Caddy Engines??.

This a admitted newbie question.........well sort of.Admins/Mods,because there isn't a section for Caddy engines is why it is here.

Soooooo-here it is.For years guys with hot rods used Caddy engines.Big cubic inch Caddy engines that is.Then it seemed they fell out of favor.Again there was a raise of swaps of those engines in Chevy cars/trucks.Once again it seems they fell out of favor.:HMMM::HMMM:

With the hot rods you guys build,(still being the newbie here)I haven't seen a rod with a Caddy here.

Question is why??.I get a sense that parts for them is very expensive.But what is the history to current day and why do I not see more of them??.With a chart that was recently posted as to size,they are smaller compared to a BBC short of the height being higher and they being 1" wider.

But I do remember seeing roadsters powered by them.

What is their down side??.I know the 500'ers are torque monster.I would seem it would cost less to have one of them than build the same with a BBC.

Please my curiosity is killing me here and any and all input is surely welcome.

The big Caddy's build a ton of torque! There's been a couple projects on here with the big 500 incher!!! There are some good parts out for them, but with the big inches they don't really need a lot of aftermarket stuff. Doubt there's much around for used performance Caddy parts. Also Pat McCarthy has had a number of cams reground, probably the company would do a Caddy cam, too. I've had visions of one stuffed in an F-100 pickup, but being a Ford guy I seem to always stuff a BBF in all my stuff!!!! I'd say if you could find a decent engine and trans the price would be ok because of the low demand for the engines. Whatcha got on yer mind to put the beast in????

Thanks Dave for the reply.For now I am looking for pro and cons.I have never owned one and want to hear about them.

I thought given the Hot Rods here I would have seen more here.You know-the retro rod kind of thing.

Torque is king for the street too.

Maybe Pat has built one or two and will chime in.

Again,anyone's input is surely welcome.

Here's a Lux motor in an El Camino
http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...light=Cadillac
CanadianAl put a 500 in his T-bucket
http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...light=Cadillac

Gary, several years ago, I was toying around with the idea of using an Eldorado or Toronado transaxle complete in the rear of a small pickup truck. If a guy had an S10 or Plymouth Arrow or Dodge D50 or Ford Courier or small Toyota or whatever, with a roached motor/trans.....
Remove the bed. Whack the frame off behind the cab, leaving stubs to weld to.

Cut the Eldorado/Toronado frame off at the firewall. Remove all sheetmetal. Leave radiator in place. Remove steering box and drag link. Fabricate receptacles for tie rod ends at frame, so toe-in/toe-out could be adjusted. Place rear wheels so that stock wheelbase of the truck would be maintained and tires/wheels would look right in the wheelwells of the bed. Weld Cad/Olds frame stubs to truck frame stubs. Rear track will be much wider than stock truck track, so split the bed down the middle and add material to widen the bed and cover the tires properly. Now, the bed will be wider than the rear of the truck cab. Cut air intakes into the front of the bed and duct the air into the Cad/Olds radiator. Everything stock. Stock radiator, stock shroud, stock fan, stock fan clutch, stock water pump. Cover bed with tonneau cover so no nosey hot rodders can see what powers "that little black truck that goes like stink". Use expanded metal to fabricate a rear gate. This is where the air from the radiator will exit.

Honestly-I don't know if I am violating any forum rules with this link.....so if I am please PM me and delete it.

From a Hot Rod article:

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/e..._v8/index.html

Seems to be a good read.

Good read, but I didn't see the cost addressed unless I just missed it. Looks to me like a lot of Shekels to build it. Did you see the 505 Chevy budget motor I posted on here. Wallet friendly for the power.

Something I always wondered about... Using the turbo425 transmission from a big Eldorado or Toranado with a 500 Caddy or 455 Olds in the back of a Kelmark GT kit.

"......Something I always wondered about... Using the turbo425 transmission from a big Eldorado or Toranado with a 500 Caddy or 455 Olds in the back of a Kelmark GT kit....."

I seem to recall Hot Rod Magazine did a wrtie up on a 455 Kelmark, as I rememeber it was kind of a monster.

In certain ways you can draw a lot of similarities between the big Caddy engines and the early Chrysler Hemi’s. Almost every Hot Rodder has heard of them, there is a fair amount of misinformation about both, you don’t necessarily come across a lot of them anymore, even if the initial cost of the engine is low they are an expensive engines to build. Even with only a few companies supporting either engine there really is a pretty fair amount of good aftermarket performance equipment out there to build the engine to suit a particular application if you know where to look.

