I have come across a Cadillac V-8 engine and transmission. The car it came from was imported into the country and an attempt was made to switch the steering from one side to the other (we drive on the LHS and so usually, but not always, the steering wheel is over on the RHS). The attempt fell foul of certain engineering laws and was a dangerous conversion. The owner decided he had blown enough money already and so he started parting the car out. Hence the engine/trans assy sitting on the floor of the workshop.
This engine is 4.5 litres and it has an aluminium cylinder block, but the heads seem to not be aluminium at all. They seem to be C.I. I understand this engine was available in other sizes, namely 4.1 litres, 4.9 litres and 5.0 litres, as well as the 4.5 litre. Some versions appear to have a not so good reputation while others are all AOK. They seem to be well regarded by the British V8 fraternity who use them in conversions to MGs, Triumphs and other sports cars. I guess the problem areas are known and there are fixes.
What I wanted to know was what the largest size these engines can be bore/stroked to actually is. Does anyone know much about them?
Thanks.
Cadillac small V-8 engine
Moderator: Team
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
Read all about the Cad here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_ ... ogy_engine
Yes, it was yet another GM misguided attempt to use iron heads on an aluminum block; did they learn nothing from the Vega debacle? And no, it does not have a good reputation here in the home country; no one I know planning a performance build would take one as a gift. The rebuilders never get a call for a replacement engine. Instead, the cars are usually scrapped, which may be how/why it wound up on the wrong side of the pond.
Yes, it was yet another GM misguided attempt to use iron heads on an aluminum block; did they learn nothing from the Vega debacle? And no, it does not have a good reputation here in the home country; no one I know planning a performance build would take one as a gift. The rebuilders never get a call for a replacement engine. Instead, the cars are usually scrapped, which may be how/why it wound up on the wrong side of the pond.
Any chance your Cad is being confused with the '61-63 Buick/Olds/Pontiac small all-aluminum V8 which was sold to Rover, who then improved it many ways over the years. And yes, it's often the choice for small sports swaps.They seem to be well regarded by the British V8 fraternity who use them in conversions to MGs, Triumphs and other sports cars. I guess the problem areas are known and there are fixes.
Jack Vines
Studebaker-Packard V8 Limited
Obsolete Engineering
Studebaker-Packard V8 Limited
Obsolete Engineering
-
DaveMcLain
- Guru
- Posts: 2858
- Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:57 am
- Location:
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
The later ones were greatly improved over the early 4.1's which had all sorts of various problems. They are much different than the later North Star overhead cam engine too.
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
Yeah,the Range Rover/Land rover/anything with the famous 3,5 litre V8..If you want trouble have one! Fix one thing and you find other thing that need fixing 
"when uncomptent order unwilling to do unnecsessary the probablity of failure is high"
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
Hi Jack
Yes, definitely the Cadillac engine and not the Rover, nee Oldsmobile/Buick. The Rover V8 is well known here. We even had a 4.4 litre version in the Leyland P76 sedan when the Rovers were still at 3.5 litres. So, no confusion. It is the aluminium Cadillac engine. I was impressed with how easy it is to move around. It is surprisingly low weight.
I understand the original Cadillac 4.1 litre engine had some serious issues, but as Dave McLain indicates these were resolved in later versions. They appear to be liked by the sports car guys. Here a discussion between some contributors to the British V8 Forum about Cadillac V8 swaps. They even put them into Porsches.
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?6,13482,page=1
So, how large can they go?
Yes, definitely the Cadillac engine and not the Rover, nee Oldsmobile/Buick. The Rover V8 is well known here. We even had a 4.4 litre version in the Leyland P76 sedan when the Rovers were still at 3.5 litres. So, no confusion. It is the aluminium Cadillac engine. I was impressed with how easy it is to move around. It is surprisingly low weight.
I understand the original Cadillac 4.1 litre engine had some serious issues, but as Dave McLain indicates these were resolved in later versions. They appear to be liked by the sports car guys. Here a discussion between some contributors to the British V8 Forum about Cadillac V8 swaps. They even put them into Porsches.
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?6,13482,page=1
So, how large can they go?
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
Dunno. I did a quick poll of the guys I know who do the small sports stuff and the universal answer was, "The LS is so much better in every way, who'd spend more for the Cad and end up with less?"So, how large can they go?
I do realize the LS isn't as common overseas as it is here, but I can't find anyone who's ever built one of the small Cads.
