There should be a couple of opportunities to take the '73 back to the track before the local tracks close, weather permitting. I put together a checklist of things to inspect or complete and started working on it Saturday since we finally had a nice weekend. Most of the stuff is pretty basic, but I ran into a couple of things I hadn't been paying attention to along the way.

First is it looks like I have a rear main seal leak that wasn't seen when the engine was dynoed years ago. Unfortunately, the pan / windage tray / crank scraper were assembled -- foolishly on my part -- using "The Right Stuff", which is in reality The Wrong Stuff if you ever want to disassemble the parts that sh!t touches.

Second is something the guy who towed my car to the alignment shop noticed, and that's a trans fluid leak from somewhere that I couldn't really identify when under the car on Saturday. If I'm lucky it's just the pan gasket maybe not being happy that I reused it when I pulled the valve body off, instead of replacing it. I'd ASSummed the new embossed rubber pan gaskets would be good for more than one time, but... ? Regardless, there's a definite red puddle under the car and the CSR trans shield strap that wraps under the drain pan is soaked.

I forgot how close the tail pipe is to the fuel pump and suspect when I reassembled the exhaust system I didn't notice that the pipe is bumping up against the bottom of the pump. Need to redo something TBD to get some clearance. The pipe is wrapped where it's closest to the pump w/ high-temperature insulation, so it's less of a heat transfer concern at the moment than the idea that the exhaust is transferring vibrations to the pump when the engine is running.

Swapped the old & bald MTs on 15x8 wheels for an unused set of the original ET Street Radials mounted on 15x10 wheels. Still need a wee bit more inner fender well clearance on the passenger side since I marked the tires on both sides to check for interference issues and see there's a bit o' rubbing there. I was also hoping that putting the old, but unused, tires would improve the traction issues... now I'm wondering if they got hard(er) even sitting in the climate-controlled basement all these years cuz they don't want to grab very well, either. That'll be a pi$$er if they're not worth using now, especially cuz I have another set about the same age that's also sitting in the basement waiting to be mounted. Sometimes being kind of a hoarder comes back to haunt you...

Not sure what's going on w/ how the car's running. Seems to have a miss at idle where it'll be loping along fine about 1200 RPM, then I can hear it go off and watch the tach needle drop a couple hundred RPM until it cleans up again. It might actually be a lean miss since I could have gone too far in on the idle mixture screws trying to keep from stinking the place up at idle.

When I've just romped on it in 1st & 2nd gear, it's definitely "loud & proud" as the revs zip up there. I also let it roll pretty far up there in 3rd gear once and at some point around 90 MPH it started to develop some kind of a miss, so I backed out of it. Not sure if the NGK '6' plugs aren't staying clean just cruising around or if there's a fuel system issue, or... ?

Cruising much above 60 MPH the car now develops some kind of harmonic vibration cycle that buzzes the whole car. IIRC, it had something similar but far less noticeable "way back when", but this is much more obnoxious. A friend said his car needed the driveshaft (re)balanced to take of that w/ his car, but I'd hope the new Strange chro-moly driveshaft I put in w/ their S-60 diff assembly would already be good in that respect. Maybe I should flip it 180* on the rear yoke and see if it acts the same...

Guess that's it for now

Is the vibration buzz with the new tires or old tires? I've found that racing tires are typically way, way out of balance as built and they require a ton of weight on the wheels. The leaks are a bummer. You'll probably need to fix the transmission leak before going to the track since they'll kick you off for that. If the rear main isn't a steady dripping you might be able to get away with it.
Your drive to the track is about an hour? That is enough time to either fix little leaks, or make them a lot worse. The gaskets and seals can dry up on cars that sit for a long time. Sometimes they start working again when they get temp and lube, other times they too far gone and they completely fail after a few heat cycles.

I'd suspect the ignition on the miss rather than the fuel but it could be either one. The wide band sensor would give you some clues in that area.