I suspect the main reasons you don’t see more of them used is the cost to build the engine and that putting one of these in something is a bit more of a challenge. These engines are wide and tall and specific swap kits are not readily available so putting them in certain projects can take a fair amount of fabrication skills and experience (but that is true with a lot of swaps).

Having gotten into these engines a while back I am aware of several ongoing caddy swap projects plus I've read of many completed cars (putting turbos on these seems to be coming quite popular). They are being built, you just don't hear as much about them.

I'm running a 500 with a th400 in my streeter Henry J project. Doc Fromoder from
http://www.webrodder.com/ has lots of stuff on them. Even wrote a pretty good book on just that subject

I admit it,it is one more of "those glossy paged builds" in the link that most of us likely couldn't afford,but AMG-over 600lbs of torque at 2900 RPM.Now that would be a wide eyed ride!!!.:eek::eek:

Shoot 1gary; The 70, 501 caddy motor puts out 550 foot pounds of torque @ 2800 and 400HP stock. So it would not be hard to get 600 or more foot pounds of torque out of it.
Plus them old caddy blocks have alot of nickel in the blocks and they last for ever.
Check out this site for caddy engines.
Check out the MTS performance builds.
http://www.500cid.com/Home.htm
Kurt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vara4

Shoot 1gary; The 70, 501 caddy motor puts out 550 foot pounds of torque @ 2800 and 400HP stock. So it would not be hard to get 600 or more foot pounds of torque out of it.
Plus them old caddy blocks have alot of nickel in the blocks and they last for ever.
Check out this site for caddy engines.
Check out the MTS performance builds.
http://www.500cid.com/Home.htm
Kurt

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Thanks for the info.

Guys please keep the input coming................

my 16 year old recently purchased a 500 caddy machined block. he got it for $75.00. he then brought the matching heads for $125.00. he wants to do a mild build and drop it into my monte. he has gotten a job at subway to pay for the build but i am thinking that the monte will be setting idle for a very long time before he can get all the money together. right now he and i have purchased a 88 z28 and are putting my 350/350 in it out of the monte.

Ok Guys check this out. Talk about a rocket!

http://www.enercalc.com/porsche/

I was considering a Cadillac 500 for my Studebaker, but with my narrowed Nova Subframe I would have had to do a lot more cutting than I wanted too. The LS1 was a great alternative.

Pat

As Tech indicated, building a Cadillac 500 is gonna cost some money even if you go stock. Just for purposes of comparison, I bought a master engine rebuild kit from Northern Auto Parts. It cost me just under $860. The cost of a similar kit for a 350? Around $190 and the Chevy came with an oil pump which the Cad didn't.

jayp suggested Doc Frohmader's book "Big Inch Cadillac" and I definitely agree with him. It's good stuff.

There's some good reading at:

http//www.sigetyracing.com/sigetyracing_007.htm

I hope that link works.

The engines are out there and they can be had very reasonably. In fact, I was given a '76 Sedan De Ville free. The people wanted the piece of ah ... wreckage off of their property. You may get the idea that it wasn't exactly a cream puff but I got the engine and a TH400 transmission just for hauling it off, then the recycle place gave me $90 for what was left.

That said, that was the ONLY thing about the project that wasn't expensive.

I have it in my head that big block Chev headers can be modified for use on the Cadillac heads by using new flanges and reshaping the Chevy tubes to match the Cadillac ports. Maybe that came from Frohmader's book. I'm not sure.

Good luck


Jim

Well, it looks like that link didn't take us anywhere.

Tell you what, if you have a fax machine at your disposal shoot me a private message with the number and I'll send you a copy of the article when I get home.

Jim

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike P

"......Something I always wondered about... Using the turbo425 transmission from a big Eldorado or Toranado with a 500 Caddy or 455 Olds in the back of a Kelmark GT kit....."

I seem to recall Hot Rod Magazine did a wrtie up on a 455 Kelmark, as I rememeber it was kind of a monster.

In certain ways you can draw a lot of similarities between the big Caddy engines and the early Chrysler Hemi’s. Almost every Hot Rodder has heard of them, there is a fair amount of misinformation about both, you don’t necessarily come across a lot of them anymore, even if the initial cost of the engine is low they are an expensive engines to build. Even with only a few companies supporting either engine there really is a pretty fair amount of good aftermarket performance equipment out there to build the engine to suit a particular application if you know where to look.

I suspect the main reasons you don’t see more of them used is the cost to build the engine and that putting one of these in something is a bit more of a challenge. These engines are wide and tall and specific swap kits are not readily available so putting them in certain projects can take a fair amount of fabrication skills and experience (but that is true with a lot of swaps).

