Whew! Latest update:
Spent almost all day picking away at the projects I have on my 5th Ave. First up was the valve cover gaskets. Ever since I swapped intakes, the motor has leaked oil badly. I figured it was the valve cover gaskets since I had to lift the, to get the intake on. It wasn't too bad except for the rearmost bolt on the driver's side valve cover. The one tucked directly underneath the power brake booster.
Next up was installing the correct throttle linkage. I finally installed the proper four barrel throttle linkage and got rid of the bailing wire. I also adjusted the kickdown on the transmission.
Then came a major project- replacing the exhaust. The stock exhaust has three catalytic converters. The back of my exhaust line was totally rusted out, and I was fairly positive that all three of the cats were plugged. Fortunately, I found a guy selling an original exhaust line off of an Aspen R/T. It was 2 1/2 inches in diameter and had no cats. Unfortunately, it had been modified with an aftermarket muffler and changed to exit in front of the passenger rear tire.
All was going well until I slid the new exhaust system up to the manifolds to bolt it up. The driver's side was fine, but the passenger side was off. THe spread was about 1 inch two narrow. After cursing my stupidity, I set about cutting the new exhaust line and fitting it and then welding in a patch section of pipe over the part I cut.
I finally got it all back together at about 9 p.m. and fired it up. It is way too loud and the patch I made leaks. I am contemplating removing the rest of the AIR injection system and taking it to a muffler shop and telling them I bought it thios was from a kid who was trying to hot rod it and put on this crappy home-made exhaust line.

I want to put a quieter muffler on it, as well as a resonator, and I want it to exit out the rear. Time to start saving up.
The upside is the motor runs noticeably smoother. I didn't take it for a test drive since it sounds like I don't have a muffler on it at all, but it idles much smoother now.
Two steps forwards, one step back...