We are putting an LT1 in a '69 El Camino for a customer. I have a question about the radiator. Did you guys use a 4 row radiator for a '69 or have a special one made? I will have more questions on this over the next few months as we get to them. This will be a full build with A/C power steering power brakes, and whole bunch of other goodies. Thanks in advance.

Wow, so no one has done this before?

I'm doing this swap in my '81. I had a radiator made. It would be possible to adapt an F body or B body radiator I suppose. But that's the route I took.

i dont know anything about lt1 swaps, but if the rad in the 69 is enough to cool a big block im sure it would be enough to cool a fuel injected smallblock, but what do I know lol

Not a lt1 expert myself ,Ithink they were reverse flow cooling. Have you ever checked with street& performance on their lt1 swap products. I'll try to put up up a link here. http://hotrodlane.cc/ They have new & used stuff, make their own harnesses & certain other products.

They are reverse flow. You have to custom route hoses but they go to the same side of the radiator in a '78 as they come out of the engine on. I have no idea what a radiator in a '69 looks like, however. In my tips message you will see my comments on the fan that went on my stock radiator and there have been no issues. I spent a lot of time looking through a Gates hose catalog and fortunately for me the guys at Oreilly's were willing to order the stuff in for me to look at without billing me. One of my hoses was turned 180 degrees between the two ends from what I needed. I just cut the hose, coupled it with a pipe and four clamps. The outlets on the LT-1 are 1-1/4" if I remember correctly. My bottom radiator inlet was 1-1/2". In the Gates book you can look up hoses by size with a picture. I might have been able to find a better hose fit if I had changed the radiator intlet to be the same size as the engine outlet.

The top hose was an off the shelf match but I just eyeballed it hanging on the wall at Oreilly's. I had to shorten it just a bit. I don't know the application. There is an additional hose that goes to a pressurized overflow tank. Since my overflow tank wasn't pressurized, I just teed the hose into the heater hoses.

Craig

My swap was into an '84. I just left the stock radiator in the car and it provided plenty of cooling for the LT1. The thermostat in the LT1 engine is in pretty much the same place as the small block that came out of the car, so the upper radiator hose for the '84 fit OK, similar to Craig's experience. The lower hose is a larger diameter at the radiator outlet than the engine end, so I used half of two hoses -- stock for the '84 hooked to the radiator and stock hose for the donor car hooked to the engine. The radiator half is a slip fit over the engine half, so a hose clamp joins them and a little stub of exhaust pipe on the inside gives it something to clamp against.

Hope you can use this for ideas for your swap.

Karl