[mike48]

Cutting the cross-member was the lesser of two evils: keeping the stock SBC pan would have placed the engine too high, using a rear sump pan would still have put the engine too high. Either would not let the rest of the drive train line up (3 degrees down/carb mount level) without re-establishing the rear axle/driveshaft/trans interface which would have entailed lowering trans mount and rotating the rear axle and cutting the floor above the trans and making a tunnel.. Either of the pans would also call for a creative exhaust manifold/header dance and the valve covers may not have been removable. The squeezing wasn't worth the juice...it took me less than an hour to cut and set it up as seen and didn't create any problems downstream. I've done this same thing to about a dozen trucks/cars over the past 15 years without any problems. The front end on this one is fully boxed under/over and both sides and is much stronger than it needs to be.

I didn't know P 10's existed until I saw this one in my neighbors backyard. It was used as the prop-van and in the movie Hardwood, a locally filmed movie. It had a beat, but running I6/3 spd, all stock with almost no rust and that is all light surface. The 6 was shot and I had this 350/350 combo sitting around...