Yelcamino 2.0

[Yelcamino]

Welcome to the build thread for my '66 El Camino. It's 2.0 because I never had a thread for the first iteration. Some of you know me and my Camino, some don't, so here's a little background...

I bought Yelcamino from my friend in the summer of 1997. It was an original Arizona car with about 90,000 miles on it. It was fairly rough but not terrible.



Before this car, I had never done a frame off build of anything so there was a huge learning curve. The first order of business was getting it disassembled and fixing the problem areas.



While the body work was being done, I had the chassis at home so I could detail the frame, install the suspension, and build the engine and install it. Once the body was ready, I brought the completed chassis to the shop and they put the two back together.



After that, the body and paint were finished. Here it is in the sun with the new paint for the first time in 2001.



Carol and I were really pleased with how it turned out! I spent the next year or so getting everything working and reliable.







We took it to a lot of events and in the process got a lot of exposure. So much so that it made a couple of magazine covers and features.

Chevelle World, October 2003



Popular Hot Rodding, March 2004



Chevy High Performance, January 2005



Auto Tuning World, October 2009 (this is a mag from Poland)



Fast forward to 2012... I retired from the Coast Guard after 24 years and started working at ridetech. In 2013 I hurt the 454 while on Gingerman at the Motorstate Challenge. It was shortly after that I bought my '63 C10. Since the engine was hurt and needed to be gone through and freshened, Yelcamino graciously donated it to the C10 project in the hopes of getting something new and improved.

Its patience has finally paid off, because now it's getting a fresh crate LS3!



The LS3 is getting a new cam, springs, retainers, pushrods, timing set, trunnions and valve covers. In addition to the LS3, Yelcamino will be getting new brakes, tires, and an update on the Forgeline wheels.



At the moment, she's on the lift while I open up the trans tunnel so I can get the driveline angles where they should be.





That's it so far. I hope to have all the updates done in a timely matter... we shall see!