Virtually a newbie, so here's a quick intro. Never had the money to have a cool car growing up, so really don't know the ins and outs of restoring one, but at 56 I have finally acquired one of my dream cars - 68 Mustang GT coupe, red over parchment, 390 4-speed. It's been through the grind and needs serious work, so I've disassembled the entire car. My intent during rebuild is to keep it basically stock, but upgrade where modern technology makes it a no-brainer (i.e. electronic ignition). Major mechanical components like brakes, suspension, and steering will remain stock. The car will see light street use only. No wailing.
Dutifully pulled the motor (with the help of the Foothills Mustang Club, Greenville, SC, of which I'm a proud member) and put it in the shop for a rebuild. The shop is performing all the machine work, but is expecting me to specify the parts to go back inside - logical, I guess, since they don't want to be responsible for a mismatched set of innards.
My immediate problem is I've been informed the motor, which is currently 30 over, will have to go to 40 over. I started piston shopping, but have been overwhelmed with the number of variations available, and have become aware that, if you don't know what you're doing, a minor difference in geometry from stock can have major implications later on. What I want is a set of hypereutectic stock design pistons at + 0.040, but no one identifies their pistons as such. A set I found in an ebay store (Maddog Racing) has specs CLOSE to what I think are stock, but they're not exactly what I think they should be (ie, compression distance) based on my references and sites I trust (ie, Woody's Fairlane site) or other information I can't verify is stock correct (ie, ring groove heights). I'm in over my head.
Questions: Is it acceptable and common to allow the shop to select the parts based on the direction I tell them I want to go? I plan to add a mild hydraulic cam and aluminum intake, other than that basically stock. If it's better to retain more control, can anyone suggest a piston source? Also, I see some pistons come with pins and locks, others appear to have a press fit pin that gets installed with a press like a bearing. Is floating with keepers what I want?
So there you have it, an old guy who talks too much starting his first rebuild on a 40 yr old muscle car. Hats off and thanks in advance to all responders.
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