I bought a 79 last year from a friend, whos dad was the owner. Apparently his dad had the engine rebuilt and body bushings done ect.. There are some parts missing, and I have bought the book on assembly to help with this. It has been sitting in a garage for a very long time, Oh, I was told this motor has never been started, and so everything has surface rusted over time, all the power steering components have rust on them and will have to be replaced. So I was looking at the engine, and the front of the motor is surface rusted also. At closer looking I noticed the freeze plug on the drivers side was laying on the motor mount! Am pretty sure there was no fluids in the motor. I have no idea why a freeze plug would just fall out. So I have decided to pull the motor and transmission and tear it down and make it right. With that being said, my friend said when his dad had the motor rebuilt he was told it was capable of 400 HP plus. I intend to tear it down to check the cylinders, and replace the timing gear cover and water pump, because those 2 items are all rusted. With that being said, I would like to see what size cam was installed. I am not interested in it having a big cam as I have just gone through this with my 68 camaro that I rebuilt my self, and I put a thumper cam in it (327). I am very happy with the 327, except what I learned is I had 10" of vacuum because of the bigger cam. So I had to put a stand alone vacuum pump in it to operate the power brakes. So am guessing if the vette has a bigger cam in it, the same will happen. So on another note, while I have a open engine bay, I was thinking of instead of putting money in all new original power steering components, I would just put in a Borgeson Steering system in. Go ahead and replace the heater core, and AC evaporator since All should be a whole lot easier to access. Then clean the engine bay up and paint it. Wonder what kind of paint to use? So these are my intentions, And my first vette, So I was hoping to hear from some experts to help me? Am I making the right decisions? Will the borgeson just bolt in easily? I see it cost around $700 for the system? Should I have the radiator checked out? Or should I go to a aluminum radiator with fans? Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly be appreciated. Thank You 

As far as the engine bay paint goes, I found that Krylon satin black or semi-flat black pretty well matches factory paint.

1973 L-82 4 spd

I just had the Borgeson power steering installed in my '75 (see my posting of the install on this forum), and it went well, and works fine.  The only issue was related to a generic tilt steering column I had installed earlier.

Best of luck, you will enjoy your Vette!

I am in a similar situation with my 78 I just bought. My motor has the thumper in it and makes no vacuum. This is my second Vette, first C3, but I will be changing to a more reasonable cam later. I agree with your decision to replace the steering system.  As for your other questions, really it is up to your personal preferences. I will be going to electric fans also at some point simply because I want the fan off the motor, eliminate the shroud and also to assist the FAST EFI system on the car. It has provisions for controlling/monitoring the cooling fans.  I have also installed electric headlight actuators. I chose the system that is comprised of the C5 actuators. The a/c system has been removed from mine, but I will reinstall it. I have learned that due to the less efficient R134 gas the condenser must be changed out for a larger unit to make up for the lost efficiency.

Currently, brakes are the main attraction in my garage. Hope everything sorts out the best possible for you. 

My LeMans CE Z16 at LeMans and the newest member of the family.  Both well above 400 HP and happy to run.

Thank you for the reply, am looking forward to getting this installed just as soon as I get this motor and transmission out. Sounds like a better steering system, as I’ve heard the original system tends to leaks sometimes.
Thanks

Thank you for the reply. I’m wondering why I haven’t heard more talk from guys when they put bigger cams in, and how they dealt with a engine that has no vacuum? It would just help me to learn some other ideas. I would like to put EFI on someday but I’m gonna have a lot of money going into other things right now. I guess all in do time.
Thanks again

I put a ComCams camshaft in my '75 (CL12-620-4 which apparently they don't sell anymore) which, along with other mods, gives surprising performance.  I still have 18 inches of vacuum with this cam.

Check out the C3 Engines forum.  There may be some discussions on different cams in there.

Jim Olson 

"The Toys"...!!!  Save the Wave!

Where I've been in a Corvette...!!!

Your vette made me appreciate the color purple! That is slick!