Originally Posted by Sulli
Livemeyer, your truck looks good and the 327 and headers look like they fit with the stock steering assembly. Do you know if the driver's side manifold was modified at all to fit between the steering gear? I'm just curious because it seems like getting a V8 into the engine bay with stock steering always comes down to that pinch point. Folks have mentioned using a passenger side late 60's camaro manifold on the driver's or a ram's head manifold side since they are narrow with the outlet is shifted more forward.
Apologies for this not helping with your no-start situation, but your engine bay looked good and I wondered how the V8 fit so cleanly.
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Hey, no problem, I'm happy to answer questions. When the truck came to me, it had a modified steering rack. The frame has a 3" piece of flat iron welded to it with holes to mount the steering column. The whole thing shifts the steering column over a couple inches and the firewall has been butchered too, it's enlarged. I intend to get this all repaired, but at the current time was trying to just get the truck in running and driving condition so I stayed with what was there. I'm not sure if the whole steering column is stock or not, It originally had a steering wheel on it from a ~ 1963-1965 Impala. As a matter of fact, I think a lot of the mods on this truck, stemming from the 80's, were from a 1964 or 65 Impala.

Anyway, in the one video you see headers, chrome, cheap ones I bought on eBay, they didn't fit so well (I had to trim a bit from the passenger frame rail to fit) and they were melting my spark plug wires and anything else they touched (starter wires, my hands, etc.) so I swapped over to a ram's horn-style exhaust manifold. It fits really well.

My intention was/is to get the truck in a drivable condition so I could take it to a shop and get a Mustang II or some other IFS setup done. Not sure if I can do all the steering work I want done at the same time or if that's a whole separate operation. It really needs power steering. I'm a novice as far as steering and suspension systems goes.