Hey,if nothing else at least some entertainment came out of my misfortune. Lol. And it's interesting to hear one person say there will be a huge difference and others say it won't matter. I drive it gently because I have read so many threads here where people claim the 7 1/4" is "as fragile as glass" and "can't even stand up to the power of a 273 or 318 driven normally". Also I see no reason to abuse and beat on a car. Why? These arent easy to find in decent shape anymore,and I see boneheads on youtube and in real life destroying and crashing their cars driving recklessly and doing burnouts in traffic. Im not a kid trying to impress anyone. Gas is also $5 a gallon out here so I don't care about having a big motor. To me the enjoyment is just driving them,not breaking and ruining them and then constantly spending thousands to fix sometning that need not have happened in the first place.but to each his own. Im mostly into the finned Chrysler products which arent about speed anyway,so im used to driving like Ward Cleaver. :) So if down the road I find a 8 3/4" reasonably priced or one in a junkyard or in cheap 4 dr then I'll swap it out for that so I won't ever have to worry about it again. I just found a 68 in a junkyard locally and got my ac vents and a ton of other parts for peanuts. (Rear end was already gone) You just have to be patient