You guys were a big help with my circle track car questions. Here's my second project.

I have a 65 Studebaker Commander. It was built with a Chevy (McKinnen) 283 V8, Borg Warner Flight-o-matic auto trans, and a Dana 44 3.31 rear end. See pic

http://www.dougs-stuff.com/Studebaker/DSCN2522.JPG

I know the white walls have to go!

It's not a big car and does pretty well with the 283, stock cam and 2 barrel carb. But I would like to turn it into more of a performer. What do you think, should I:

1. leave the 283, upgrade carb, cam, intake and exhaust
2. replace the 283 with built 350 (my current choice)
3. go for broke with 383 or 400 (I think this would be too much for the car)

I still want to run pump gas. It doesn't have much room under the hood and headers might be a problem, it has ram horn manifolds. It needs a new exhaust, should I leave the ram horns and just go dual pipes.

Any recommendations on a small distributor. I don't think I can fit a HEI distributor as it would hit the firewall. It currently has points (where did I put that dwell meter?)