More reasons to just drive it!!

A lot of us buy musclecars and have grand plans for them. And a lot of these cars have non-original engines in them and are in less than stellar condition. A good way to restore a car if your on a tight budget-( Most of us are ) is to do it little by little. My brother's 69 GTO was a little rough when he got it and had a 350 Pontiac out of a 75 Firebird in it. The 350 ran fine, but obviously, he wanted a 400 or 455. He was smart, however. He fixed the bodywork while driving it, and a few other things, like the heater core, and the power steering pump and a repairing the radiator, even installing a new transmission. He even got it painted with the 350 in it. He continued driving it, while he built his dream 400. When we swapped in the 400, it was easy. And believe me, what a releif it was to have all the brackets and linkages, and nuts and bolts off the 350 to put it together.  Another friend was restoring a 340 Cuda. It had a 318 in the engine bay. Same thing, he drove the car while fixing the brakes, the bodywork, the headliner, and other things. He did find a 340 block, but again, if he didn't have the valve covers, oil pan, timing cover, fuel pump, water pump, distributor, and all the brackets off the "Unoriginal" 318, it would have cost him a ton of money and time to buy those things or to try scour junkyards for them.  By keeping the car drivable, you can fix things that you might have missed otherwise-i.e.- the wiper motor doesn't work, but you found that out when it rained one day.  Plus, you can work out other bugs with the junk motor you don't care about. And trust me, all 40 year old cars have bugs, no matter how nice they look. Here's a good example- You buy a 69 Camaro that has a junkyard 350 in it. While driving around, you realize it's overheating badly, because the fan clutch isn't working.  Wouldn't you rather overheat and maybe blow a head gasket on the junk motor than on that 425hp 383 stroker you were planning to drop in?  You can also use junk to dial in nitrous systems. I'd rather melt the pistons of a $300 junkyard motor than a $7,000 crate engine!  Seriously, I know a guy that did this with his Nova. He built like a 300hp nitrous system complete with an extra fuel pump, timing control from inside the car, everything. He tested it at the local strip. When he grenaded a motor, he'd see why, go get another one from the junkyard and tune some more. After the 2nd or 3rd junkyard motor, he installed his solid-roller 408 small-block that ran high 11s on the motor and low 10s on the spray. And the engine is still together after more than a year of abuse and numerous drag races, which sometimes mean 30 passes in a weekend. The grand or so he spent grenading the clunkers while dialing in the nitrous has kept his megabuck, mega horsepower mill alive and well.  Something to think about. Mastermind