Re your question on your electronic ignition. It sounds like you have the original Pertronix Ignitor, because you still have the ballast resistor. I think it might have also been sold under other brands (Accel?). There are better versions like Ignitor II (~$100), which is similar to the GM HEI and lets you get rid of the ballast and maybe run a better coil (E-core), and Ignitor III (~$150) which gives multi-spark. As Dan suggests, rigging up a GM HEI is cheap and easy (see FABO posts), but you will need to get a later slant electronic distributor, unless there is a way to adapt the Pertronix signal.