new news is good news. it took 1/2 a day just to make room in my cramped work space for the spirit back in and clean things up enough to roll the hoist in,hook the 350 on and slide it into the engine bay to see how bad the fabbing is going to be. that's the bad news. the good news-the motor fit like it had always belonged there! the only discrepancy is about an inch and a half difference in the motor mounts.making that work will be a piece of cake. the original spirit crossmember lines up exactly! can you believe it? all i need to do to it is drill the holes to fit the 350 tranny. the crossmember has accomodations for exhaust on both sides, unlike the olds that had to cross over to the passenger side, and then separate back to opposite sides. it looks like plenty of room for the fan and radiater and even room for exhaust clearance, that, though might be the wild card. it also looks like the straight 6 that came out was taller, making clearance for the intake, carb and the stock air filter
now the search begins for a radiater to fit the spirit and that has the hose connections close to where they need to be.
the other fly in the ointment is making an '89 camaro console shifter(donated) work with the olds. the shifter is a cable type, but the tranny has a 'u' shaped linkage hookup. do i need a ch*** hookup? or fab something to make my setup work? i've never paid attention to ch*** to see. in fact, this is my first olds. can anyone gimme a heads up on this? oh yea, where does the cable bracket bolt on. i'm guessing to the unused holes on the tailshaft.