[Phillyfanfrombirth]

First of all, congrats!!!

You can make 289's hum pretty good with few mods.... though they hum pretty good by keeping them stock as well.

You need to know what your final plans for this car are. I'm partial to keeping solid Mustangs as close to stock as possible, I like leaving the mods to cars that won't keep their value such as Mavericks or Falcons. Modify accordingly.

As far as the flexplate, is there a vibration or a problem with the starter making contact?

As far as the engine, overall... you may have some uneven wear in the valve springs, but I doubt that would be noticed under normal driving conditions. I would suggest picking up an oil pump primer attachment for a drill. Make sure you are getting proper oil pressure, preferably with a mechanical guage that you can hook up and watch as you prime the engine... be sure to note the exact location of the distributor prior to doing that... The next step would be to give the engine a couple cranks, manually... unless the engine was exposed to moisture, there shouldn't be anything that is locked up (though some of your valve stem seals may be dried). At that point, I'd unhook the coil wire and try giving the thing a crank for a while. This should lube things up as the parts are slowly moved.

Next would be to start her up and see what things look like and how it sounds. I'd treat the start up as a new engine start up and go through the same procedure... and change the oil afterwards.

I'm not an expert on this... and others are welcome to give you other suggestions, but I think that this would cover your bases pretty well.

Again, congrats on the good fortune.