviera-headliner-for-fun-and-profit-1773938995

Yup. Removed the headliner and sprayed it outside. Took two cans to do the whole thing but going from a super-light color to black doesn’t make that a surprise.

Rustoleum makes an excellent vinyl and carpet dye that comes in spray cans. I used it to re-color the headliner of a Buick and it was excellent and super durable.

Like I said in my initial reply, I have less of a problem with what he replaced electrical than I did with the statement about throwing parts at it. It’s also an issue of relevance and necessity. Basic electrical diagnoses is useful pretty much no matter the vehicle. Repairing a 35 year old hot-idle emissions flap…

Yes. Because one is necessary for the car to run, the other is a bunch of broken garbage that hinders the ability to diagnose simpler issues like vacuum leaks. At the very least it should all be capped off and unhooked until the engine is baselined and running. I’d add back EGR (maybe) and make sure it has working…

Learn from my mistakes, kids.

Stunningly accurate.

Trying stuff and seeing what happens isn’t a bad thing when other possibilities have been exhausted, though I’m not entirely clear on what time/money restraints you’re working with.

The power assist thing was a joke. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t have to be hooked up for the engine to run. That’s pretty neat that the Torqueflite doesn’t require vacuum reference. I don’t have much experience with old AMC/Chrysler stuff.

1. The ignition parts I replaced were no-brainers. (I didn’t replace the dizzy).

This is good advice.