Slide throttle and radical bump sticks. Goes without saying.

Because Chevy makes a 572 in a crate!

When I was shopping for my new crate engine for my El Camino after the original engine wore out after 300,000 miles I started at the base, $1,700 350 delivered to my door. Then I looked at the "well for a little bit more" options. 60 grand will get one monster HP engine that drops right in.

But then I really need monster brakes, and a Ford 9 inch rear end, and then........

It is endless. I ended up with the base $1,700 brand new, not rebuilt, not remanafactured, but new 350. It has been flawless for 70,000 miles. Name any other car than can get a brand new engine for under 2K except a GM small block. The machine work alone is more than that to rebuild an engine.

I looked at crate engines and $5k will get 400 hp 383.
This car was kinda inherited and came with a bunch of parts.
Going to stick with the POs vision, mostly.
Decided to just put her back together and try to enjoy the summer.
Maybe one winter I'll do the engine mods.

What i did- 40K on mine and uses literally zero oil, tight as a drum (well, except for the customary oil film around the breather :rolleyes: ) Also long block came with a drive-in 2 year 24K warranty- even if you DIY the install, GM warrants parts and labor if something goes south on it- you take it to the dealer and they deal with it. Only thing I've done to my long block was resealed an intake manifold that was weeping coolant. That's it

Not only is machining expensive, it's also a crapshoot if you have no references to go by. Last thing I want is a local built engine that grinds itself to pieces because the machinist is a crackhead who doesn't know what he's doing.

GM crate is just the best all around.

-As for that Caddy, I'd fix it and rock it, a SBC just butchers it. Rebuild the carb, redo the dizzy, seal up leaks and just cruise it. More work with SBC and less torque as well. If you gotta spend money, get an EFI kit.

One of my El Camino friends just had some weird desire to stuff a 454 into his Elky, and he did. It was just a torque monster and ate up rear ends and rear tires. You can likely guess he was in his late 20s and thought that was fun. He was always having problems with his redneck-shadetree-goober engineering, but he had fun. I just love my 350 with the throttle body fuel injection. It starts and runs like a modern car.

Get it running and drive it - a lot. You'll know if you want to do mods after you put a few hundred miles on it.

There are a couple of firms selling performance parts for that generation engine. Specifically a guy in California sells engines ( w/ your core) ready to install with varying levels of output. That is the way to go. Google Cadillac Performance.