Well, I finally got the engine and trans axle installed in my '73. It's a '73 with fiber glass flares, fg 916 rear bumper, and fg IMSA air dam. It has taken me a while to get the engine bay ready and painted.

The Engine:
1.7 liter Big-Valve heads - 44mm x 38mm (2.0 Stock is42 mm x 36mm )
Forged 94mm pistons & cylinders (new). Precision matched & balanced.(stock 2.0 bore)
2.0 Crankshaft (stock 71mm stroke) balanced, reground & polished to OEM specs.
2.0 Connecting rods balanced, rebushed/sized and matched.
New WEB CAM #86. .423 Lift / 270 Duration.
New Hardened Alloy Racing Lifters.
Flywheel Lightened by Four lbs.
Monza Manta Exhaust

I've had this car forever with a decent case of Dirk Wright's Disease. I finally decided that "good enough" is what I'm shooting for. My plan is to turn it into a running, driving car THEN go back and fix things that need attention. (Rather than starting at the ground and working my way up for YEARS!) I'm now making myself work on it at least an hour every night and pretty much all weekend every weekend. I thought maybe putting a project thread out here would help me keep that schedule up!

I'm planning to hook the shift linkage up this week if my new shift coupler comes in. (I'm expecting it by Wednesday.) Also clutch cable, speedo cable, and engine wiring harness. (The harness is a bit of a mess, so we'll see.) Then fuel pump and fuel lines.

My next big hurdle is my 40mm Dellorto's. I bought these from that guy in Italy selling them on eBay. I assume they were Fiat carbs. They've still got the levers for the enrichment circuit and are probably jetted all wrong. So, I've got to find out what to do about removing the enrichment circuit items and get a ball park on where to start with the jetting. I'm pretty much lost with the jetting. I can tear them down and rebuild them, but I don't know what to do about the jetting or enrichment circuit linkage.

I'll post up some engine/trans/engine bay shots in the next day or two.

It sounds exactly like what I was thinking when attacking my '73 again shortly before Christmas, and I now have it running, just need an alignment and fine tuning the engine (283 Chevy SB).

OK, I knew the pics comment was coming. I PROMISE I'll get some on here!

6/10/09 Project Update:

Well, I've pretty much decided to send my Dellorotos to Air Cooled Engineering at Jake's suggestion. Art says he can clean, rebuild and get the jets in the ballpark based on engine specs and remove the enrichment circuit linkage. I cleaned and rebuilt them myself once in the past and never could get them to run correctly. I don't really want to lay out the money this will cost, but I think it will be worth it to know that they are right.

I got my new loaded shift coupler in from 914Sixer (thanks!). Stripped, sanded, and painted the rest of the linkage, installed all new bushings and will install that tonight. BTW, the tip I found on here about boiling the Firewall Bushing in water prior to install was worth its weight in gold! I started trying to install it and after about 10 minutes of brute force not working, I searched the web for the "magic trick" and found it!

I got the clutch cable pulley assembly cleaned up and installed last night. I hooked up the old clutch cable and speedo cable, but am planning to replace both of them and accelerator cables all at the same time in the near future.

I cleaned up my SS Heat Exchangers and J tubes and have them ready for install along with new exhaust gaskets at the heads and new factory exhaust nuts. After that, my brand new Manta exhaust is also ready to go on as soon as I dig through my parts to see if I have an exhaust hanger!

Hmmm....what else? I have a mangled CV Joint Boot, so I'm taking my axle shafts to a local shop that does great work on axle shafts and CV Joints to have them cleaned, re-greased, and get the bad boot replaced. The others all look OK.

Well, I've gotten one axle shaft rebuilt. It looks like new. I couldn't get the axle nut off of the other! I tried a 500 ft/lb impact wrench, PB Blaster, a breaker bar with a Heat Exchanger as a heater pipe. Still no luck! I think I'll bolt them both up and drive it to the shop when it's running and let them take it out. (As much as I hate to do that.) If you have any other ideas on how to bust this loose, let me know!

Since I'm going to be hooking up the axle shafts, I can now go ahead and install the SS HE's, shift linkage, and muffler. I didn't want to install this stuff since it is easier to do the axle shafts with that out of the way.

I'm planning on pulling the pedal cluster out tonight to rebuild it. I am assuming it needs a rebuild and I've got the bushing kit handy. The brake pedal is unmovable. We'll see what the front pan/pedal box looks like then! Hopefully it won't be too bad!

Does anybody know what size bolt I need to buy to hold on the starter? (That long bolt that goes through the case.)

Any pictures of the body? this is the same combo I am doing on mine and would like to see what it all looks like put together! I also decided to get it on the road and then go back later to finish.

You can try heating the axle nut with MAPP or acetylene, let it cool, pb blaster,
wait over night, whale on it for 5 minutes with impact gun, repeat. Heating it
should open it up enough to let the pb blaster get in and attack the rust
in there. The heat may screw up seals, I was replacing my rear bearings
anyway.

I had to go through that cycle twice on one axle nut. Other one came off on first
go round.

I'll do my best to get some pics up tonight!

Sadly all I've got at home right now is Propane. I may give it a shot, but I don't think it will get it hot enough.