Fun with Fairlanes

Hey Steve, thanks for the input. I haven’t checked to see if it’s the original engine (not that I really care) but from what I know of the two previous owners I would be surprised if it isn’t. One of them got the Marty Report for the car and it all seems to coincide. It’s a factory 390/C6 car. The engine has been rebuilt so I suppose parts could have been swapped out. And it’s a Chevy version of a Holley, so that’s been changed for sure. I haven’t looked at the list number (or at least I don’t remember looking at it, lol). I haven’t done anything to the engine except reset the points and bump up the timing and adjust the carb. It was so lazy when I drove it home I knew there were tuning issues. I haven’t even pulled the plugs yet. It runs pretty good and with other projects needing my attention, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
The front springs each have two of those old rectangular spring spacers in them. With the Hooker headers, the pipes have a case of the hang downs so I didn’t want to lower it any more. Style-wise, I always liked the big tires in back and the front level or slightly lower, giving it that 70s super stock racer look. It was easy to achieve with this car and it helps with the headers bottoming out problem. Speaking of headers, the PO added a bolt on crossover pipe and being a “bolt-on”, it leaks everywhere so that will be one of the first things that I address.
As far as modifications go, I initially started looking for ideas and aluminum heads and intake seemed to be a good direction until I started reading about rocker arms, shaft end supports, and shimming the stands and etc, etc. My buddy at the machine shop said that he would donate a block if I wanted to build a separate roller cammed aluminum headed stroker engine. That seemed like a better plan; put the current engine in retirement and drop in a fresh bullet. But driving it around, it’s kinda nice as-is. It’s pretty peppy and there’s more in it. I definitely want to tighten up the transmission, it was rebuilt but they didn’t add a shift kit or anything and I’d like it to be more snappy at the shifts.
All in all, I’m very happy with it. The back end is a little buckboard-y and living where I do it could use A/C, but I like it. I’d really like to get it painted soon but I don’t have anyplace to park it inside at the moment so I’m holding off on that. It gets a lot of attention and thumbs up whenever I take it out. Something about Rancheros makes people smile. Thanks again.