Atrocity founded on the Facebook

Long time no post. I guess my interest went out of the garage as my El Camino. Well, now I am kind of missing that I sold my El Camino back in '17. There was reasons why I did it, but past is past and there is no reason to dwell in the past. At least it went to owner who took care and have been driving it ever since. Just last summer friend of mine hit me a message that she has seen my Ex-El Camino in a happening. I am glad.

Now, I do have a few shortcuts in my browser to search 3rd gen(LA Craigslisting) El Caminos(SF Craigslisting) for sale in USA. So, I am looking for a "new" El Camino, but I am between two choices, do I buy a 1970 again or should I buy 1969 model? As my first El Camino was 1972 and after that I had 1971. And the third was this 1970. So I could go for streak from 1972 to 1968, in where next would be that 1969.  I am kind of torn between the choices.

On second note why I started to write this posting is this:

I don't know what to make out of it? Why? Why not?

Almost five months...

...since last post. Nothing special happened actually, well... we did tried to start the engine while we had our garage's chrismast party in december and it did ran, but not great and we checked the pressure in the cylinders and #1 was a bit more lower than rest but not catastrophical low. I am now battling with taking the engine out and disassembling it, get it cleaned, machined, assembling it back together or just paying running 305/307 engine and drop it in for the summer or two and taking my time with the original engine or coughing up 3k for some LS-family engines that are now kind of flooding our market in here.

A year ago there wasn't practically any engines for sale, but now this winter there has been plenty of LM7/L59/LM4 or LR4 engines for sale. And not too expensive too. Easy 300 horses under your hood. Right now this option is not valid since me and wife are still financially recovering our long sick leave we both had at the end of last year. And that is one reason nothing hasn't happenend in the garage. Now we both are better, thank you very much for asking.

Last weekend I went short trip to my home town to visit my mother and pick up some parts for the El Camino. Actually parts are from 1971 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, but those will fit.

Some dash wire harness.

 

Heater box.

 

Rear springs.

 

AC core.

Some AC vents for the dash.

 

Dash with round gauges!

And the guage cluster.

Matching Numbers

Matching Numbers engine block.

I think I posted about this in my Facebook fan page about few weeks ago, but now i got better image quality and with that statement I truely have a matching numbers El Camino. Althought it's just a 350 cid, 250 hp with 2 bbl and turbo 350, but it's still a numbers matching engine block. Original block!

T1022CNN stands for T = Tonowanda engine plant, 10 = October, 22 = 22nd day of the month and CNN = 1970, 350 cid, 250 hp, 2 bbl with TH350

I can't remember what website we did use it to decode it, but here are few links to decode your own small block Chevy:

http://chevellestuff.net/qd/index.htm
http://www.nastyz28.com/chevy-engine-code-stampings.php
http://www.1968ss.com/sbcsuffix.asp

Now putting that in perspective it gives me a two choices: Do I want to keep this engine, rebuild and make it more powerfull or put it aside and replace it with LSx-motor as I have planned a long time ago?

Now one thing before you cast your vote, I don't have the original heads anymore, those were broken back in 2009, crack between combustion chambers. Then again engine was 250 HP version so those heads were going to be replaced in some point.

What do you think? Keep it or replace it?