Having gotten into these engines a while back I am aware of several ongoing caddy swap projects plus I've read of many completed cars (putting turbos on these seems to be coming quite popular). They are being built, you just don't hear as much about them.

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Mike,

I'm kind of lost here.Tech gave this link to a Caddy build you did and I read about 5 pages.It ended there(without finishing) and maybe there is another link I am missing.Here is the link:

http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...light=Cadillac

What happened to this build??.:confused::confused:

It's still under construction, between a computer crash and some long frustrating days at work plus a change in schedules (we used to work 9 hour days with every other Friday off and are now working 5 eight hour days every week (even though I’m still putting in closer to 10 hour days)) work on the El Camino slowed down quite a bit. I’m still plugging away and will probably post an update this weekend when I finish up a few little things.

I’m pretty much down to getting some new fuel lines run, mocking up the AC, getting the cooling system done and then it will be take it all apart for body work and rebuilding the engine and trans.

I don't see all the cost that some of these guys are saying the caddy motor cost.
It's gonna cost you alot more to take a small block and try to get the Torque and HP that you can get from that caddy motor. I've got a machine shop down here that will rebuild a stock caddy motor for about $1500. I've got a small block with almost $10,000
in it and it has almost the same torque as the caddy. The only reason I did the small block is because the caddy motor would not fit in the car. If it would have fit, it would be in there.
Plus it's more dependable then the full race small block.
Kurt

"Google" "Cadillac 500" and start reading - it'll keep you busy for a while. They are a good engine; in stock form they will outpull just about any other "stock" engine out there, and "rodded, well, there was/is a guy who is/was campaigning a basically stock bodied Coupe de Ville with a built 500 that was running sub 10 quarters; that's a near 5000 pound car, and he was getting air under the front wheels. They can be made to rock and roll if you want to spend the money, but there are only a few regular production speed/power items available, and they are not cheap. Ford 460 intakes can be fit with adapter plates, and headers can be fabbed from scratch, or modified from, I think, big block Chevy pieces. Valve train improvements and adjustable rocker arms are available, and head porting is helpful. But in stock form, they are a very strong and long lived engine. MTS is probably the most "up on Caddy" site out there, as they make and sell Caddy performance stuff.

Well if 500 isn't enough..........how about 540??.

http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/w...e_500_Cadillac

I am running a 472 caddy comp cam stock heads vortec springs alum intake 355 rear gears 2850 lb car,400 tranny 2000 stall cheap rebuild on it rings and bearings runs 12.5s in the 1/4 all day leaving it in drive . They are a tough big torque engine as long as you dont over rev them 5000 rpm is the max you should spin them and want them to last

Quote:

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Originally Posted by canadianal

I am running a 472 caddy comp cam stock heads vortec springs alum intake 355 rear gears 2850 lb car,400 tranny 2000 stall cheap rebuild on it rings and bearings runs 12.5s in the 1/4 all day leaving it in drive . They are a tough big torque engine as long as you dont over rev them 5000 rpm is the max you should spin them and want them to last

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I searched high and low for your build thread and came up empty.Could you please leave a link to it??.

Thanks,

Gary

thanks for the link gary. told charlie and i a few things we did not know about the 500 caddy.

The 472/500 is just about the most under rated engine out there i reckon, stock give enough power for most but don't rev em.
you can get real horsepower from them if you use the right parts and it won't break the bank either.

talk to Marty at MTS

sorry gary dont really have a build thread basicly started with a stock 472 and went from there ,when i rebuilt it i put in the cam(biggest comp cam in the book) still really mild and intake , rocker arms are a problem i am using a buick type rail syst i got on line, used chev small block springs in the heads , I have ordered the new heads and top valvetrain from MTS and am waiting as they are not a off the shelf unit,they are not cheap. All the rest of the engine is stock rebuilt it myself in my garage. without slicks the car is traction impaired .
the 355 gears are at the high end of what i would think would be streetable and should probalbly have 3.20s as i dont think it would slow it down. 60 ft times are in the mid 1.70s right now

1gary -

Here's another source you might look at:

http://www.cad500parts.com/


Jim

Just searching the net for interesting uses for a 500 CI Caddy motor and found this one. As techinspector1 suggested here is my version. Complete Caddy front end was stiched to the S-10 frame. Added coilover shocks and attached rod ends to frame for alignment. Front end has the radiator with fans,Attachment 52165Attachment 52166Attachment 52167Attachment 52168Attachment 52169 2" dropped spindels and 300 lbs of lead to make it driveable. without that it was a beast. Grafted 2 beds together, added fender flairs, teak bed liner and it drives like a factory ride.

If anyone is interested it is for sale. Contact me onebadcad2aol.com