I made some progress tonight in the name of....progress.
The machine shop clearanced the front plate for me and removed the 0.20" off the input shaft collar.
Because of the fact that the collar was pressed on and I didn't feel like pressing it off or messing around with it, I couldn't use the magnetic indicator base. Luckily a local Mustang friend had a machined block of aluminum with the indicator shaft mounted to it.
I installed the front plate on the bellhousing, torqued each bolt to 35 ft. lbs and checked for parallel. Dead nuts 0 all around. Maybe .0005 in one area. Well within the .002 TIR for parallel alignment. No need to have the powder coat machined off the bellhousing mounting surfaces. Happy happy.
Then I had to check for concentric alignment. Pain in the ass. Zero fun. It took a lot of adjustments of the indicator before I could get it to go around a full revolution and return back to zero where I started. The groves in the bearing retainer sleeve made it difficult, even with tape. After many revolutions an tinkering, I got some accurate and repeatable readings. The numbers came in at .010 TIR, which is right at the limit of maximum runout spec. If this was a high RPM race car, I would get .007 dowels and get that number down, but because street car... I'm fine with that number.
Then I finally got this beast of a trans mocked up and mounted. No flywheel, clutch, or pilot bushing yet. I just wanted to get it in there to check my clearance to the trans tunnel and measure my driveshaft length.
The front shifter bolts do hit, like many have said they will. They are hitting a double panel in the trans tunnel, so I can cut out that section of the outer panel. The alternate shifter mounting cover bolts are hitting the tunnel as well. I may remove that plate and have the bolt holes machined down so I can recess button head bolts in there. I'd rather do that than beat the crap out of the trans tunnel.
Before the trans comes back out, I need to extend some of the wiring for it. The reverse connector is on the other side of the transmission and both the electronic and mechanical speedo senders are too far away now.
I also have to drop the rear end because I'm switching to a 1350 strap-style pinion yoke instead of the 1330 flange that is on the pinion now. That swap will require re-adjusting the pinion clerances, so it has to come out.