I think I've lost my mind, I'm going with a SBC

Welcome to the club. 327 here... Nash never made a cool v8, so I'z got an excuse.

To tell the truth tho, this is my first SBC. Easy to bang on them until you have one. The options seem to be limitless. Cheap horsepower with cool options. Can't beat it!

 

I don't know what you should do, but, if you use the od trans. be sure to figure out the best rear gears and tire diameter for it so it won't be a disappointment to drive. My 2 cents.

 

this sites all about pre 64 right? if so then its absolutely blasphemous to sbc it...period.

old NON sbc motors you got tons of loot in it. skin in the game, you dont tend to rag on em as much. fine.

sbc motors:? junk (least the pre 64 ones with advent of vortex heads, alum acc. etc)

THERE IS NO TRAD WITH AN SBC. (im tired of argueing trad with guys who have plastic cars with sbc in em) trad for who? 1940s? 1950s? 1930s? 1964ish? in some 5 to 10 yr periods we could argue 4 bbl carbs, torque tube headers, posi rears, radial tires, etc.

you got the real deal holyfield on ya now, rebuild it, love it, and have fun as it will last just as long as any other motor (if not longer since you got some skin in the game)

but afterall it is YOUR car and who cares what anyone here thinks, we dont have to drive it everyday. god forbid though you put a 350 in it and someone finds you flamin another rodder for not bein trad enough.

...just my $.0002 worth. if we are going to "mandate" it, we best live by it...no grey areas.

 

I've had a distributor break. A friend started up my '69 Roadrunner, revved it and the distributor broke, literally. In pieces. So I guess one can "blow a distributor." That was in 1980 and he bought me a used one from a salvage yard.

I also drove a '57 Coupe DeVille for 8 years (1984-1992). The 365 ran great except one day while going about 60, the impeller shaft on the water pump decided to leave the housing and take a ride into the radiator with the fan blade attached. By the time I got stopped, there were 8 tubes in the radiator that had been cut by the fan. I was able to solder the tubes on the radiator but it took several weeks to get the water pump back after sending it off to get rebuilt.

If I had been running a SBC, I could have gotten a water pump at the parts store (even in the town of 700 that I lived in at the time) and been back on the road that day.

Having said that, I am not sure what I would do in your situation. I put a lot of miles on that Caddy, and that water pump is the only trouble I had with it in 8 years of driving it. I sold it to a friend who kept it for 4 years and he never had any mechanical trouble with it. If one carried spare parts, like a water pump, generator, starter, etc, I would think you'd be good to go.

 

......SBC came out in '55. Get a clue.

 

I agree with the guys who say investigate your Caddy motor first, it may not be that bad. An sbc is a good, reliable engine and about as exciting as a bowl of mashed potatoes. Hopefully you can save your Caddy motor, or if you do swap it out, hang onto it until you can rebuild it. The project '51 Ford F1 I recently bought has a 350 sbc in it, but it will eventually be replaced with a Y-block and I'd do it tomorrow if I could.

 

There's a running '57 365 with trans for sale on the bay right now with a BIN of $2000.

Even better, there's a running 331 for sale right here on the HAMB

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=555187&highlight=cadillac

 

If you are going to go to the trouble of a swap, I would go with the big caddy(472-500). Any swap would be a pain.

 

If you go with the smallblock at least put those sweet Caddy valve covers on.

 

The OP's option of installing a 350 Mexican crate motor tells me that he has limited his options to using a throw away motor, Even it's advocates have come to realize the throw it away mentality is right for the SBC. GM spent little money on the SBC and it shows, most of the good parts were used on the Cad, Olds, Buick, Pont. All of GM's good motors were eliminated in the late 70's and replaced by the SBC, this was not a welcome change to buyers of those other makes, but made GM a shit load of money. Many purchasers of new GM cars were shocked by what GM did and many sued and GM had to pay up & in many cases buy back the cars. I don't get pissed when I see this "put a SBC in it mentality, I laugh at the finished product which is now in the buy it, use it, throw it away class.

 

Yeah, that Duntov guy... what the hell did he know about hot rods?

furyus

 

Investigate/rebuild your current engine..if swap is your answer, use later model Cad engine. Gotta save the SBC's for all the early Fords's right. Fake valve covers does not make it a Cad engine.

 

SBC is my choice. Caddy engine looks cooler, though. But I like to drive 'em, so I need easy to find replacement parts.

 

Geez, everyone that's so afraid to take a trip with a vintage Cad motor...buy a new Toyota car...and get 40mpg, and get reliability, too.

But it's just not quite the same warm fuzzy feeling.

 

Don't forget the nickle and diming of putting another engine in there. It's not a bolt in. And usually over the course of the swap rebuilding the off brand engine and replacing with a SBC is a wash.

Don't... fake is fake... and stupid.

Absolutely.

Bingo

Not true, they are at the most a day away...

