if I took out the oil cooler (big thing above oil filter) can I just screw the oil filter in and it will be fine or do i need some sort of replacement plate?

 

I think i need one of these instead

http://images.motortrend.com/feature...vy_bel_air.jpg

but i test fitted an oil filter seems like itd work fine but i think i need one of those^

 

That's an adapter for the (really) old canister type filter blocks. The filter oring just mounts up to the block surface on later engines. The bypass adapter is much smaller.

I've never had a car with the 3rd gen-type oil cooler, so I can't say how they work it. I could imagine it just screws onto the aforementioned bypass adapter.

 

So just to make sure, I can take off my oil cooler deal, then just spin the filter onto the bare block.