Car looks fantastic, Mike. Hope you have a successful shake down sesion this weekend, and no bugs to work out. Looking forward to a full report Sunday night or Monday!

Is the engine in a vehicle, or out? How was it prepared for storage, or was it just set aside with no preparation? Assuming it was oil stalled, or fogged before storage, and in a dry location, may not require much, but at a minimum, I would remove all the spark plugs, and take a close look at the pistons and cylinder walls, preferably with a borescope. If it looks OK, squirt a bit of either Marvel Mystery oil, or a light engine oil in each cylinder, change the oil and filter, and remove the distributor and valve covers, and prime the oil pump until a steady stream of fresh oil is dripping past all the rocker arms, and only then, rotate the crankshaft a couple of revolutions, while still priming the oil pump. Check to make sure that all the valves are opening and closing properly (not stuck or sticking). If the engine is in a vehicle, I would swap on a known good carb, and run a hose from the fuel pump into a fresh jug of gas, install the distributor, and fire it up. Obviously make sure the cooling system is full and bled, everything is attached and snug, and an air cleaner is on. A back fire from the carb, or sucking in a bunch of dust, rust, or other crap from the fan blowing stuff around, and into the carb is not a good thing.

Is this everybodys opinion of all automotive swap meets in recent years? The biggest swap meet that I ever went to , has been the Portland swap meet in Oregon, but since I have moved to the East coast of Canada , I have always wanted to take a big swap meet in the US Northeast. So, in a few weeks, a buddy and I are driving to the spring swap meet in Carlisle PA. Anybody have any thoughts about Carlisle? I believe it is only about an hour rom Beaver Springs, so if nothing else, it will give me an idea on how to get to Beaver Springs for the FE Race and Reunion in September. Looks to be about 18 hours of driving, each way. How about the Hershey swap meet?

A spool if great at the dragstrip, but no way would I ever want one on a street car.  I have 3 9" 3rd members for my 59, the "normal" one is a N case with 3.50 gears and a 31 spline Detroit Locker, the dragstrip one is a 4.33 spool, and even driving the 1/2 hour to my local dragstrip, with the spool, I hate it when I have to go around a corner. Great way to find any weak links in your rearend, however! Also good for attracting cops and attention, when the tires are chirping and dragging around corners or in a parking lot.

Personally, I usually leave that plug behind the distributor, a press in cup plug. Considering the challenge of tapping that hole correctly, without going in too deep and having the pipe plug protrude into the front lifter bore, or not deep enough , and it interferes with the distributor body, not to mention it is at the end of the lifter feed passage, so the oil pressure is likely lower there, I feel any potential benefit is outweighed by the potential problems. I can say that I have never had a properly installed cup plug in that location ever leak or fall out, in close to 50 years of playing with FEs.

Can`t speak for Sunoco (yet), but I have run 3 year old VP C12 with no issues, performance wise, however, when I was racing my NHRA Stock Eliminator Mustang, we had to go thru NHRA Fuel Testing several times per event, and I had some C12 from my 55 gallon barrel, that wasn`t even a year old yet, that barely passed, and the fuel tech suggested that I buy some fresh C12 from the VP trailer at the National event that I was at, which passed fine, even though the ET slip showed no improvement. That said, a few weeks earlier, at a NHRA Divisional race,that same batch of fuel passed easily. Funny thing is, a buddy was racing his 65 Impala Stocker at that same race, and he doesn`t run his car very much, and his C12 passed OK, even after sitting in the cars factory  (vented) gas tank for 3 years, go figure. I don`t have the Stocker anymore, so I don`t need to worry about fuel check anymore, and I now have a barrel of Sunoco Supreme that I am running in my Fairmont, that was new last year, but I also have a couple of 5 gallon cans of Sunoco Standard which I bought in 2022, that I hope to run this year. I have never tried race gas that was 5 years old, but my buddy has used some 3-4 year VP C12 on the Dyno, and it seemed OK. I have never had race gas "go bad", so I have no idea if it gets a bad smell like stale pump gas does or not. If it smells normal, and looks clear, I would likely give it a try. But I would certainly want to use it up soon. Or maybe you could mix the old gas with some new gas of the same grade.

As mentioned by Howie, the Edelbrock and TFS heads have blind upper exhaust bolt holes, with a non OE looking "bulb" on the backside. Considering that I have never had any factory FE head  ever break off an exhaust bolt that is blind, but that is very common with the open upper holes, I really see no downside to having all the exhaust bolt holes blind, other than "it doesn`t look factory".  That said, the vast majority of FE engines in use these days are more recreational, and not likely to rack up many thousands of miles of daily driving, in all weather conditions, so I really doubt having the open holes will really be an issue for most FE owners.
Since the TFS, Blue Thunder, and Edelbrock heads, are in long term back order, (not sure about the situation with Barrys Survival heads, but considering he has them cast at Edelbrock, likely similar), anybody looking to obtain some aluminum FE heads might be wise to get these while they are available.

Remember when an aluminum head 390 was pretty much science fiction. 

Hell, I remember when the Edelbrock Streetmaster for a FE came out in the mid 70s, that was about the only new product for FEs in a number of years. The old FE was pretty much relegated to the history books by that time. I have to think that the growing interest in Cobra replicas was a major factor in the manufacturers taking another look at the FE, otherwise, we may have been just considered a vintage sideshow, like the Flatheads, Y blocks, 409 Chevys, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and Pontiacs. I have to think that Edelbrock introducing so many heads and intakes for many of these less popular "niche" markets got the ball rolling for the FE, and other less common engine choices.