It looks like I will be swapping a 350 into 67' Skylark.

That's definitely a lot tighter than the 71 chassis. No dents required, nothing rubs.

 

We have made some good progress this week. I bled the clutch and brakes (I installed a new brake line and master cylinder). The Hydraulic clutch has a nice light pedal. We dropped the radiator in and hooked up the cooling system. I hooked up the original wiring and have been adding some new circuits for the HEI distributor and tachometer. We also hooked up some gauges, just simple Autogauge mechanical temp, Volts and mechanical oil pressure. I made a cover for the bellhousing out of some sheetmetal. My wife was helping out where she could. She focused on installing the new sound deadener on the floor. All kinds of little things we have been working on. The engine and transmission swap is just part of it. I still have a bunch of wiring to tidy up but it is all coming together.
Greg

 

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We fired the engine for the first time tonight. I was shocked that it fired right up immediately. forgot how nasty the smoke is off a new set of headers. I must have had the timing real close to start as it fired right up with a shot of brake clean. I dialed the timing in to 12 degrees advanced for now. The engine is snappy and runs great. The only issue we had was a big air lock in the cooling system. It did not pump any water at first. Really odd. I ended up filling the block up through the heater hose then it managed to prime and start circulating. I plan to finish sorting out some adjustments tomorrow. I will try to get a better video then. It has a pretty good exhaust note.
Greg

 

We have been driving the car for the last 4 weeks and have been finishing up many little odds and ends. I only finally got to doing a full setup of the timing. I removed the mechanical advance springs then run the engine and set the maximum advance to 34 degrees. I then hooked up the springs again and checked the initial to find it at 20. The restricted mechanical advance is only 14. I will leave it that way for now. It seems to start easy and have no issues. With that much initial I thought I better cut back on the vacuum advance. I checked it to find it was 20 degrees so I used an allen key and adjusted the vacuum advance to reduce it to only 6 degrees. After the adjustments I took it for a drive. It is really running strong now. It was holding back and bogging a bit before going through the timing adjustment. I found it only had 4 degrees advance in it when I started and about 18 or so total. Now it is snappy and is really quite impressive. This motor is quite a beast. I am quite sure with some traction it would take my 455 in my car. It is plenty torque and strong in the bottom end for on the street and absolutely rips when you stand on it. From 4000 to 6500 it is quite impressive. It will easily rev clean to 7000RPM. Whatever Porting work is done to those heads must be decent to still pull strong up there. The exhaust has a decent lope to it and although it had quite a bit of overlap from the rough degree wheel specs I got from it, it does seem to have plenty of vacuum for the brakes. Whatever they did for the grind it works great. I think this motor would really like the TA SP3 intake. I am happy with the quadrajet and Poston intake for now. We are running a 1" 4 hole to taper plastic spacer as well. It carburates perfect at the moment and I am not sure I can make it a whole lot better. The 4 speed shifts shitty so I am going to swap in another I have. It is fun with the 4 speed though. The hydraulic clutch is really nice, great pedal feel and engagement. The one issue with the engine is that it does seem to smoke a fair bit with oil smoke. My dad mentioned to me that they used to use pretty big ring end gaps on their stock car motors back in the day and that could be why but I am not so sure. It is possible. Worst case scenario is we pull it back out and give it a quick hone and some rings. When I have a chance I need to see what they used for valve seals as well. I like to use Comp positive type seals. I have a cutter for the guides. I need to get a posi rear in the back of that car with some gears soon. The 2.78 open is not great to drive.
Greg

 

Nice job!
Car looks great, beautiful color, engine sounds great also

 

Awesome work!!!

 

About that "S divider" intake, I read years ago that it needed a 4 hole spacer to make it compete with the performer and B4B on the big blocks. Just passing that on.

 

I have had a Poston S divider on my 455 for over 20 years. I have done a fair bit of research on them. I know they are very much unloved but most comments come from people that have no experience with them at all. My 455 one works pretty well. I have tried all kinds of spacers on it and have found, just as you say, the 4 hole works the best. I have tried open, semi open and semi divided. The 350 is running a 4 hole tapered 3/4" spacer. I had run that one on the 455 before but for whatever reason it liked the 4 hole with the squared off bottom rather that the tapered bottom. I made all my spacers on the router table with either MDF wood or plastic. I still have hood clearance on the 350 so I might even try a little taller spacer. I have attached a picture of a spacer that is very similar to the ones I use. I have not experimented with any of the other spacers on the 350 yet but it seems to work pretty dam good right now. That little 350 rips right now as is.
Greg