OK, here is my "last" big entry in this thread....I hope! ...barring any more rookie mistakes! 
No pictures yet....the unbroken camera (wife's!) was at the races with my son.... There will still be a few things to take care of. Like fabricating up an air cleaner to resemble the stock one, but will have more of a dropped base for clearance...OR I swap the intake to the lower one....next winter! All else that I want to do is normal stuff....upgrade fans and fab' a fan shroud, install the AC compressor and charge the system (*find the leak too*), install braided front brake lines....pretty short list actually! Then drive the hell out of it!!!!!
Ok, don't forget about fixing the parking brakes too....
Thurs: Busted hump putting all the stuff back on the car...but quite frankly, in about 3 hours or so, I was done, or back to where I was before I did the BP thing on the garage floor! Ladder bar, trans support, sway bar, axles connected to ZF, mufflers connected to headers once again. Spent a good while adjusting the shifter...no 21mm wrenches....and I had to dork around with the trunion....it appears to have been raised as high as it would go, and to get more shaft "length" through "less angle" I dropped it down a bit, tightened rear lug nuts, motor mount bolts, as engine shifted a little rearwards while being tipped up in rear to get ZF back in. Installed my steering wheel center, as it was removed and sent to Wilkinson to be copied for another lister that was missing his! Retrieved from storage and installed LH hatch while I had extra labor.....
Today: knocked off of work a couple of hours early to get last few things cleaned up and a maiden voyage of sorts under our belts!!!
Set timing. Man that pointer is a bugger to see with all the pulleys and such in place! Found that if you go to the upper right hand corner of the access hole and peek down, you can actually see the timing marks! I had marked my 0, 10, 20, 30, 34 and 36 locations with some nail polish or something....against the black finish on the balancer so that it stood out. I am not running the vacuum advance, just mechanical, so set the initial timing at about 18 degrees and got the rest out of the mech' advance. The "retard at start" feature of the Duraspark II ignition module backs it down 10 degrees, so gives me an initial timing value of 8 degrees....perfect.
Tweeked shifter adjustment ever so slightly...
Put a bungee cord over the carpet on top of the gas tank, and prepared to back the car out of the driveway! Anticipation of zero ground clearance was high! I was going to have the wife check it out, but my son pulled in from his day at Laguna Seca watching the Historic Races, just in time to do the honors. Using the "angle out and angle in" method of going out of the driveway he says I had maybe an inch and a half of clearance.... Definitely would not make it straight out/in!!!
First impression driving the car out of the neighborhood was WOW! Smooth, powerful, and throaty (new Mangusta Int'l stainless Ansas) but not overly loud like the old burned out double glasspacks that were on prev. Cam is not that radical sounding.....but it is smooth. Holley is not bucking or complaining... First stop? Gas station. The two gallons I put in the tank to fire it up were probably almost gone....
Gassed up, I headed out to do some local stop and go driving. First thing I noticed that was not right was the clutch pedal.....evidently had a little bit of air in it so required a "pump" stroke to get a normal pedal....would deal with it later.....
Temperature is holding solid at the 160 mark on the gauge...climbs a little bit at the stop lights...but comes back down once you get moving. Was just short of 6:00 so was at the tail end of rush hour Friday night! (Oil temp showing just under 190.)
Stopped by the local shop that did my engine work and showed the owner my work...confessed my rookie mistake! He took a listen and said "yup, that sounds like an F-cam" (Ford Motorsports).
Onwards, home...out on the expressway, I opened it up a bit and found something new! Seems that it now doesn't like to stay in 4th gear! Not sure what is up with that! Shifter travels full throw in 2-3, but 4th seems a little short...but then so does 5th in the gates. It shifts cleanly into 4th...just doesn't want to stay there!
