Cadillac small V-8 engine

[MadBill]

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.

I believe there have been in excess of sixty million SBCs built...

[novadude]

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.

Blasphemy! Some of us North American guys still like playing with the old stuff. Let's make sure we keep some here. They can have the 305s.

[PackardV8]

I believe there have been in excess of sixty million SBCs built...

And everyone wants a 350" 4-bolt. We're scrapping 262", 265", 267", 283", 305", 307", 327"s every day. We do hang onto most marine, 350" and 400" cores. The calls we can't fill are the nutso restorers who want a specific month date coded heads, block, intake. "Yeah, right, gotcher complete '64 Chevy II core on the shelf."

[Newold1]

Bill says over 60 million laying around! Seeme like we could spare a million or two for you old "dinosaurs" Just kidding! Just keep swimming!6

[DaveMcLain]

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.

Good engine but also the most over rated engine design EVER!

[Newold1]

Not as underrated as that poor excuse for an engine of that Cadillac small V-8 these poor guys in Australia are trying to make work!

[Ratu]

We are in New Zealand presently. Been in Oz (excellent place, really is the Lucky Country) but come over to here for now.

WRT Cadillac's little V-8.
It is low weight and small size- smaller than the LS and it feels lighter than that one. I noticed this from how easy it was to move around Fred's shop. For a bit of fun I suggested his lads should fit it in the front of an old Holden Camira parked outside (a Camira is about the size of a Mazda 323 sedan). Now Fred has phoned up all excited. He reckons it could actually be fit in there as it is short enough. Wow! Now there's a thought- a front wheel drive with a V-8 up front. It wouldn't need to make much power or torque for that application really. I mean, 300hp is a real handful in a front drive car. Even 250hp, say, is exciting in one of those.

Anyway, I'm going in to remove the heads off it later. It'll be interesting to see what is inside there.

Any-one know how much extra capacity can be got out of one of these things?

[Krooser]

When I was in the auto sales biz we always 'power braked' those Caddy's to see if they had a main bearing knock before taking one in trade... most did.

[justahoby]

Could care less if I was in Zimbabwe and needed a car.. That POS caddy engine , as stated is a POS. I would play with something Japanese before messing with such a POS. JMO.

Scrap it for beer money?

[Krooser]

Don't those Caddy engines have the head bolts running outside the block?

[Ratu]

Krooser

Yes. You are right. They certainly have.

Ratu

[pdq67]

Are these the little engines that had the starter in the V under the intake manifold?

Might consider the old BOP 215" all aluminum V-8 that GM sold to Rover years ago.

A big man can pack one off, they are that light.

Two head designs here, the Buick and the Olds! Head-bolt patterns differ..

Heck, B&S it out to about 300"s or so and go.

I had one of each years ago, but in moves, they got left behind.

David Ray, (aka, Ignitionman), knows a bunch about them if not mistaken....

pdq67

PS., I have seen Fiero's with North Star V-8's in them as well as the one-off 454 BBC!

There was a place in KCMO that did conversions years ago, but I don't know if they are still around or not??

[MileHighMan]

Don't those Caddy engines have the head bolts running outside the block?

The 4100s that I built also had wet cylinder liners that were easily removed once the heads and pan were off....They would leak coolant externally at the head gasket because the block was warped across the remaining deck surface and also at the fine o-ring used at the base of the cylinder liner....Our cheap solution was to use silicone around the outer surface of the deck and replace the o-rings...The Main bearing and flat cam lobe issues were also attributed to these internal leaks..Once I leaned how to fix them..,I always thought it was a decent little engine.....Not for performance though...Dan.

[Newold1]

Sometimes when I read about abortion engines like these and I realize some off the great new engines that have come out of GM engineering today and in the recent times. I wonder what in the hell were these GM Powertrain engineers were smoking when they designed and released disasters like these and actually put them in vehicles and sold cars so equipped! The actual thought DUFUS & FRAUD comes to mind!

[The Dark Side of Will]

We are in New Zealand presently. Been in Oz (excellent place, really is the Lucky Country) but come over to here for now.

WRT Cadillac's little V-8.
It is low weight and small size- smaller than the LS and it feels lighter than that one. I noticed this from how easy it was to move around Fred's shop. For a bit of fun I suggested his lads should fit it in the front of an old Holden Camira parked outside (a Camira is about the size of a Mazda 323 sedan). Now Fred has phoned up all excited. He reckons it could actually be fit in there as it is short enough. Wow! Now there's a thought- a front wheel drive with a V-8 up front. It wouldn't need to make much power or torque for that application really. I mean, 300hp is a real handful in a front drive car. Even 250hp, say, is exciting in one of those.

Anyway, I'm going in to remove the heads off it later. It'll be interesting to see what is inside there.

Any-one know how much extra capacity can be got out of one of these things?

https://johns49performance.com/

The Fiero community has used Caddy Northstar pistons to bore the engine out to 5.0 liters, but the best build is only going to hit about 250 HP-280HP /350 TQ because the heads are so terrible.

Here's the most complete naturally performance build I've ever seen, with mid-200's results. Other people claim they've made more, but none of them show up with dynoe sheets. http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Arch ... 61613.html

And this guy added a blower to a stock engine, but didn't quite post results: http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/127611.html