I finally took some time and read your whole post here.
Wow.
You got Big 'Un's sawing up your roof for the "T" Tops, amazing job! When I read that I was in disbelief, and very impressed. You could do a whole
detailed blog on how you did it
I thought of doing the same thing, but hell, I wont even put a hole in my roof for a CB Antenna
.
I can't even remember what the "Stock" engine looked like as I viewed your pics in this thread. I was more into hot rodding (still am) and went immediately down the Mod path - the first thing I did 44 years ago was rip out all of the emissions crap and gut the cat converter.
Also see you got those original tires - that had me chuckle as I still have the original Uniroyal's mounted on the old oxidized snowflakes stashed in my basement.
.Keep the photos of the beauty flowing....