The age of the tires means a lot. They dry out. What's the date on the sidewall? If they are the old tread pattern ET Streets then they must be at least 5 years old. Crapshoot if you ask me, but I'd give em a try.

I assume Capitol is closest track for you? As long as weather holds out they will run almost year round.
I would fix the trans leak and other small issues. Fix the other items over the winter.

That's a good list of things but, I can't quantify how critical they are in the explanations. I'd definitely address any exhaust to fuel proximity issue in any number of ways before I ran the car hard. Some of the idle quality and transition maladies I'd address in the long off-season. Clean it up/off and drive the car again to capture of amount of leak and their origins. Or even rig something to put 3psi into the crankcase to see. I doubt some or most of these leaks are going to cause any dangers for you or anyone at the track. Get some fun out of it and it'll trigger motivation, not just for you but spectators. Good luck!...I don't know of ANY car that is 100% ready for the track. There's always something!!!

Almost forgot I am using used and 5 year old tires ...they still work pretty ok considering what I'm asking of them.

In no particular order...

I've run thru a full tank of fuel since picking it up from the alignment shop a few weeks ago, so nothing "fixed itself" as far as leaks... probably got worse

When MT dropped the original ET Street radials back in... 2015?... and there were lots of complaints about the ET Street S/S replacement not working as well and the ET Street R in 275/60R15 hadn't been introduced yet, I picked up two sets of the originals from Jeg's before they ran out of inventory. One set got mounted on the 15x10 wheels and was in the basement (you walk into the basement directly from my garage) "most" of the time, but now I recall at some point they may have been on the car to check clearance and left on it thru the winter (unheated garage). Don't know if that fooked them or not...

I need to go someplace to just put some heat into 'em and see what they look & feel like after a hard burnout.

As far as vibration I noticed possibly being the tires, I can't say cuz I don't recall driving it steadily at the same speed on the old set.

Main seal leak is more of a PITA cuz I'd have replaced it while the engine was out of the car if I'd seen signs of it at the time. I didn't even after checking w/ sprinkling baby powder all around the rear of the crank, etc., so I ASSumed it was OK.

Gonna pick up a new trans pan gasket if a torque-check on the pan bolts doesn't show anything being too loose.

Most of the other stuff is "pick your poison" wrt priority. I will need to put in the new 5-point harness I got a couple of months back since the cert on the current set is a decade+++ expired. And I "should" replace the carpet that soaked w/ oil on the passenger side when the oil pressure gauge wasn't connected properly and leaked 10w40 into it... but that's something else I may put off until winter.

Heat cycles, how they're stored, and age contribute to tire degredation. If they're older but otherwise low use, aren't weather checked, and weren't stored in an oven they're probably decent enough to get some passes on.

Fun watch since I know you're a motorcycle guy as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwbLt8vZH5w

Definitely agree with fixing the fuel pump vs. tailpipe interference too, that's a priority. Just the fuel getting warm will have all kinds of impact on delivery, and the heat wrap can only help so much if they're physically touching. OEM's do a decent amount of compensation with pressure to combat fuel boiling due to temp. At carbed fuel pump pressures it's very easy to get the fuel warm enough to where the burn properties change, and then your carb tune gets tossed out the window.

Good luck, can't wait to hear about the first outing this year!

If your tailpipes are removable you could remove them until you can better address the clearance issue. I took the tailpipes off of my car and put turndowns on it purely for testing purposes and I don't hate the turn downs as much as I thought. Other than idle the car is no louder inside, and might even be quieter at speed. It makes a mess of stuff back there with black mess but it washes easily.

I will 100% go back to tailpipes when I build a new exhaust system, but they will be 3" mandrel bent. Since I took the 2.5" muffler shop bent tail pipes off I no longer need to open the cutouts because it doesn't make a difference.

Check the oring at the reverse band anchor pin for the leak.
I had a vibration that drove me crazy until I found out it was there was a crack in the flex plate at one of the torque converter bolts.
Just some things I can think of.

Does Capitol even drag race anymore? I thought they made a drifting track or something ?