First off, sorry for the long posting.

Alright. For those of you patient enough to teach a n00b, here goes...

I have an old '75 Ford pickup with the 390. The truck is in awful shape, but it runs. The owner (father-in-law) knows very little, if anything about it's history (he thought it was a 360). I'm assuming it's a 390 due to a paper label on the engine stating that it's a 390.

I basically want to rebuild the engine from top to bottom. But while I'm in it, I may as well make it a runner. I would like to make it get up and go, but not for racing. Just something that I can have fun with around the town. Eventually, I want to drop it into an older car (get to that later).

I've started disconnecting the motor from the truck and the only thing left is the motor mounts. I can't seem to get them to break loose but I can't fit a long-handle in there to give me more leverage.

I've read a good number of postings that talk about building the motor up (which I wanna' do). The postings suggest certain cams, cranks, carbs, ect. This currently isn't a engine that I rely on, so there's no hurry on getting the motor back together quickly. And because I can do this over time (6-12 months), I can justify spending a little more on the project ($2.5-3.5K).

I know that there are cheaper alternatives to get a good motor, but I want to find out what my automotive repair limitations are.

This may be a wierd question but how do I figure out what I want to do? How do I determine what I'll need before I do it?

Bottom line: I want an engine that will make the passenger say, "Whoa! What do you have in this thing!?" I don't plan on taking the car on the freeway's too often. I'm also planning on keeping whatever car this engine goes into stored, not really a daily runner. Ah-ha! That's what I want, a weekend car.

I'd appreciate any suggestions that you guys/gals have. And I'm sure I'll have many more questions for you.

Thanks.