Your list is well beyond Stage 0 in my book. My suggestions, in the order I'd attempt them:
Pull the engine, drop the oil pan and reinstall. Pull the drag link and install an original one, if possible to get an idea for where the hole should go. If there's room for it, a hole in the oil pan is probably the easiest solution. If not, you'll have to see how much room there is going to be between the drag link and crossmember at full steering lock, and see if you can get a center-sump pan that can be lightly modified, or make one of your own. For either version of the oil pan, a new pickup may be necessary.
While you've got the engine in and out and back in again, build some BEEFY motor mounts. I'd stick with solid mounts myself, 'cause you don't really want to be dealing with the engine torquing over and binding the drag link with the pan. If you do solid engine mounts, you need to do solid tranny mount too. If you don't like the solid idea, you'll need to make the drag link pass-thru bigger and all the clearances around the engine needs to grow.
Give the rest of the car a good going-thru: balljoints, tie-rod ends, idler arm, brakes, hoses, bushings... Get the suspension up to brand new or better-than-new status. By the way, have you looked at the front springs yet??? Please tell me there aren't any spring rate "devices" installed in there - a spring rubber is okay until it splits, but those steel spring stretchers are deadly.
Give the engine your compression check, and decide if it's healthy enough to use. A 2-bolt block is still pretty strong, and in that car will make for one scary ride until you have the extra cake laying around for the 355 you mentioned.
Build a simple exhaust. You're going to have trouble hiding three mufflers under there, I think, but without seeing it I can't say for sure. Forget about headers for now. Consider a 2.5" single system for now with one really good muffler.
Get the driveshaft looked at, and fixed if necessary. I wouldn't bother with an aluminum or a carbon composite one for this - steel will be just great and won't explode if you chip it like a carbon will.
Get a floor-mounted shifter in there, and fix up that hole in the floor where the current shifter is. Build an access panel for the dipstick, and clean up that hole too.
Get a radiator in there. You might need something fully custom, but maybe something from another car will work. Mount it ahead of the rad support like the current one is, but add the Volvo overflow bottle to make filling easier and give you that extra volume. A large oil cooler will help keep the engine cool, and while you're at it, you're going to need a tranny cooler.
Tune Up!
By this time you'll have spent several hundred dollars, but it's safe and reliable, and can be driven. Once you get some miles on it, then you can decide if the brakes are adequate, or if the suspension has any serious shortcomings, etc. Enjoy it for a while. Get to know it and see if you are going to actually WANT to drive it before doing all the little things like moving the battery or overbuilding the engine/transmission/rear end.
I'd avoid trying to build a bigger transmission tunnel if you can - that's a pretty major structural part of the car. Also the inner fenders are pretty important to the structure up front, so messing with these is kinda tricky as well. You may not be able to do headers at all in this car... If you do the cage you might gain some freedom with the sheet metal structure, but that's alot of work to do before you know if the car's acutally something you want.
Like Dale says, this is going to cost you SO MUCH MORE money than you can even account for at the moment... don't get in over your head right away. I spent $6000 doing the engine/transmission in my blue car, and though I could have spent far less money on it, I also could have spent WAY more. It's the little things that add up.
|