The air conditioning is finally rebuilt with excellent results. While at the shop a 2-1/4" full dual exhaust system with Magnaflows and new SS tips was installed. The oil filter was relocated behind a shroud in the back end of the drivers side wheel well as the drivers side exhuast routing blocks the SBC filter location. BTW the drivers side exhaust was wrapped with header insulation - this made a tremendous improvement in cutting down heat in the driver's footwell. The exhaust note is now quite low and pulsing. It is a pleasure to have some audible feedback while running through the gears. Keeping things from getting too loud is not impossible with six gears to choose from. However, even at idle the car now draws attention audibly as well as visibly. We were hoping for better gas mileage with the manual transmission. No measured figures are available yet (the speedo/odometer had a habit of pulling loose from the tranny under hard accelleration - now fixed) but I'm guessing less than 18 mpg. The float setting (Holley 650) will be checked on Wednesday. The engine is turning 1200 rpm at 85 mph in sixth gear and about 1100 rpm at 60 mph in fifth. Once the motor is tuned and a few rattles related to the tranny are worked out we are going to attend to the interior. We will try to take some pics of the exhaust next time the car is up on a lift.