Not so much smart as lucky. But not immediately lucky. The second picture is actually completed and aligned, installed as it were. HOWEVER, best laid plans of mice and men… We were apprehensive concerning clearance between distributor and firewall, and rightly so. We could not turn the HEI distributor to time the 396, as the extrusions that tie the cap to the body contacted the firewall as we turned it. SO, “uninstall o:clock”… Once we had a bare firewall, our metal-master cut a dish into the firewall, welded in new sheet metal, appropriately curved, and when he finished, you would swear that was how the factory built the car. Then came a new installation. Further on down the road, things looked like this:



And now, they look like this:


and as Mr. Shakespeare said, 'all's well that ends well.'