THE BEGINNINGWe bought the car 2/2002 in Georgia, had to towed it home after the owner said it was a "daily driver". It wasn't even close to that. It had a 302 with 2 broken cylinder skirts so the daily driver motor was junk. The body was really solid which was what I wanted. I knew I was going to replace the motor with an FE motor so didn't care about the motor or transmission that was in it. Bought a 391 FT block (which has the extra webbing to make the block stronger), had it sonic checked, aligned hone, decked the block, had it bored to 4.17, I debured and polished the inside of the block, I polished the rods and had them shot peened, I reworked the oil valley and blocked off the lifter galleys, I restricted oil to rocker arms, had the rotating assembly balanced. I got custom flat top pistons from Ross Racing with maximum dedicated valve relief (compression is 10.8). ARP Rod bolts and Main studs. I installed Comp cam (#33-640-5) valve springs and titanium retainers. I have been very pleased with the way the cam performs. I had all the machine work done by Total Performance in Mount Clemens, MI (thanks Ron Reeder and John Vermeesch). I assembled the motor. I rebuilt a C6 transmission I installed a B & M 3500 stall speed converter plus a TCI manual valve body & a Hurst Pro-Matic 2 shifter. Installed a posi-traction unit I rebuilt and installed 4.11 gears. I used 428 CJ heads and a tri-power manifold. I installed the interior from another 66 Fairlane that is my parts car, the interior was in much better shape. Had to rebuild all wheel cylinders replaced the master cylinder with a double one. I installed new spring perches and new 90/10 shocks. After I got the motor in and running found lots of stuff that had to be fixed. The wiring was a mess had to replace the engine wiring harness, had to redo most of the wiring since previous owner had really messed it up. He had some how rigged it up with the wrong tie rod because he had messed up the spindle. Thankfully I was able to find a used spindle from the Fairlane junk yard in Maryland. I replaced the steering linkage and front suspension with PST Polygraphite parts. It drives like a new car now. Had to installed Lakewood traction bars. Still needs lots of work but I have enjoyed doing it almost as much as driving it. (Okay maybe driving it is more fun.) Got the car on the road the end of August 2002.