Nice car! Here's my thoughts - the mini tubs and wider tires are totally unneeded, unless you just want the look of wider tires. Plenty of Stock & Super Stock drag cars running 9's and even 8's on 9" wide slicks and Cal Tracs. Dozens of other places you will need to spend the money. You didn't elaborate much on your goals - high 10's good enough or are you looking for low 10's? Is there a specific race event you might want to run, where hitting a certain number is advantageous? My racing buddy Bradley just went through much of this stepping his '67 Mustang bracket car up from running a best of 11.30's to now 9.90's and I would guess in the future he will go even faster. By NHRA rules you only need a roll bar to run 10.00 to 11.50, a roll cage for 9.99 and quicker. A cage is nice for chassis stiffness and safety. My friend had the cage put in his car a few years ago, before he really needed it because he liked the safety aspect and he knew eventually he'd want to go quicker. I ask the ET goal because high 10's are easily doable with a stock block, but low 10's are going to require enough HP that an aftermarket block would make more sense. My friends car makes a little over 700 hp ( stroked Windsor ) and is lighter than your car I'd guess, so you're looking at needing that HP level to get low 10's and 700 hp in a stock block FE is possible, but it may not last long. My friend went with an aftermarket DART Windsor block for the same reason. Your Edelbrock heads would likely get you in the high 10's, we'd have to know the flow numbers to know if they'd be capable of getting to that 700hp level. If you go automatic you'll most likely want a built C4 and not the C6. C6's are the "tanks" of the automatic world - practically indestructible, but heavy and will require more hp to drive than a similar C4. Again, if the goal is just high 10's then you could probably stick with the C6, low 10's a C4. Lot of people like the sticks, but I think the expense will be more. Jay Brown is working on a T56 stick conversion '68 Mustang ( Memorial day project ) a couple pages back here in the project section you might want to check out if you haven't already. You didn't mention the brand of the shocks you have, If your rear shocks aren't the Calvert adjustables I'd recommend them. Keep giving us feedback here and I can tell you more of what my friend did to get to the 9's.
