I have my dash conversion done. 2001 dash, 1981 notchback. I have pics at home I will post tonight for you in this thread. I will also take some detailed pics tomorrow to further inform what I am talking about. This is what I did.
Pull windshield and heater box. Install the 94-04 heater box. Now, have a friend or two..in my case (two) help you fit and trim. First, remove the defrost tube up top, because you want to trim it with that peice out. It will fit back and and work later on. I began by putting in the car and going from there. I made small cuts, fitting it every time inbetween. I ended up taking a lot out. Next, you have cut a peice off of the metal tube on the driver side so it will not hit the foxes body. REMEMBER: This metal tube flows heat and A/C to the driver side vent. What I did was I taped it up with some aluminum foil tape. (It is normally used in onld body shops to fix rust holes on junky cars) Anyways....there are some other areas of metal you have to cut down to get it tight.
Other things to consider: You have to get the dashboard mounting brakets drilled and chisled from a 94-04 car to hold the lower area of the dash in place. Without a donor car, these will be hard to acquire, and most JY's will not cut these off...(labor intensive) Another thing to consider, is that you have to make your own brackets to mount the top of the dash to the body/cowl area. I just mainly used metal from the newer dash. Whatever I could cut/bent/trim I used to mount it. You have to bent the bottom mounting tabs on the dash frame in to bolt them up to the fox a post. You also must drill holes to get new bolts in there.
Door handles: I have seen pics of people who have done this and the dash covered their door handles so they cannot get out. I have seen others that have relocated the handles lower like the 79 cars....or others who have gone crazy with ranger/taurus parts with custom door panels. I don't have this problem. My stock fox body door handles just clear the dash enabling me to use stock door panels, handles, and trim.
My dash fits tight, and my console lines up perfect. That pic above....he obviously welded the dash mounting brackets in the wrong area. The only thing I don't like is the windshield area. But what I am going to do is tint the bottom of the windshield a little bit to hide it from the outside...it doesn't look bad from the inside. I don't know how much to tint it until I get the windshield in.
BTW.....I spent 5 hours with 3 people the first day. I spent 5 hours the next day by myself, and a few misc hours after that. This is because I was being very very meticoulous on how this thing fit. If I had to do it again...I bet I could do it ALL in 2-3 hours.
Hang tight.