[Big Al]

Hello. New to the site and my first post.
I recently purchased a 1965 Thunderbird at auction. After buying it I contacted the previous owner. He told me that due to an overheating problem in the late 60s - early 70s the factory motor was destroyed. He replaced it with a 1966 Thunderbird 390. I started to replace all items that would affect reliability, water pump, fuel pump, full tune-up, belts, etc.
The problems. All of the catalogs dedicated to these Birds show that the 66 had a fuel pump with a filter cannister. The current one on the car doesn't. I bought the newer style pump/filter and it won't fit. The cannister hits the sway bar directly below it. Doing some measuring it looks like the cannister is at least 1 inch too long to fit. There is no fuel filter on the car now. I'm stumped.
If this can't be figured out, what year pump would I use? Previous year 390s?
The second issue is the air injection system that was on the 66s. I'd like to remove it all. I'm not going to try to remove the connections into the heads and hope that the check holds. The pump needs to stay to act as the A/C belt tensioner. I plan on removing the vanes in the pump and the maze of plumbing that runs all around the motor.
Will I be looking at any running problems affecting the motor of any kind?
Thanks for any help.
Al