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It's been four months since I posted an update? Aargh.
Well, at least the underside of the body has been cleaned off, wire-brushed and paint-removered to near-spotlessness, POR-15ed, and is at this point about two-thirds undercoated.
The frame is back in the garage while I reassemble the rear suspension - it looks like I may end up having the thing powder-coated, and if so I want to make sure that all the new rear suspension bracketry for the Panhard rod and lower trailing links is welded on before the coating is done.
The stroked 460 is in progress, but I've decided that my dreams of doing an independent-runner Haltech EFI system using either something like one of Force EFI's Hilborn/Crower stack system conversions, or a Weber manifold and eight TWM Induction Weber-size throttle body assemblies - total cost in either case in the $5000 neighborhood - is at this point economically unfeasible. Consequently, I've ordered up an Edelbrock Performer RPM manifold/carburetor/cam package. The manifold should be a decent low/midrange match for the SVO heads, the cam has moderate lift numbers combined with a tighter lobe spacing than most cams catalogued for the 385-series V-8, and the Edelbrock/Weber/Carter carburetor avoids most of the nasty things I've never liked (too much rubber, too many gaskets, etc.) in Holley carburetor design. Time will tell.
I've also decided that I'll start off trying to find a decent late-model ('97-later) used E4OD transmission rather than a built-up aftermarket piece, if I can snag one reasonably cheap - it appears that pretty much all of the serious internal updates that can be made to the thing had been made by Ford from '95-onward. This will be run by a Baumannator TCS control box, complete with ManuTronic Steptronic-type up/downshift buttons. Actually getting this all in the car may require some creativity - the E4OD is only 3" longer than the original iron Cruise-O-Matic, and probably not any heavier, but the rear mount is a full 10.5" further rearward which gives some indication of the generally greater girth and bulk of the E4OD. My intent since day one has been to avoid cutting or bashing anything to make the new bits fit, but having the four-speed transmission is just important enough that I'd be prepared to make a modest exception here.