It took three days to figure out the oil pan won’t fit inside the El Camino…

That’s right; I spent close to three days preparing the big-block for its final resting place inside the fender wells of the El Camino. I had spent most of Friday bolting up the, motor-mounts, flexplate, headers and the transmission—all the while trying to shoot pictures for an up coming story on the complete install. As I woke up Saturday morning, I was excited to try and shoehorn this big wedge into the car. My brother, and my father and I got the cherry picker hooked up and began the process of lifting the motor and tranny combo up and over the front of the car. First we had to flatten the tires though to gain clearance over the oil pan. As the motor sat, swinging there we began to question whether or not the headers would clear the inner fender wells. So, we went for it and began to drop the motor in—of course only to find out the headers were now colliding with pretty much everything. The motor had to be pulled out, and we went ahead and unbolted the headers to make another attempt at dropping in the motor. We failed…again. Now, the oil pan was hitting the lower cross-member and the driver’s side valve cover was rubbing the brake booster. Of course, either because of our testosterone driven bodies, or because we are stubborn—maybe a combination of both, we frantically tried to “force” the motor into place. We spent another couple hours doing this but once again, we failed.

Although, that Sunday was a new day and we were sure to get it in. We again, spent the next couple hours fussing and fidgeting with the engine and transmission. We would go up on the cherry picker, and then down again. “Move it right…no, wait, move it back down and forward a *** That’s pretty much how the conversations were going. Either way, Sunday was a complete flop. It was hot, and we were a bit frustrated. We had no choice, pull the motor back out and order the right pan and the right valve covers. So, this weekend, we do it again. Lets just hope it doesn’t take another three days.