Swap Info

The Swap Thing
Installing Your Cadillac Engine in a Non-Cadillac Vehicle

When contemplating a swap of any kind, consider that you can put any motor in to any vehicle if you have the Time, the Patience, and the Money. Given that, you must consider how much of the those three variables, you have to give for your project.

Trying to do a swap cold turkey can be quite frustrating. Two or three weekends of hand-making brackets and braces and drilling and welding. Trial. Error. Trial. Error. Trial. Success. If you could simply make a call & order the right stuff, it would be so much simpler. That’s how the Universal Motor Mount Kit was born. Having to “Frankenstein” your oil pan to get it to clear the crossmember, and ever after worrying about leaks, cracks, pickup feed, etc, is no way to go. Driving yourself crazy modifying all the Chevy brackets and pulleys to work, and, the worst part of the conversion, the big ugly torched-out notch in the cross member to clear the oil pump and filter, or choosing the bearing killer remote filter. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Motor Mounts and Clearance Items

Enter the Universal Motor Mount Kit… Most swaps into vehicles that already have GM or Ford side-mount engine mounts, can be done with no welding by using our kit. We even offer an aftermarket rear sump oil pan, that you take out of the box and bolt on, for a sweet drop-in on your Cad motor. Oil pump / filter clearance blues? Not anymore. Order the ‘Special Chassis’ Gold (higher volume, higher pressure) Oil pump and you’re good to go. That pump clears most modern chassis. Mid 50’s and earlier chassis are bit squeezy and can require some wizard chassis mods to fit a big Caddy, but it’ll go in. Then there’s the oil pan dilemma. You’re dropping your Cad into your ’77 Whatever, and clunk. Oil pan hits the cross member. Just give us a call here at Cad Company. order up our Rear Sump Oil pan, and VOILA! Sweetest install you’ll ever see!

Transmissions

Why spend hours cutting boiler plate and home-building a plate to bolt your Cad to the Chevy TH-400? You only need to give us a call, order the Transmission Adapter Kit, and have at it. Takes a few minutes to take it out of the box and bolt in on! Got a Power Glide? Got a TH-350? Noooo problem. Call us up and tell us you want the flex plate with the multi-pattern for TH-400, TH-350, Power glide and even the 700R-4. We can even setup one with other TC bolt patterns, such as Ford or Chrysler, on request (but then you’re on your own for the tranny adapter). Wanna run a clutch setup, so you can torque test your 4-speed (or 5 or 6 speed…)? No problem again. Call Cad Company and order up a Steel Billet Flywheel and Oilite pilot bushing (featuring a 166-tooth ring gear, for a standard Caddy starter, and no custom machine work required to install the pilot bushing).

Exhaust and Headers

Stock non-Eldorado exhaust manifolds fit in most common swaps. What about headers? The tradition continues. Cad Company offers headers that fit for a variety of swaps in addition to the original Cadillac cars. If one of our sets of bolt-in headers is not applicable to your particular swap, you just buy whatever header fits your chassis, then call us up and order the Header Flange Kit. You’ll receive some bitchin’ 3/8″ steel flanges, and your neighborhood will never be the same!

Headache Swaps

Even with all that is available to make your swap as painless as possible, some swaps can still give you quite a headache, just figuring out how to position the engine so it clears everything. On most of those, you will have to bite the bullet and work on your patience, as much as the car. For the most popular of the ‘headache’ swaps, the GM G-body (’77-up Malibu, Monte Carlo, Cutlass, Regal, etc), we offer a true ‘bolt-in’ motor mount kit, with all of the positioning already worked out. We also offer matching tranny crossmembers and headers, and can provide (or point you in the right direction to get locally) the correct fan shroud, radiator, etc, to make the swap hassle free.

For other head-scratcher swaps, we offer support in the way of advice based on years of experience fitting these great engines into everything you can imagine. The new tech section of our industry-leading website will also offer an ever expanding list of how-to articles for various specific swaps, as well as general swap tips that will be of use in most swaps.

Good Luck, Cadders.