Another Newbie

In answer to many of y'all's replies...

I bought it on Ebay about two weeks ago and just picked it up this past Friday. The listing was not totally accurate, however the inaccuracies were small and so I let it go. For example, the listing claims it has an Edelbrock carb in it but it does not. Doesn't really matter because my plan is to make it MINE anyway with things that I choose. I have to say however that the yellow Demon that someone has just posted on this site for sale looks nicer and cost similar to what I paid. Oh well.

I have been browsing around Edelbrock's web site, which is great for someone like me who is new to all this because it has recommendations on what carb should go with certain intake manifolds, etc. I am thinking about a Performer 600 cfm carb and the RPM Air intake. I do not know much about the current engine though such as crucial things like the number of miles it has on it. Last night I pretty much decided to go forward with the carb & intake and then possibly pull the engine in the winter. I'm sure the crank is stock and I want to change that. It seemed like the more stuff I saw to do with the engine...the more it made sense to do it to a new engine.

I also have to crawl underneath the car and pull the tag number of the transmission and see if I can tell what kind of rear end is in it. Does anyone have recommendations on replacements?

I agree that the black engine compartment needs to go and will once we pull the engine this winter and although the orange/red engine is cool, it should be blue. I have not decided whether that bothers me enough to do anything about it.

Also, someone mentioned that if I chance the carb and intake I need to change the fuel pump as well. What kind??

Thanks for any help. I'll start posting to the correct thread since the newbie thing is over and my questions now are going to be more about how to fix/improve stuff.