rebuilding a rebuilt slant

You could go with a floor leve, manual shift auto at that point too. Just based on the descriptive info you relate, the lack of idle vacuum means it will not idle worth a hoot on the street.

As an FYI, for a vaccum controlled trans, the trans will shift without high vacuum but at a higher RPM shift point. For trannies of this era, you should find either a vacuum line going to the trans, or a shift linkage from the carb to the trans; either is used as a signal to the trans indicating how much load the engine is pulling and cause the shifts to go a higher RPM when the carb is open (linkgage is moved or the vacuum gets lower).

If you have the linkage from the carb to the trans then you have that settled. Then the issue may be that for mild starts; the carb may not be open much and the trans will want to shift at lower rpm's, where the enigne will not run well due to the wild cam. In short, it may drive like crap unless you are near wide open all the time as you acdelerate.

Is that what you will settle for? What kind of driving will you be doing with this car? Commuting every day or ??