Jack Vines
Studebaker-Packard V8 Limited
Obsolete Engineering
Studebaker-Packard V8 Limited
Obsolete Engineering
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
Those particular CAD engines have possibly one hopeful use. Put a good lengthy wrap of 3/8" chain around it , toss it over the side and it makes a pretty good boat mooring anchor. No real good aftermarket parts availability and performance possibilities, so loose it and start with something much better on your end, LS engine, SBC, or Holden engine. You'll do them better, cheaper and easier that those Cad engines!!
The Older I Get, The Dumber I Get 
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
Iron heads on aluminum block??Ratu wrote:Hi Jack
Yes, definitely the Cadillac engine and not the Rover, nee Oldsmobile/Buick. The Rover V8 is well known here. We even had a 4.4 litre version in the Leyland P76 sedan when the Rovers were still at 3.5 litres. So, no confusion. It is the aluminium Cadillac engine. I was impressed with how easy it is to move around. It is surprisingly low weight.
I understand the original Cadillac 4.1 litre engine had some serious issues, but as Dave McLain indicates these were resolved in later versions. They appear to be liked by the sports car guys. Here a discussion between some contributors to the British V8 Forum about Cadillac V8 swaps. They even put them into Porsches.
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?6,13482,page=1
So, how large can they go?
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
Besides the strange use of iron heads on an aluminum block, the one I saw at a shop had a large iron casting bolted down inside the block comprising the top half of the 5 cam bearing bosses and all 16 lifter bosses. If disturbed, the cam bearing bosses had to be line-bored. I'll bet BHJ doesn't have a fixture to true up that thing!
As a boat anchor, corrosion will slightly increase its weight over the years....
As a boat anchor, corrosion will slightly increase its weight over the years....
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
My boss back in the day bought himself a Cadillac Eldorado with (I think) the HT4100 engine. A while later, it started overheating with symptoms of either a blown headgasket or cracked head or block. It wasn't worth the trouble to find out which.
These engines are boat anchors - nothing more. Not worth fixing, not worth doing anything with them. Ticking time bomb.
These engines are boat anchors - nothing more. Not worth fixing, not worth doing anything with them. Ticking time bomb.
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
jsgarage
On my travels this afternoon I visited a local GM dealership. They do not usually sell Cadillacs here (they do sell Holden and Isuzu and Daewoo) but they have imported a few Cadillacs, new and second-hand, from the USA. They put me on to the local Cadillac experten. A brief phone call confirms that the early engine was shockingly under-developed, rushed way too early to production, suffering terrible reliability issues as the direct result. They reckon the causal elements were extremely poor management decisions taken by GM executive allied to even worse ones taken by government bureaucrats. The situation led directly to the demise of Cadillac as a premium brand. Ouch! Similar disasters were going on all over the US automobile manufacturing industry at the time. It is a wonder any of it survives today.
The consensus was that the later aluminium engines were good. The problems were ironed out and the design worked out fine, as intended. The trouble was that the injury to reputation was permanent. This was one of the reasons that Cadillac went to the Northstar, only to suffer a similar speight of issues early in the production run of that engine. Looks like nothing was learned. What fiasco! How the once great fell!
Anyway, the guys confirmed that the heads are definitely cast iron and the block is aluminium. It seems that in order to meet emission and economy regulations the intention was to allow the engine to operate in regimes where higher than normal temperatures would be encountered in the combustion chamber, especially at the exhaust valves and within the associated exhaust ports. This led to the decision to use C.I. as the cylinder head material, since it was considered the aluminium alloy they had available would not be suitable for the temperatures expected. The block was aluminium mainly to save weight, which was becoming a priority in respect of fuel economy targets set by government and which had to be met or else a fine would be levied against GM by said government.
After reading your comment I phoned them back and asked about the method of retention for the cam. The response had some fascinating insights. Seems you are absolutely spot-on correct. Even though the cam is in the valley, it is held in place by a structure which carries the top halves of all of the cam bearings. It is sort of like how OHC engines have cam bearing caps except in this case all the top caps are contained in the one structure. This structure is bolted to the cylinder block and effectively forms the floor of the valley. It is not supposed to be removed. If it is, then when it is refitted to the block and re-torqued, the cam tunnel has to be align-bored. There is a reason behind this (isn’t there always).
