Bob,

Great picture! Spring over, cross steer and dropped axle! While we are here, '66 was the only year for the 1300 cc engine but it will take the later 1500/1600/1700 blocks with only a change in the starter if you want to keep the 6 volt battery. I went through four (4) engines in a '66 over about 220K miles and finally sold it when the trans went by jumping out of high gear. This can be a really neat car and it should be easy to upgrade a 1300 or later engine case to 1800 cc or at least 1600 with drop in barrels and pistons. The next thing to worry about is egg-shaped bearing webs in the case but they can be bored oversize and thicker bearings put in after making the holes round again. The side-to-side piston action tends to make the main bearing webs egg shaped because after all the case is Al-Mg alloy, so a rebuild requires reboring the bearing webs. The heads are fun to port since they are aluminum and can be rapidly ported with a rotary file. If you change the cam, please get the lifters that are recommended for that cam, I tried using stock lifters with a regrind cam that had no champher on the edges of the cam lobes and the lifters were rotated and "machined" to the nubbins in about 3000 miles, so check the edges of the cam lobes for flash or sharp 90 degree edges and use hardened lifters. Today it ought to be easy to get dual port heads and with a Holley Bug Spray or even better a single two-throat Weber carb and a chopped flywheel you could have a pretty quick car AND still get over 20 mpg! It should be easy today to get 100 H.P. or more from large pistons, a cam, headers and dual port heads. Makes me wish I had seen this kit, but I am committed to the SBC driveline now.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder