Alf

Update #11 3/24/07 Greetings HybridZers, Well its been a long week of long days, but we've gotten alot done. We picked up all kinds of parts and even set the car on all fours temporarily. The frame for the cowl is almost finished and is coming out real nice. Bunch of new progress pictures below, enjoy... That there is my header flange template. Since the VG30 manifold gaskets are seperate pieces I had to make my own. I cleaned up the manifold mating surface and sprayed some paint on it, then I stamped it on some card board, and finally just filled in the lines and cut it out. And there's the real deal. The ports were cut with a 1.5" hole saw. We made it out of 3/8" plate, there may be a turbo in the future. That's me cutting something up. Me again, welding on the body. Body progress. Here you can see my new radiator, which is an early Mustang unit, and my front spring perch template. Perch cut out in 1/4" plate. You may notice that the curved part of the perch sticks out farther, that's because we forgot to leave space for the bolts to go through, but that's why you make templates, cardboard is way easier to cut. She's actually sitting on the ground in this picture. we tacked the perch in and set it down to check the ride height, we got lucky and it was about a half inch higher than what I had planned, should end up perfect with more weight. There's my steering box and column, it's from a 61 Mercury Comet. I'll have to run it on it's side, but it should work perfectly. Well, that's it for now. Hopefully tomorrow we can get the front suspension finished and move on the steering column and box. I should be posting another update soon so keep your eyes open. Thanks for checking in, have a good one. Alf

As stated, a 305 can not be bored out to a 350. 305 bore is roughly 3.75" and a 350 is 4", you would have to bore it .250" over, .060" is about the max you can go. Another note about 305's is that the cast iron used in the blocks doesn't have as high a nickel content as the earlier 350's, like the 010 blocks, and they wear faster. Also, all 305's have two bolt mains. It is possible to use a 400 crank in a 305 to stroke it, I'm pretty sure it comes out to a 331, somebody sells the kit. However the small cylinder of the 305 limits the valve size you can run and shrouds the valves much more than a four inch bore. $650 for a 350 block is rediculous, I've bought four bolt 010's for as cheap as $40, just be patient and keep searching for a deal. If you happen to stumble accross a 400 but still want to rev, you can make it a 377 with a 350 crank, 3.48" stroke, or a 350 with a 307/327 crank, 3.25" stroke, bearing spacers are needed though. Good luck, and remember, don't settle, get what you really want.

Update #10 3/18/07 Hello all, First things first, please, I'm begging you, take a minute to read over this thread and answer my question if you can>>> http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=120161 Well, I've been busy in the garage all week, the front axle is finished and came out quite well. I spent three hours searching through piles of tires in a local JY to find a pair of matching 16" steel wheels with the funky 5 on 5 1/2" bolt pattern, but it was worth it cause I think they look much better than the wires. I havn't touched the body in a couple weeks due to lack of supplies. I have this entire week off because of spring break so alot should get done. My goal is to have a rolling chassis and a finished body, and maybe a set of headers also. Progress pics below... I pressed new bronze bushings in my freshly aquired $20 spindles with my cheapo vice. Then, a local old timer used a wrist pin hone to fit my kingpins. I was supposed to get help from a professor here at my college, but he was going to make me wait untill the end of the week, I was done Monday afternoon, sometimes you just have to do it yourself. I got an order of parts on Wednesday. What you see here are the rods that locate the front axle. If you refer to the before pictures of the axle above you'll see that originally they were connected in a triangle with a ball mount. I split them and welded on some bungs and fitted the ends with tie rods, which is common practice. All finished up, just like new again. Here it is mocked up with my "radiator" and new wheels. 3/4 view Thanks for stopping by. Again, please check out the thread posted above and see if you can answer my question. Stay tuned, lots of progress should be made over my break. Have a good one. Alf