It turns out that the block is die cast and not sand cast as is more usual. The die casting process did not lend itself to easily incorporating a closed cam tunnel since this would demand a removable core (likely sand), which would be a production nuisance. Cadillac designers and engineers decided a better approach would be to use a set of upper bearing caps to retain the camshaft in the block, similar to how ohc engines retain their cams. They then focussed on lifter retention and guidance. There were various schemes posited. Design review (including by production engineers and methods engineers) determined that it would be efficient to reduce the number of parts, as well as significantly reduce the number of individual tasks needed to fit the cam, lifters and bearings during production-line assembly. Hence the design came down to a single-piece aluminium component securing the cam in the block and holding the lifters. It would be fastened into the block with six bolts. All good so far.
What happened next is most interesting. The use of the die casting process gives the advantage of greatly improved accuracy in terms of the dimensions of the final casting. It was possible to get much closer to net shape than previously. This offered improved economics in that it would be possible to use less metal per casting without having to be as concerned about matters like core shift and other dimensional instabilities. Meanwhile government bureaucrats had set fuel economy standards which were placing GM under increasing pressure. So GM needed to strive to get weight out of their cars, as much as they could, in order to lift fuel economy, Cadillac included. Engines being relatively heavy components were obvious targets for slimming down. Since Cadillac’s engine was an all-new design and it was costing a great deal in terms of new tooling etc., the demands imposed were significant. The engine had to be made absolutely as light as possible, with full advantage taken of the promise of the material (aluminium) and the process (die casting). The engineers responded to the pressure from above (and from without) by designing the engine as light as they knew how to.
This was not unreasonable. It is what a lot of engineers will do initially. From there it is a matter of testing and development to see what needs improving or strengthening. The development process is for completing that task and it is not to be unnecessarily rushed by any means. It may end up adding a few pounds of mass here and there, but that can be compensated for elsewhere. What can’t be avoided is sufficient time to do the job right must be provided. It is this one component, this aspect, the vitally necessary ingredient that GM & Cadillac did not allow its engineers- time. They were not allowed the time to properly develop their new engine prior to it being ordered into production.
Still that leaves a question. Normally when something is bolted together it is meant to be possible to take it apart. In the case of the small Cadillac engine, that is clearly not the case. There are bolts in the valley but they are not supposed to be undone! What gives?
It turns out that there was an engineer doing stress calculations on the engine block to check rigidities, strength, forces, strains and so forth. He decided to do a recheck, especially since the word had just come down that it was going into production right away. It must have been stressful, especially when you consider how far computing has come (CAD, FEA, CFD, various simulation and data packages etc.) since that time and think about how much effort such calculations would have taken back then. Everything worked out OK until he decided to make one extra calculation. He examined the situation where the valley component was removed from the block, refitted and re-torqued. He found what you reported. When the bolts were undone, the aluminium relaxed (remove stress and strain is reduced) and the geometry of the valley altered very slightly. It was a permanent change though, not one that could be undone by refitting the pate and re-torqueing its bolts. His calculations were confirmed by removing and refitting valley plates in several late pre-production engines.
The issue was that when the engines were initially assembled and the valley plate torqued down, there would be some plastic deformation locally. This was not initially regarded as a problem, especially since the align boring of the cam tunnel was undertaken AFTER the bolts were torqued. The problem happened later. When the bolts were released, and the plate removed, the block material would not return to its exact original shape because of the plastic deformation. So it would be close, but not quite the same. Now when the plate was refitted and the bolts re-torqued the block distorted locally again. Again there was a plastic deformation. The distortions were different (additive) and resulted in the cam bearing bores no longer being exactly concentric and aligned on the exact same centreline. A re-align bore would be necessary!
This was immediately taken up with a senior manager who enquired what needed to be done to fix it. The answer was (of course) to add a little extra aluminium in the valley area where the bolts would thread into the block. That would give the bolts more rigidity to pull down on. It would avoid any local plastic deformation whatsoever. Then he enquired further, asking a few more questions. He wanted to have it confirmed how the cam would be fitted to the block during assembly, how it could be removed and refitted for maintenance or repair. The answer was that it slid in from the front of the block just like any other ohv V-8. He had the stress calculations rechecked, confirming their accuracy and then deferred his decision for a couple of days. When he called the engineer back again, he said he had decided not to order alteration to the block casting tools.