 

Bingo. Having a cool 'ol Caddy with a cool 'ol Caddy engine and going to all the trouble of swapping in an el-cheapo boring belly-button justanotherleetleChebbie when you haven't even checked to see what's wrong with the Caddy, and there are complete Caddy engines available that would bolt right in and with normal diligence of a new water & fuel pumps, etc would run for a long time with no problems, is re-dick-yule-us. But hey, we could put some fake Caddy valve covers on it to fake it look cool again LOL
Always amazing how The Great Brainwashed spend lots of bux and sweat building rods, but justify using a belly-button engine because they're "cheap". If you want "cheap", why build a rod in the first place? Compared to the cost of a good paint job,- c'mon, pull the other one

 

I saw a SBC in a early fifty's Caddy a few years ago in Spokane, it had Cadillac in script on the valve covers and a bat wing air cleaner and I didn't really notice it was a SBC until I saw the intake and water pump. It's your baby do what you want, it sounds to me like the 331 you have is probably not rebuildable. Later 365/390s don't work so great because of exhaust manifold routing and you can't use the early (331) manifolds on the later motors because the exhaust ports are so much smaller.

 

You just can't let it go, can you? Honestly, I have built quite a few small block Fords for customers, and I think they are a good, reliable engine. And if you want to really get down to the price difference between a SBC and a SBF using quality (no Chinese junk) parts, there isn't much difference at all. The only real issues I have with SBFs is that the oil filter location and the forward sump oil pan make them a little more of a challenge to fit in certain cars. Those things are fixable, though.

I don't really understand where you're coming from when you say, "If you want "cheap", why build a rod in the first place?". Maybe you make way more money than me and the cost of parts is not an issue. There is a huge difference between "cheap" and "not expensive". A SBC is just as reliable as any SBF, so why does something that doesn't drain your hard-earned money so deplorable to you? I just don't understand where you're coming from. Is it a bad thing to make your hard-earned money go farther when you build your car? The money you save on the powertrain can be spent elsewhere on the car.

If the original poster would have been asking what we thought about putting a SBC in a mid-50s Lincoln, I would have suggested a SBF instead. Just because I own and drive Chevrolets doesn't automatically mean that I feel the Chevy engine is the end-all and should be installed in everything. And I have to think that most all the other Chevy guys who commented on this thread feel the same way.

And knock off the "Great Brainwashed" shit. It only shows just how narrow-minded you are. I like ALL cars. There are many Fords that I would love to have in my collection, and maybe someday I will. To sit and call everyone "brainwashed" that doesn't think like you is absurd.

I'm done with this thread, and would like to apologize to the original poster for knocking his thread off-track because of a pissing contest that solves absolutely nothing.

 

Finding a decent (EL CHEAP) sbc to stuff in it the rest of the season. Meanwhile collect parts and data for re-building the Cad. Keep the sbc under the bench for another project. Ask your self, what would Smokey Yunick do? He'd flip off the critical nay sayers.

 

Why? Why must a good thread become a collection of tinkle in the snow until all that is left is a big yeller patch of slush?
Why?

 

Smartest thing you ever did!!!!!

 

If you are building the cad for YOU put a Briggs and stratton in it if you want its your car!

 

Furyus

You don't need to know much about shinola just as long as you recognize that it is way better that shit for making your shoes shiny.

You are going to find that even way back when there was a lot of brand loyalty in hot rodding. But in essence you are correct rodding has always been about doing what ever you need to do to upgrade your ride.

A caddy usually doesn't fall into the "Hot Rod" category they were or are normally custom fodder. That being said before the low and slow fellas came along customs were also hopped up but that is an entirely different story.

If you are leaning toward hopping up, stock out of the box a modern SBC (modern being a relative term here) makes more zot than the 331 did. So if hop up is where you are at then the SBC is the obvious choice. That said when you open the hood of the old caddy the SBC is going to look a little out of place under there. There is and always has been a certain asthetic that we are after. While you may want your engine to look out of place you do not want it to look out of place in a bad way.

Is the OP nutz? From a driving down the road stand point I don't believe that he is at all. The SBC will get him from point A to point B and do it well. It is an option and a pretty good one in that light. From an asthetic stand point I would not think it to be a good option. While they look good in a '58 Corvette it will not properly fill the engine bay on the old caddy, and unless it is using early heads (pre '86 I believe) it will look even more out of place with the center bolt valve covers, and etc.

Should cost be an issue? Well not by my way of thinking; it is a custom car or a hot rod depending on who you are asking. Cost becomes an issue when it is Monday evening and you have to get to work on Tuesday. Then you must consider availability from the local dealer and what you have in your bank account. On a hot rod or a custom that you are not depending on to get to work that story changes in a big way. This is your baby and it is built to a standard that is going to impress not only yourself but the casual onlooker as well. Now we are back to astetics or what you want your car to portray.

That brings me back to my original post. The only good reason to use an SBC is because you want to. If you like them and it is what you want in front of or stuffed into your firewall it is the only choice. If you are doing it for any other reason it is only going to cost you more because you will never be happy with it and eventually you will be after using something else.

Bongos? Not in this lifetime as far as I am concerned. Never the less you have to consider that I like them.

 

I think it is perfectly ok to keep this awesome car on the road. If you could hang on to the 331 and rebuild it some time later? A lot of good suggestions so far and $ are the main one, what the hell you won't be displaying this bomb with the hood open at an event anyway. Good luck at keeping the Caddy on the road. ~sololobo~

 

sbc is a good reliable choice...and easy on the pocket book.