Parts collection has begun.
Wife's friend's dad posted some 3.42 8.5 gears for sale 6 months ago on FB. Recognized the name but never asked. We were back in her home town for Christmas and stopped at their place and I asked if he still had them. Sure did. $30 for a little used set. Nice.
Planning to semi copy my 8.5 build in my 2+2 for this car. Already have a 3.73 posi 30 spline disk 8.5 that I originally built for my 2+2 but replaced with a stock with rear since it's a zr2 width 62" one. My 2+2 just used g body tubes that a sleeved into the 8.5 housing.
Planning possibly to do a little different path on this one just to experiment and replace the GM ends with torino 9" ends. I need shorter axles and to narrow this housing anyway. I already have the LCA brackets welded on so it's basically cut the GM outer bearings/flange off and weld on moser 9" ends with gm disk pattern. (These)
7900 - Small GM Car Housing Ends (uses 9" Ford large bearing & non c-clip axles) New forged, CNC machined housing ends for use with Small GM type backing plates & caliper brackets. These ends utilize the Large Ford Bearing (3.150" OD). OEM Drum Brakes will require the backing plate to be bored...
www.moserengineering.com
The negative here is it's $300 additional to put 9" ends on a rear vs keeping c clips. Moser 30 spline 8.5 GN c clip axles are $270 vs $500+$100 for 9" style axles+ends.
TBD on that one. It's more i"s $300 worth it" to learn and try something new.
Oh, and I ordered my Wuhan War Whistle and wastegate for my cheap t4 conversion.