454 swap in 85 El Camino

[Bar50]

I have been using a CC162 aluminum radiator from Champion coupled with Dodge Intrepid electric fans and an Oldsmobile upper radiator support. I am in Oklahoma it keeps up. I also us the CVF racing deep groove pulley set. The radiator is stock style replacement, in a fabricated aluminum fashion. The Intrepid fans fit the radiator core like it was made for it.

Hooker 2241s are dedicated G-body big block headers and fit nice, have to trim a motor mount. The will require tilting the motor out of the mounts for installation. They also can be difficult with kick-out style oil pans. These have several slip tubes. Will fit with raised port heads.

Hooker 2455s will fit with some love or trimming of the passenger side rear lower a-arm mounts. Some guys have flipped the a-arm bolts around for additional room with both style headers. With -861 Bowtie heads and raised ports I had to alter a tube that curves under the lower a-arm for additional room.

I have also taken the brake proportioning valve off of the frame and ground the bosses off of the back side to tuck the proportioning valve in tighter to the frame, gains about 1/4" of room.

Both sets of headers are 2 inch primary tube that are 30 inch length, and have 3.5 inch collectors.

Street car use a G-force crossmember.

Racecar I prefer the Iceman style crossmember.

 

[Detroitz1903]

I have a Griffen 31" x 19" aluminum radiator in my Monte, these have 2 rows of 1.25" tubes and cools my street driven 565 BBC and has even kept it cool in Dream Cruise traffic. I also am running the Intrepid dual fan set up.
It worked so well I did the same set up for my Regal except that one has the built in trans cooler.

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This build looks great and I'll bet it flys! I am building a 79 El Cmino that isn't going to be a race car. Just a good running streetable BBC El Camino. I have a factory four speed truck and want to use the stock M20 four speed that is in the truck. I know there is going to be header clearance issues. I saw one of your post a while back that covered the clutch pedal linkage issue and wondered if you could elaborate on this topic. I would appreciate any help and advise you have. Please!

 

[Supercharged111]

An A body radiator will require frame modification to fit, as previously stated it is wider. Mine came with a Griffin A body radiator, I don't recommend it. It seems to let off steam above 200 degrees where it's glued together. I think the headers it has are also for an A body, but I can't find a receipt or part number for them to confirm. They fit, but they hang really low. They're either Hooker or Hedman, I forget. If you do get an aluminum radiator, don't get a 3 or 4 core. They're junk. You want each row to be at least 1" wide or you lose the benefit that aluminum gives.

 

[565bbchevy]

saw one of your post a while back that covered the clutch pedal linkage issue and wondered if you could elaborate on this topic. I would appreciate any help and advise you have. Please!

That would have been someone else since I am running a TH400 in my Monte and eventually with a GV.

 

[Detroitz1903]

That would have been someone else since I am running a TH400 in my Monte and eventually with a GV.

Oops! Sorry I am sure you are correct. There's a few Monte Carlos on here. Thank you!

 

[SS Elco]

Oops! Sorry I am sure you are correct. There's a few Monte Carlos on here. Thank you!

This may be a title late for you, but I put a 454 with Brodix top end with tall valve covers in my 85 El Caminor. I'm running a TH350 w/ a GV od unit and I ended up going with Sanderson BB3 headers. They fit great with no issues and they say they will work with auto or stick. There looks to be plenty of room on the driver's side for clutch linkage. This is strictly a street car but I am running tubular control arms and I have about 3/16" clearance at upper rear of control arm on pass side.

 

[Detroitz1903]

This may be a title late for you, but I put a 454 with Brodix top end with tall valve covers in my 85 El Caminor. I'm running a TH350 w/ a GV od unit and I ended up going with Sanderson BB3 headers. They fit great with no issues and they say they will work with auto or stick. There looks to be plenty of room on the driver's side for clutch linkage. This is strictly a street car but I am running tubular control arms and I have about 3/16" clearance at upper rear of control arm on pass side.

Information like this is never to late! Thank you, i appreciate this a lot!

 

[Mhael]

Some more late information...I used the 2455 chevelle headers since I had a pair already and everyone said they fit with minor massaging on tube to clear the passenger lower control arm mount. Maybe I was just unlucky or maybe I put the motor in backwards, you can see in my pictures how much I had to persuade the front most pipe to clear lower control arm bracket, ended up cutting it out, doing a little adjustment and welding a new piece in to clear the mount. I am happy with the result and would just do it this way from the get go next time instead of trying to clearance it with fire and hammer. I had a set of the 2241 Gbody swap headers, I am sure they work but I didn't like the idea of the slip joints or the one pipe looping over the steering...and they didn't look as clean as the 2455's when installed in my opinion. I left my ac/heater box on the firewall so the rear most header bolt on the passenger side had to be tightened from underneath the car while on the lift and it was still difficult...if you do the delete or have a non ac car I am guessing you can probably just do it from the top side without issue. Drivers side was easy and didn't require much denting to fit, I had to clearance the collectors a bit with a hammer so the linkage for the th350 wouldn't rub...the one tube was really close to the brake proportioning valve so I made a heat shield to go over that.

 

[Malibu795]

I had a set of 2241 ending up crushing them due to lack of ground clearance on a non lowered car
Ended up using 68610 mid length cutting the ball off and welding elbows on still need to hammer fit few tubes though

 

[Mhael]

Like Bar50, I also used the Champion radiator but mine is only the 2 row EC162 since I had already bought it for the small block before I decided to go the big block route and figured I'd see if it worked before buying a new radiator. Using the 2x 12inch SPAL fan/ shroud kit along with the thermostat and relay kit that Champion sells along with the upper radiator support from Mikes Montes...seems to keep up with Iowa weather so far but my motor isn't super crazy either, I would definitely get the CC162 3 row though if I didn't already have the lower end model since it really doesn't cost that much more. I used the original thermostat housing off the 305 since it had 2 convenient ports, used one for the fan thermostat and the other for the factory gauge cluster temp gauge, I put the temp sensor for the after market mechanical temp gauge in the passenger side head and routed that into the interior through where the wiring harness for the ECM used to be. I spliced the ignition power wire for the fan relay into the igntion power wire of the windshield wiper motor.