Hey guys. I am building a 52 cadillac. I am restoring the original 331. In the meantime, I was wanting to toss in a 350 i have laying around so that I can take her to a few shows this summer. Has anyone had experience with this? I'm worried that there won't be enough clearance from the steering box. Also worried about room for headers. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
X2 what Jimmy said. There is a guy in my neighborhood that has a 1950 Caddy with a SBC under the hood. He said it cost to much to rebuild it. Just makes me sick to think he just threw in the towel like that for another small block. One of the big selling points for me on my 56 Olds was the fact that it still had the original 324. Just get that Caddy engine rebuilt. Do it once and do it right.
Why not put in the rebuilt engine and go to some shows this summer? How long will it take you to rebuild the 331? How much will it cost, and how long will it take to swap in the 350? I don't see the sense in doing this, it should only take a few weeks to get the engine done. If you have trouble getting parts, maybe a couple months. Not worth going to all the work and expense just to undo it again.
I agree.....by the time you invest the cash to do the 350/auto conversion you could have built the 331.
I put a SBC in a '56 coupe back in high school. I recently scored a rebuilt '59 390 to make it all Cadillac again. I drove it for years & had a lot of fun with the 350 in it. I don't regret it because it was a cheap answer to the problem and possible on a high school budget. If you do go with the SBC for now, follow through with the 331 rebuild and save the COMPLETE Cad motor & all the accessories; you'll be glad you did.
On the surface this might seem like a great idea just to get the car on the road until the real motor is done, but the time you will invest (and the money) to do the swap would get the original motor rebuilt and in there, probably much quicker too. There is nothing worse than looking into a huge engine compartment where a big old engine once lived and seeing a sbc in there, and that is coming from someone who likes sbc engines a lot. Rethink this whole thing. Don
I've got $800 in mine, lots of time on cleanup tho. I call bullshit on it costing the same money as rebuilding the 331. I have a nailhead in the wings, but I'm running the sbc until I get it done.
yup. My love for vintage Cadillac motors has grown a lot in the last few years, but I ain't buying the argument that you could rebuild one for the same price as the SBC swap. You really should be able to complete the swap and drive it for less than $1000. With a few decent swap meet scores, you could do it for half that...
Seriously, how long does it take to rebuild a motor vs how long to do an engine swap? It should take LESS time to rebuild the motor. Certainly far less time and cost to rebuild the motor, than to swap in a chev, rebuild the motor, and swap the chev out again.
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