A V8 into a 63 valiant

Hey all. I have a 63 valiant. My son now has a 63 valiant that we are building together.

I swapped a 360 into mine 20 years ago using shumacher mounts and fenderwell headers. We want to swap a stock 318 with early A 273 manifolds into my sons car.

Heres my question. I have read on here that people had to move the wiper motor and do a "hump extomy" and use a dropped center link. I never did those two things on mine. If anything I might have dimpled my firewall but that's it.

How much do you have to dimple the firewall to clear a distributor

And how imperative is the dropped center link?

Is it possible that my factory 63 centerlink just BARELY tapped my pan and I never noticed that it inhibited my steering?

Thanks in advance. You guys have always been a great source of information that I cant remember anymore, lol. Eric L