EDIT 04/06/20 This issue with 4th gear turned out to be a problem of my making when I "adjusted the trunion height properly"....or so I thought! What I failed to see was that when in 2 or 4, the shift rail/rod moves forward thru the hole in the firewall. Well, the rod was contacting the boot and round pipe that it was passing thru, not letting the shifter to move the trans internals completely into position! I found this out after the rebuild of the ZF (and the engine due to funky crank journal polish job) I believe after the Reno show in 2011 or so....when I put it all back together again and it still had a problem! (Gears looked great!) Finally found it by just sitting and staring at things when the shift lever was in different positions.....and noticed the shaft going thru the firewall looked odd. Simple un-adjustment of the trunion height which I had done earlier solved the problem!
End of edit!
I wonder if it isn't a product of having more "normal" rubber mounts now and the shifter rods are flexing and pulling it out? Never had the problem before with the rubber sandwich type biscuits and a through bolt mount...
Not gonna worry about it too much.....never used 4th all that much anyway!
Anyway, back to the drive! It is awesome to drive....it accelerates powerfully and smoothly...kept it to under 4K rpms for now....
Another impression that I was surprised to feel is the aluminum flywheel. I thought for certain that it would feel "boggy" or slow and require more throttle to launch. NOT the case! The kevlar/kevlar lined disc still feels as smooth as before. Normal three finger pressure plate is sorta heavy, but not bad....yet! Didn't get stuck in traffic....!!! The engine does rev up much more quickly!
Made it home, safely back in the driveway. Proceeded to go retrieve the RH hatch from storage and installed it. Once things had cooled down a bit, it was time to bleed the clutch again. Tangled with some fresh grease that the u-joints had shed onto various places(must have at least one bad rubber seal) and flushed out the old fluid and the air bubbles! Clutch feel is now much better! No soft spot.
My last few pieces for the muffler hangers came in the mail today, so popped them in place and called it done. (the exhaust job)
I'm not installing the console just yet....to go to the Historic Races and the PCNC corral tomorrow at Laguna Seca.... Put a towel on it.....vacuumed some bits out of the carpet, installed the inner seat belts and seats, and popped the junk tray back in place! Cleaned up the windows a bit and packed the lawn chairs in place. It's gonna get dusty anyway...
Tomorrow morning we drop in the cooler and clothing, hats and sunblock, and away we go!
Oh, and one last thing to bust my butt.....since the car hasn't been on the road for 18 months or so, I never put the new tags on the car yet.....and can't find them! Anywhere! Couldn't find the paperwork, other than in my checkbook I see where I paid DMV and the insurance last year.... Only thing I can think of is that all of this stuff was together in the envelope that I took to the tax man....and I haven't done my final meeting with him to sign everything! OOOPS!!! I couldn't find the papers for my Harley either, and that was down about as long just for nothing but time and will to ride it!!! ....working on a stupid car!
The fact that I cannot also find that paperwork leads me to believe that all of this is stuffed in the tax papers....cuz he's gotta see it if I'm claiming it.....ugh!
Oh well, we drive within the legal limits and try not to look to sketchy...yah right...me? I know that CHP (law enforcement in general) has hooks into the insurance companies AND DMV computers now, so they can see that my tags are paid for as well as my insurance...so worst I can get is fix it ticket..... ironic thing is that I have the new 2011 DMV paperwork sitting in my "to pay" pile for this month!!! Shoulda paid it when I got it in the mail...would have the new reg's already!
Anyway, looking forward to a nice medium cruise tomorrow!!! And just to taunt Mr Murphy, I called my insurance agent today and had her add "towing" to my policy!!
Ciao!
Steve
PS: Kerry, I will indeed need to change my signature! This is no longer a Boss 302, but a 331W! I failed to mention, and no one else brought it up, but in my pictures on page 16, of the second installation of the ZF, there are some OK shots of the "new" Motorsports "Boss tribute" (my name...) valve covers that they make for regular Windsor type 289-351 heads! These are the polished version and they look really nice....but you cannot get your alternator mounting bolt out, with out removing the RH cover!!! DOH!