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Thanks! I've had the header in & out at least a dozen times during mock up, but the steering box was out the entire time. Once I set that in place today, I sort of remembered what the deal was with that. No biggie. I won't put the gasket on 'til the end though, lol. The Monte's driver side header was in and out a few times during that build. 😣

If you have some distilled water handy, it can't hurt to flush it out at the end with that. More important after that though, find out what the cooling system capacity for your particular setup (small/big block, A/C, heavy duty cooling system, etc). Then, add half that total amount with straight antifreeze and top the rest off with the remaining distilled water you have. That'll ensure you have a 50/50 mix of coolant/water.

Got the Wilwood front brakes all assembled, and shimmed up properly. Steering gear & linkage loosely assembled, power brake booster, master cylinder, adjustable prop valve, brake lines, and the engine set back in the frame...for now. I seemed to recall that driver side header wouldn't go in place with the steering box installed....well, that's still the case 😁. It'll probably be easier at this point to just lift the motor back out a bit & slip that header back in. First, I'll have to drill them and put the oxygen sensor bung in the collectors. Sounds like a job for tomorrow at this point.

Looked again at dynomax mufflers Tom. I see the one you liked, but it's a straight thru, may be too loud. I saw they had a 'Turbo' one, but after a little research, this is one of the mufflers I looked at before that has a really necked down inside pipe. Some reviews said between 2 & 2.5". Too bad, this may have been a good replacement for the old 2.5" mufflers on the car now. Pretty inexpensive though from Amazon, cheap enough to order, see how they look & send back if they're really that small inside...

I keep looking for something like the old 'Turbo' mufflers I had (Thrush Turbos, from the late 80's). They sounded good, lasted pretty long. All I could see now for the different offerings, is that even though they say 3" inlet/outlet, by most accounts they're really necked down a lot inside the muffler. I'm probably not going to run tail pipes, so something that's a straight shot through will probably be too loud.

Thanks Tom. If you remember history, it's usually 2 steps forward, 3 steps back with me. I have not lost sight of that fact. I already had a minor setback tonight, thought I was going to have to remove the passenger side spring, but was able to find an alternate solution that worked perfect. (I had to weld up a stripped hole for the stabilizer bar mount, but forgot to drill/tap it out before installing the suspension.) That would be a stretch. I still have a lot to do, plus getting the EFI programmed, etc. I know the exhaust will be a time consuming task. Still haven't decided on what mufflers to get yet. It's a toss between Flowmaster 44's and maybe a Magnaflow 3" muffler. I know Tom doesn't like the Flowmasters, lol, but they worked pretty good on my Monte. This car is a whole different animal though. This car and my old monte had the exact same exhaust. Headers, mufflers, etc. But this car was just 10 times louder than that one was which is due to the larger cam, hogged out heads, and the like. Worst case, get a set of each, see how it sounds and go from there...

Got the front suspension installed, plus cleaned and prepped a few more things here & there. Tomorrow maybe I'll get the front Wilwood brakes assembles and installed. After that, the rest of the steering linkage & gear is the loose plan.

I just ate dinner...UGHHHH

The idea was to finish this one before I retire, in case I need to make any parts at work. I keep saying, I'm really going to miss the sheetmetal & the machine shops when I leave. I've made a lot of stuff over the years in those areas.

What kind of gauges (oil, volt, temp)? What terminal did you hook it up to on the fuse block? They should be hooked to an IGN source, not BAT. No reason they should be working with the key OFF. Guessing it never drained the battery prior to the installation?

Of course, LOL...

Lol, thanks Dennis. On vacation for 2 weeks, but there's about 10 or 11 working days left at the power plant.

Thanks Mike! Thanks Tom! Those yellow shocks would have stuck out like a light beacon on an all black car, lol.

Yesterday was spent putting the subframe & frame connectors back on the car, making the new bright yellow Bilstein shocks turn black (the boots were blue, vinyl dye seems to work good on them), and a bunch of little detail things. That's what takes the most time, ...cleaning, painting, modifying even the seemingly simple things.

That's what I used in the past. Choker strap around the crossmember and pull.

Feed her some gasoline, that's an expensive enough gift nowadays....🎁

That does NOT look like any fun at all to me. I hate doing house type maintenance like that. My condolences

Bit of a slow day. Did manage to get the Aeromotive EFI fuel tank installed, & the fuel lines I bent months ago with an Aeromotive 10 micron filter put in place. Next will be the brake lines on the other side of the car before putting the subframe & the subframe connectors back in place.

Looks good Rob! I took mine out for a quick spin last week. It was in the way of someone getting their car out of winter storage, so I figured I should at least get the fluids warm and moving around. Started right up, seemed to run good. I'll give it a better look, and make sure all is good in the coming weeks before loading it up for Carlisle.

It's a 454 Jim. Started as a LS6 GM crate motor that was destined for my old 72 Monte Custom, but had a deep scratch down the whole length of #5 cylinder I think. GM warrantied it & I was able to buy this one back a year or two later for $1K. Bored it .005" over, new pistons, aluminum heads, big roller cam, etc. and this one ended up in the Camaro. Hope you heal enough to accomplish all you need before Carlisle. It just sucks that everyone lives so far apart, otherwise we could help you out.

Just make sure your tetanus shots are up to date 🤣

Looks like it'll work. I wanted a gear drive one at the time, options were much more limited. I have another, regular type stand, never liked spinning a big block around on that one. The Summit one folds up too, but certainly costs a lot more.

Lol! I'm running out of steam right now 😁. Have to work 4 dayshifts starting tomorrow (which means 3 probably, feeling sick already 😜), then vacation for 2 weeks. Hopefully I can get pretty far along with this one, then time to start preparing for Carlisle. I did start bolting a few parts on the car last night, so that's a start finally.

It's pretty stable, no worries rolling it around. Rotates real smooth too.

Thanks, it goes ok for a 307, lol It came from Summit, rated at 1000 lbs. They had a Sunex one, looks the same, rated 1000 lbs, $200 more than this one. I changed the wheels to urethane ones so it didn't mark up the floor. If you ever decided you want the wheels, I could look up what I got. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-908300ga