500 Caddy/Monte Clip into El Camino

[Mike P]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

Darren I'm afraid I'm not much help on your question as fortunatly I don't have to deal withemmisions down here (if I did this project would probably never have been started as it will never pass an inspection (engine never available in the body and older than than the body). The best I could tell you would be to get ahold of an inspection station that will actually be doing the testing and see what they will pass. I do believe that a legal swap would be a complete setup form a newer model but I'm not 100% positive. Unfortunatly with the pretty primitive (by todays performance standards) emmissions on this generation of G Body your are pretty limited on making any real improvements.

"....all that 500 low comp cadillac engine is missing is a massive turbo and some injection....." :lol:

You have a point turbo 78, I guess I'm just an old fart that doesn't like change though

Now when I do rebuild this motor I am thinking about digging up a set of the big chamber heads and running flat top pistons... that would allow me to swap small chamber heads on and go from 8.2-8.5:1 compression to 12.5-13:1 compression with a head swap and use E85

 

[dogsht]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

fwiw I did this swap with the same motor mounts/kit in an 88 and an 87 Cutlass and used an Edelbrock intake which is 3" taller than the stock intake and fit it under a stock flat hood but had to cut a little of the hood braceing out. Later I cut a whole in the hood and used the inexpensive Lauren engineering hood buldge like what came on the Hurst Olds to cover it. When I did this I also used a 1" spacer to space the air breather up into the hood buldge some. I also added a sheet metal donut to the bottom of my air breather and added foam around it to seal when i shut the hood. I then opened the back of the hood buldge so that it would suck only fresh outside air. You can see it in my pics. Anyway should fit eazy under a stock flat hood with the 1" spacer if as you said you are useing a drop base air breather at least if you are not concerned with cutting out some hood braceing. BTW the hood was still solid and had no noticeable wabble or anything in the center as it does not require a hugh cut out only just enough for the breather.

 

[Mike P]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

Thanks for the info Vern, I think it's going to work with the setup I'm running too, hope so anyway. Were the Cutlass hoods flat or raised like the early Monte Carlo units?

 

[Doober]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

Thanks, you're pointing me in the right direction, which is better than I've been doing on my own :lol: 🙂 I don't really even know where to get started for an older car with emissions.

I had done a little looking at the SEMA action site (http://www.semasan.com/main/main.aspx?I ... m/HomePage) and found out a few things regarding classic/historic cars, and I'm wondering if there's headway I can make there. Really the only major thing is probably the exhaust. I don't know if I'll need an evap. canister or not (gone before I got the car), and I don't know if it had an air pump or not. I'm basically assuming cats as part of the deal, but when I bring it down here (if I do manage to get it together/drivable) I'll probably look at running without them until the tags expire for that year, then put them on. I'm not overly concerned at it passing as the engine is basically stock, with a cam that's 50-state legal for '93 and older engines. My only major concerns are a)what they'll say about the headers, and b)if they'll say anything about the carb/intake/nonexistent egr valve.

 

[Mike P]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

Ok so in spite of what we in the South West tell you we do run into some rust occasionally. In a lot of cases it’s in the floors due to water leaking in windows and soaking the carpet and not being caught.

Although the rest of the truck is solid the floor behind the drivers seat was rusted out. I originally bought the truck as a parts truck and while I knew about this it really didn’t matter at the time.

This is going to be a driver not a show car and the floor of Monte Carlo parts car had surface rust but was solid so it donated a patch. I’ve still got to grind the welds and I’m debating whether to blast the whole floor or just wire wheel the surface rust and coat it, I guess I’ll figure that out later.

Once I got the carpet up I also found out that it had originally been a bench seat truck and at some point someone had added the brackets for the split bench…….just wish they had gotten the passenger side in straight, I’ll have redo those at some point, but it shouldn’t be a big deal.

 

[Mike P]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

I don’t know if anybody picked up on it in the picture above, but the door striker bolt was kind of jury rigged. Once I pulled the plate off I found out why. The reinforcement plate that is spot welded to the back side and holds the captive nut was pretty much toast and the hole on the door jam side was broken out to about a 2” X 2” hole. It’s funny the reinforcement was completely rusted out, but the metal on the door jam itself was still solid to include on the back side.

Fortunately the donor Monte Carlo parts car had a good plate and jam so a bit more welding and one more thing is taken care of.

 

[78 Green Lemans]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

This really gets me thinking about my newly aquired elcamino. I was contemplating a 500 caddy s10 pick up build about a year ago but decided to stick with the small block chev as i couldnt find a decent 500. Now i know of one i can get from a friend. :idea:


Also the monte front end and doors look different, in a good way. Have you seen any done with the 81-87 monte front clip and doors?
Ive seen the monte ss nose kit but not the whole thing like you have done. Also wonder what a Lemans or GP camino would look like? :?:

Thank you for sharing this build, maybe others will get some ideas that will save some of those parts cars out there before the crusher gets them.

 

[Mike P]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

I’ve been plugging away with some more little stuff. I got the console brackets welded in and
console and shifter installed and hooked up to the TH400. I haven’t decided If I recover the seats that are in it now (they actually are the same, just upholstered differently) or find something else.

I also ordered a “tucked” rear fiberglass rear bumper from Lauren. I think it really works well with the Monte Carlo front bumper. It’s just sitting on there right now, there will be some fitting to do to actually install it but overall I’m pretty happy with the quality and initial fit.

I went ahead and installed a class III hitch too. It’s a little overkill for anything I will likely pull with the El Camino, but the class II units only have a 1 1/4” ball mount and I already have a bunch of 2” hitch mounts already set up. The only down side to the hitch is that it will probably make the tailpipes hang down too far if I run them out the back, so I’ll probably just dump the exhaust behind the rear tires.

 

[Ridgeline]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

Im in the process of putting a console in my bench seat el camino. It does have the 60 40 so the seat mounts are correct. I do need some pointers on where to weld the console bracket and cut the hole for the shifter cable. Would you happen to have any pictures of the location of the console brackets and the hole for the shifter cable? Thanks

 

[dogsht]

Re: 500 Caddy into El Camino

Mike, sorry about missing your question. Check out pics 2, 3, & 4 in my photo album. Yea basically a flat hood but have a look.