[bobzdar]

Well, after about 2 years, I finally started the resto on my '67 Firebird. I pulled the vinyl top off, stripped off most of the '80's repaint to leave the original paint underneath and pulled the motor to clean/degrease/refresh.

Surprisingly, the engine is pretty clean inside and the cylinders show no major wear with very little ridge, and there's virtually no carbon build up. Given that it was running well when I pulled it apart and it looks clean inside, I'm not going to do a full rebuild. I do think I'll add a few things when putting it back together, though. I'm planning to put in 744 cam, new oil pump, new timing chain, arp rod bolts and long branch manifolds to go with the ram air setup.

I'm on the fence on a couple of things, though. It's a California car with the AIR setup, so I'm debating whether to put the full system back on. It's complete and was working when I pulled the engine and is original to the car, but it does clutter things up a bit in the engine bay. Any opinions? I also have a 2400 stall converter sitting in the garage, thinking I might install that while the engine is out. Worthwhile on a street car or will it just make the tires spin worse off the line and kill my gas mileage? I'm thinking it might work well with the 744 cam. The car has factory 3.23 posi and single traction bar. My goal is to get the car in for paint in the next week or two and hopefully spend the next couple of months putting the engine back together so it's ready to go back in when the car is painted.