new to board--'78 Caballero--factory 350 and 4-spd

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daveyboy

Not-quite-so-new-guy
Jul 23, 2008
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I am new to the board. I bought a 1978 Caballero from a friend. It is an original 350/4spd car, but it has been thoroughly modded with a custom engineered suspension/steering using many custom brackets and circle track components and brakes. It also has a ZZ3 engine, remote oiling with cooler, circle track pan, quick ratio PS with cooler, huge radiator, electric fan, cool can, and other engine mods. It has close ratio muncie, with a line lock for the front brakes, a new Lakewood scatterproof bellhousing that I need to install, hurst shifter, and driveshaft loop. The brakes have an adjustable proportioning valve in the car. The rearend has a custom suspension as well with discs. The exhaust has ceramic hooker headers and is fully stainless with highflow cats and heim-joint hangers. The hood is harwood fiberglass and the front fenders are custom made fiberglass to fit larger wheels/tires. The battery is an optima that is mounted under the bed. The car also came with 20 wheels and slicks. Most of the wheels are bassett racing wheels but 2 of them are 3 piece 16x9.5 bogarts. The car runs awesome and the body is straight, but needs new paint. It was an Arizona car, so there is absolutely no rust. I got the car for a completely unbelievable price. One bad thing is that the door panels, glass, and window mechanisms were totally removed. So a couple night ago I bought a 1978 El Camino for $220 so I could just swap the doors and some of the interior pieces. The El Camino also had some decent 15" aluminum wheels that I will use for street wheels--since I bought the Caballero so I could have a race (time attach/autox) car that I could take to the track and haul race tires/tools/gear without having to tow it. I hope to learn some things about these cars from this board. I have never had a G-body and haven't had a GM V8 car for a few years--my last one was an '01 Z28 6spd hardtop 1SC that I bought new and then sold when I bought a bigger house.
 
Welcome to the forum dude. I envy the factory 4spd. And can we get some pic's?
 
also new to board

hi i am also new to board but not gbody's just working on my 1986
cutlass salon with t-tops 307 with rebuilt turbo 350 trans,1988 front
clip,lower chrome removed and rust repaired ,painted 2-tone black
with 03 caddy escalade red,22 inch rims 22x9.5 to be exact with
255x30x22 tires.future plans 403 power or lt1 i have and lt1 drive train
out off a 1995 buick road master.
 
Here are a couple of pics that of it at the first "autox" I took it to--I put autox in quotations since, as you can see in the second pic, it should have been a rallyx. That pavement was absolute crap; I couldn't put any power down.

Caballero1.jpg


Caballero2.jpg
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welcome to the site, looks like a fun car you have on your hands there
 
Sweet ride!!! I have a '79 Caballero so welcome from another GMC owner. What size wheels and tires are you running in the pics? I'm after a similar look with the NASCAR steelies...
 
desertcamino said:
Sweet ride!!! I have a '79 Caballero so welcome from another GMC owner. What size wheels and tires are you running in the pics? I'm after a similar look with the NASCAR steelies...

I am running 15x8 Bassett racing wheels (circle track wheels) with 225/50/15 Hoosier autox tires--which are a little small for racing given the size/weight of the car. When I bought the car, it came with FIVE sets of 15x8 Bassett racing wheels. I also have a pair of really nice/expensive 16x9.5 bogart 3-piece wheels for the rear. The problem is that the front suspension has custom made billet steering arms that really limit the wheel selection. Basically, I have to run 15x8 or jump to 17s. I am going to try to buy a larger spacer in the front to see if I can run the 16x9.5s, but I really don't want to.

As you can probably see in the pictures, the front wheels are pushed towards the fenders with spacers to clear the custom steering arms. I really need to step up to some 17x9s. Unfortunately, there is nothing cheap that will work--I already bought some Camaro SS wheels, but as I was afraid, the back spacing is way off.
 
Tony_SS said:
Welcome! It looks more like gravel to me. Your setup sounds awesome.. have anymore pics? I would love to do something like that with my Malibu.

I have been scrambling to get home improvement projects done before winter really gets here, so I haven't spent much time playing with my cars. I am going to try to work on the car tomorrow. I'll try to take some pictures if I get the chance.
 
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