Awesome car! Welcome to the 76er club X2. I agree, a nice original is always cool no matter what it was from the factory. But you gotta be happy with what you're doing to keep the motivation up during those times when the project seems overwhelming. You make a mental picture of the finished car, maybe even have a rendering drawn and tack up on the garage wall, and keep trucking till you have the car finished. Good luck, we'll be here rooting you on.
Side note, if nobody else told you. You need to stand that crank up on it's end, hard on them to lay like that. same with the heads and flywheel.
Yeah, I took the pics right after I unloaded everything, I squared it away as soon as I could...
Thats the thing, I like the original idea...but darn it, its like I want two cars!!! lol. Either way, I got time to think about it as I replace the rotted metal and get the body back in solid condition. As of right now, its a 50/50 if I'll go original or not. The way I see it, I can make this a clone, and do the few upgrades I want and its no big deal, or I can go original color inside and out, but I am still going to do the few upgrades I want, either way, the purists will give me crap for it, lol.
I see this project as saving a car that someone didnt love anymore, we as people can grow and change over time to our full potential, why cant a car? I have some friends over on a LS1 board, and they think I am nuts for not just throwing a big cube LSX engine in it and a 6spd tranny and one of those expensive front subframes with coilovers and all that crazy stuff....one guy even said I should put a T/A front end on it (cause he thinks ALL 2nd gen T/A's look like a Bandit car)
What I want is simple, a great looking car, with a few upgrades to make it a little more fun to drive, not a chopped up monstrosity that no one can tell what it was in 1976.