His reasoning was that since the cam would be front loaded there was no reason to be taking the valley apart once it had been assembled. To all intents and purposes the block and valley would need to be treated in maintenance and rebuild situations exactly as a regular single piece casting, i.e. as if they were one piece. The plate ought never to be removed. He also reported that the casting tooling had been ordered already and it was too late to be making design changes. The cost of new tooling or altered tooling would be substantial- far more than the company management were prepared to bear at that time. Even putting that aside, the extra aluminium admitted to each cylinder block would increase the cost per block slightly. Costs had already been confirmed and were locked in though. They were set. A change at this late stage would mean redoing the entire costing model for not only the engine but the entire line up of cars which were to be fitted with it. For a big corporate outfit like GM this was a definite problem. Overall, even if it had been decided to make a revision, it would have cost more time and that was something they did not have any more of anyway. They were rushing to production as it was. There was one opportunity yet available, he reported. The tooling for the valley plate had not yet been signed off. The design for that could be altered. And so it was. Into the top surface was cast the legend, “Do not remove.”
The block ended up a little bit lighter than it would otherwise have been. It is rigid enough in the valley not to have cam and lifter troubles. Problems with early engines became evident but they were present in other areas (cylinder head fasteners, seals), not the valley and cam etc. All in all, the story about the valley plate illustrates a reasonable decision made under a lot of pressure. It was not an ideal choice, but it certainly was a rational one given the circumstances. Still, there was no excuse for some of the other decisions that were made- rushing an undeveloped engine to production being the most egregious. That incurred great costs. It cost irreparable losses.
Anyway, thanks for the comment. It led me, one way or another, along an adventure, finding out about some interesting stories and coming across some knowledgeable and decent people (who share our interests in cars and engines and the like).
Ratu
On my travels this afternoon I visited a local GM dealership. They do not usually sell Cadillacs here (they do sell Holden and Isuzu and Daewoo) but they have imported a few Cadillacs, new and second-hand, from the USA. They put me on to the local Cadillac experten. A brief phone call confirms that the early engine was shockingly under-developed, rushed way too early to production, suffering terrible reliability issues as the direct result. They reckon the causal elements were extremely poor management decisions taken by GM executive allied to even worse ones taken by government bureaucrats. The situation led directly to the demise of Cadillac as a premium brand. Ouch! Similar disasters were going on all over the US automobile manufacturing industry at the time. It is a wonder any of it survives today.
The consensus was that the later aluminium engines were good. The problems were ironed out and the design worked out fine, as intended. The trouble was that the injury to reputation was permanent. This was one of the reasons that Cadillac went to the Northstar, only to suffer a similar speight of issues early in the production run of that engine. Looks like nothing was learned. What fiasco! How the once great fell!
Anyway, the guys confirmed that the heads are definitely cast iron and the block is aluminium. It seems that in order to meet emission and economy regulations the intention was to allow the engine to operate in regimes where higher than normal temperatures would be encountered in the combustion chamber, especially at the exhaust valves and within the associated exhaust ports. This led to the decision to use C.I. as the cylinder head material, since it was considered the aluminium alloy they had available would not be suitable for the temperatures expected. The block was aluminium mainly to save weight, which was becoming a priority in respect of fuel economy targets set by government and which had to be met or else a fine would be levied against GM by said government.
After reading your comment I phoned them back and asked about the method of retention for the cam. The response had some fascinating insights. Seems you are absolutely spot-on correct. Even though the cam is in the valley, it is held in place by a structure which carries the top halves of all of the cam bearings. It is sort of like how OHC engines have cam bearing caps except in this case all the top caps are contained in the one structure. This structure is bolted to the cylinder block and effectively forms the floor of the valley. It is not supposed to be removed. If it is, then when it is refitted to the block and re-torqued, the cam tunnel has to be align-bored. There is a reason behind this (isn’t there always).
It turns out that the block is die cast and not sand cast as is more usual. The die casting process did not lend itself to easily incorporating a closed cam tunnel since this would demand a removable core (likely sand), which would be a production nuisance. Cadillac designers and engineers decided a better approach would be to use a set of upper bearing caps to retain the camshaft in the block, similar to how ohc engines retain their cams. They then focussed on lifter retention and guidance. There were various schemes posited. Design review (including by production engineers and methods engineers) determined that it would be efficient to reduce the number of parts, as well as significantly reduce the number of individual tasks needed to fit the cam, lifters and bearings during production-line assembly. Hence the design came down to a single-piece aluminium component securing the cam in the block and holding the lifters. It would be fastened into the block with six bolts. All good so far.
