So, good news and bad news.

Good is how easy it was to gut the battery. I simply hack sawed all the way around and through the top, right under the top lip. It probably took half an hour or less. Once the top was off, all the cells and matting literally just fell right out. I then used the hack saw blade by hand and cut down along the sides where the section dividers meet the case, and then used vice grips to break them out. I also used vice grips to break out the lead connectors between the cells, and the top part of each section divider all the way down to the top. It was much, much less effort than I was anticipating.

Bad news. Couldn't find a battery at the local O`Reilly's that would fit. The battery that people seem to have used is the Odyssey PC 295, but on one of the moparts posts I was pointed at, someone said that the battery would not start his 440-6 when it was hot.

So I'm not sure what to do here. 330CCA doesn't seem like it's going to cut it on a 540 with 10.5:1 compression.

So a price I found on this battery is $184 shipped, while the other resto batteries are around $280 + shipping. Gotta think about which way to go here. If I buy the Odyssey and it won't start the car, I'm stuck with it.

Any more thoughts from anyone who has done this?