So it begins...

One day, my buddy Alan decided to flashback to his teenage years. He recalled when he rebuilt his first Ford 312 engine. The decision was made to track one down and relive the joyful days. The intent was to find and engine and rebuild it. I'm not sure if he had made any plans beyond that, but he sought out an engine soon had it in the garage. When Alan sets his mind to something, there is usally no stopping him.

In the home stretch of finishing up the houses he was building combined with the cold winters on the mountain, the engine sat untouched. In the following months, the allure of parts on eBay was too powerful for Alan to resist. Soon "extra" parts began to arrive at his house. A few sets of high-ration rockers , a set of heads, Thunderbird V8 Special decals, and a few carbs were joining the lonely engine to idle in the garage.

I figured it was time to get going on something fun. The Camaro has been sitting in the garage but I haven't been very motivated to work on it. I wanted something a bit older and a maybe easier to work on. The Camaro needs a lot of bodywork and that's just not something I'm into right now. Alan had put his houses up for sale and wanted to head back into town for an easier commute and a more suitable place to work on cars. We needed a place to put the 312 so I offered my garage as a place to start working on it. So, we loaded it up onto the truck (a short block 312 is pretty heavy) and headed back to town.

The next week, we headed down to Selby & Son's, our local machine shop, for a chat with our friendly machinist on our delusions of grandeur. Walking through the door, the smell of engine parts and machines hits my nose and penetrates my brain. Primitive thoughts run through my head. Let's machine parts, put a engine together, and make power! Imagine back to the past when people thought to themselves... "How am I going to run my sawmill in this drought?" and "My horse is dead and I still need to plow the rest of my field."

We leave the shop inspired and ready to begin our challenge!