What happened next is most interesting. The use of the die casting process gives the advantage of greatly improved accuracy in terms of the dimensions of the final casting. It was possible to get much closer to net shape than previously. This offered improved economics in that it would be possible to use less metal per casting without having to be as concerned about matters like core shift and other dimensional instabilities. Meanwhile government bureaucrats had set fuel economy standards which were placing GM under increasing pressure. So GM needed to strive to get weight out of their cars, as much as they could, in order to lift fuel economy, Cadillac included. Engines being relatively heavy components were obvious targets for slimming down. Since Cadillac’s engine was an all-new design and it was costing a great deal in terms of new tooling etc., the demands imposed were significant. The engine had to be made absolutely as light as possible, with full advantage taken of the promise of the material (aluminium) and the process (die casting). The engineers responded to the pressure from above (and from without) by designing the engine as light as they knew how to.
This was not unreasonable. It is what a lot of engineers will do initially. From there it is a matter of testing and development to see what needs improving or strengthening. The development process is for completing that task and it is not to be unnecessarily rushed by any means. It may end up adding a few pounds of mass here and there, but that can be compensated for elsewhere. What can’t be avoided is sufficient time to do the job right must be provided. It is this one component, this aspect, the vitally necessary ingredient that GM & Cadillac did not allow its engineers- time. They were not allowed the time to properly develop their new engine prior to it being ordered into production.
Still that leaves a question. Normally when something is bolted together it is meant to be possible to take it apart. In the case of the small Cadillac engine, that is clearly not the case. There are bolts in the valley but they are not supposed to be undone! What gives?
It turns out that there was an engineer doing stress calculations on the engine block to check rigidities, strength, forces, strains and so forth. He decided to do a recheck, especially since the word had just come down that it was going into production right away. It must have been stressful, especially when you consider how far computing has come (CAD, FEA, CFD, various simulation and data packages etc.) since that time and think about how much effort such calculations would have taken back then. Everything worked out OK until he decided to make one extra calculation. He examined the situation where the valley component was removed from the block, refitted and re-torqued. He found what you reported. When the bolts were undone, the aluminium relaxed (remove stress and strain is reduced) and the geometry of the valley altered very slightly. It was a permanent change though, not one that could be undone by refitting the pate and re-torqueing its bolts. His calculations were confirmed by removing and refitting valley plates in several late pre-production engines.
The issue was that when the engines were initially assembled and the valley plate torqued down, there would be some plastic deformation locally. This was not initially regarded as a problem, especially since the align boring of the cam tunnel was undertaken AFTER the bolts were torqued. The problem happened later. When the bolts were released, and the plate removed, the block material would not return to its exact original shape because of the plastic deformation. So it would be close, but not quite the same. Now when the plate was refitted and the bolts re-torqued the block distorted locally again. Again there was a plastic deformation. The distortions were different (additive) and resulted in the cam bearing bores no longer being exactly concentric and aligned on the exact same centreline. A re-align bore would be necessary!
This was immediately taken up with a senior manager who enquired what needed to be done to fix it. The answer was (of course) to add a little extra aluminium in the valley area where the bolts would thread into the block. That would give the bolts more rigidity to pull down on. It would avoid any local plastic deformation whatsoever. Then he enquired further, asking a few more questions. He wanted to have it confirmed how the cam would be fitted to the block during assembly, how it could be removed and refitted for maintenance or repair. The answer was that it slid in from the front of the block just like any other ohv V-8. He had the stress calculations rechecked, confirming their accuracy and then deferred his decision for a couple of days. When he called the engineer back again, he said he had decided not to order alteration to the block casting tools.
His reasoning was that since the cam would be front loaded there was no reason to be taking the valley apart once it had been assembled. To all intents and purposes the block and valley would need to be treated in maintenance and rebuild situations exactly as a regular single piece casting, i.e. as if they were one piece. The plate ought never to be removed. He also reported that the casting tooling had been ordered already and it was too late to be making design changes. The cost of new tooling or altered tooling would be substantial- far more than the company management were prepared to bear at that time. Even putting that aside, the extra aluminium admitted to each cylinder block would increase the cost per block slightly. Costs had already been confirmed and were locked in though. They were set. A change at this late stage would mean redoing the entire costing model for not only the engine but the entire line up of cars which were to be fitted with it. For a big corporate outfit like GM this was a definite problem. Overall, even if it had been decided to make a revision, it would have cost more time and that was something they did not have any more of anyway. They were rushing to production as it was. There was one opportunity yet available, he reported. The tooling for the valley plate had not yet been signed off. The design for that could be altered. And so it was. Into the top surface was cast the legend, “Do not remove.”
