I have never owned an el camino before, but a friend had a 66 (ss ?, but that is to be determined) that he didn't have time to finish...so he asked me to me to put together, sell it, and then give him what he had invested. Someone had pulled the 396 out of it and he wanted to put a 350 back in. I fooled around with that idea until I came across a recently rebuilt numbers matched (supposedly)1967 396 with t400 trans. Turns out that the engine is REALLY either a 1971 400ci 300hp out of a c10-c20 pickup, or it is a 1972 402ci 210hp out of a c20-c30 pickup. The block has "hi-perf" stamped on it but I've been told that means nothing. It needs interior and a little body work and then paint. Of course it needs the seals etc. I'll be working on this over the next few months and during that time will be asking questions to verify exactly what year and body this actually was along with other info I would like to know.
Glad to be here.

There are some big huge differences in the engines your listing. The 350/400 are small blocks. The 402 was a 396 Big Block bored over .030. They put those in the 400 Custom El Caminos. I have a 71 that came with the 402 400 THM and its all big block. If it came with the 396 or the 402, which by the way was installed in lots of other vehicles with the SS 396 markings and 396 markings in general. So if it came originally with a big block then you also should have a GM 12 bolt rear end under the truck.

Let me say this too..............


Welcome to ECC / NECOA good to have another owner on board.

Welcome aboard, Dude. & what Pete said.

Tom and Pete, thanks for the warm welcome!


Pete,
Yeah, I knew that about the 400 being a small block, but when I called GM with the block castings etc, she said that it was a BB 400. I was blown away so I asked a buddy and he said they did occasionally call it a 400 BB. All the decode sites I have seen list it as a 396/402. Anyway, I'm just going to refer to it as a 402 and then go to the decode forum and list the #'s there and see what pops up.

Yes, the truck I have does have a 12 bolt rear end in it.