Hey everyone glad to be a part of this forum. My dad has had his 1966 el camino since the early 80s. It was a 327/powerglide combo. In 2010 we swapped the power glide to a 200r4 4 speed auto. We have never been able to get the carb dialed in so the car basically sat un-driven for 8 or so years racking up probably 300 miles if that. So just recently we decided to LS swap it using an L59 5.3 and a 4l60e transmission. A little backstory on myself. I'm 22 years old and pretty much learned to wrench working with my dad on his el camino as well as other cars we had. I love working on stuff, always loved tearing into mechanical devices to see how they worked and putting them together although not always correctly I think that has taught me a lot in itself. Fast forward to a few years ago, the timing belt in my 1995 Mitsubishi Montero SR snapped (my first car, and my favorite car). I always talked about how cool it would be to have a 5.3 in it so when it broke I knew that is what had to happen. Bought a donor suburban and started pulling both cars apart. I did all of the wiring myself including getting the suburban push button 4x4 to work. This is probably the most work I have put into one vehicle but it was totally worth it, I have over 10k miles on it with zero issues.
My brothers and I have for years tried to get my dad to swap his car, cause we all hated seeing it sitting, he even contemplated selling it. That wasnt going to happen. So 2 months ago he gave in. We bought a 5.3/4l60e and got to work. She is all running and driving now. Hes put more miles on it in the past 2 weeks than in the past 10 years! I thought some of you may like to see the swap. I tried to go into detail about all of the parts i used so you can do it too! Btw after selling his 327/200r4 for $1700 he was in under $800 in the whole LS swap! Its worth it!
Heres the 1st part of the 2 part swap series!
and a picture of how it sits today (just installed bmr 2inch lowering springs) there will be a video posted in the morning of swapping the springs and shocks as well!
https://youtu.be/ezFYnBzCqV4

 

Welcome from a fellow PNW El Camino owner! I have a 68 - 327 - powerglide waiting for me to get the time to resurrect it. Purchased in '76 - my 1st vehicle, drove all through college and 10 years after that as my daily driver.

 

Thanks man! You have some cool history with that car! Get it going! Theyre awesome cars, I want one of my own.