The block ended up a little bit lighter than it would otherwise have been. It is rigid enough in the valley not to have cam and lifter troubles. Problems with early engines became evident but they were present in other areas (cylinder head fasteners, seals), not the valley and cam etc. All in all, the story about the valley plate illustrates a reasonable decision made under a lot of pressure. It was not an ideal choice, but it certainly was a rational one given the circumstances. Still, there was no excuse for some of the other decisions that were made- rushing an undeveloped engine to production being the most egregious. That incurred great costs. It cost irreparable losses.
Anyway, thanks for the comment. It led me, one way or another, along an adventure, finding out about some interesting stories and coming across some knowledgeable and decent people (who share our interests in cars and engines and the like).
Ratu
Last edited by Ratu on Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
Utterly awful engine. If you must do something with it, polish the bare block and use it as the base for a glass coffee table.
They did get "better" over time but that is like saying herpes is better than syphilis. Absolutely atrocious heads, horrible intake manifolds (and nobody makes aftermarket), tiny ports, leak like a sieve... it's a lot of bad engineering decisions cast in aluminum.
Then Caddy leapfrogged that mess and replaced it with the Northstar, which (mostly) stayed dry, was smooth, was much more powerful, had far better emissions and fuel economy, and was more or less an anvil.
They did get "better" over time but that is like saying herpes is better than syphilis. Absolutely atrocious heads, horrible intake manifolds (and nobody makes aftermarket), tiny ports, leak like a sieve... it's a lot of bad engineering decisions cast in aluminum.
Then Caddy leapfrogged that mess and replaced it with the Northstar, which (mostly) stayed dry, was smooth, was much more powerful, had far better emissions and fuel economy, and was more or less an anvil.
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
Hi Jack
About the only car sold new here with the mighty LS is the Holden Commodore. They are about to go out of production forever. Instead we are going to be getting some sort of variant of the Opel Insignia and that, it seems, has no V-8 option. Yuck. Anyway, LS engines are highly regarded over here. The cars they come in are valuable- more so with the recent Holden plant-closure news. Whenever an LS engine comes up for sale it is expensive and everyone wants it.
On the other hand that little Cadillac is an orphan. Complete with trans and loom, I reckon it would be lucky to go for NZ$200 (call it USD 140) and maybe even less if you were ruthless in negotiation. The Cadillac isn't physically large either. It could go in a tinier space than the LS I suspect.
Soooo, I got to thinking about it some and started asking around to find out a bit more. It seems it is a wet liner engine and it may be possible to fit some nice big (well, OK then, slightly larger) liners in there. Dunno about stroke though, or what sort of crank it has inside.
Ratu
About the only car sold new here with the mighty LS is the Holden Commodore. They are about to go out of production forever. Instead we are going to be getting some sort of variant of the Opel Insignia and that, it seems, has no V-8 option. Yuck. Anyway, LS engines are highly regarded over here. The cars they come in are valuable- more so with the recent Holden plant-closure news. Whenever an LS engine comes up for sale it is expensive and everyone wants it.
On the other hand that little Cadillac is an orphan. Complete with trans and loom, I reckon it would be lucky to go for NZ$200 (call it USD 140) and maybe even less if you were ruthless in negotiation. The Cadillac isn't physically large either. It could go in a tinier space than the LS I suspect.
Soooo, I got to thinking about it some and started asking around to find out a bit more. It seems it is a wet liner engine and it may be possible to fit some nice big (well, OK then, slightly larger) liners in there. Dunno about stroke though, or what sort of crank it has inside.
Ratu
Last edited by Ratu on Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
peejay
"...that is like saying herpes is better than syphilis."
Made my day did that one!
You mentioned "bad engineering decisions cast in aluminium". Can you elaborate about this?
Thanks.
"...that is like saying herpes is better than syphilis."
Made my day did that one!
You mentioned "bad engineering decisions cast in aluminium". Can you elaborate about this?
Thanks.
Re: Cadillac small V-8 engine
With the rush to the LS engine family here in the US it seams like someone should just start buying up every inexpensive small block chevy scrap engines and the related parts they can come up with load them in a big ship and motor them over to Australia and New Zealand and start selling them for performance buildups. Australia is close enough to China that the huge aftermarket for parts for these SBC's with guys that are doing it like Speedmaster (Pro Whatever) or whoever could supply all the needed aftermarket parts for some reasonable cost buildups for these small blocks. There have to a a half million or more small blocks just sitting in scrap and surplus yards over here in the US, maybe more. Sounds like guys like RATU down under need something inexpensive to start playing with.
The Older I Get, The Dumber I Get