10,000 RPM on most hated engine

And yes, now I am looking to buy a V8 Cadillac STS again  

Calvin has a knack for breathing life into obscure, hated engines. I'll admit, I've been looking at Northstars and 4200s because of him.

That's not a PRV V6.

I never knew Northstars were that hated, I have seen a few swapped into fieros do to the 60 degree v6 bellhousing being usable.  I thought they shared alot of parts with the smaller aurora v8 that was used as a base for indy car engines for a period of time.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

That's not a PRV V6.

I came here hoping for that abomination.

In reply to Caperix :

It's a YouTube video title. Of course it's hyperbole. I'm not sure the Northstar even qualifies as the most hated Cadillac engine. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

To be fair to the title, I don't think those other Cadillac engines were capable of 10,000 RPM. Well, more than once, anyway.

The Northstar was a really good piece of E36 M3.  

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to Caperix :

It's a YouTube video title. Of course it's hyperbole. I'm not sure the Northstar even qualifies as the most hated Cadillac engine. 

That title goes to it's predecessor, the HT4100

ShawnG said:

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to Caperix :

It's a YouTube video title. Of course it's hyperbole. I'm not sure the Northstar even qualifies as the most hated Cadillac engine. 

That title goes to it's predecessor, the HT4100

Have any of you guys ever driven the 4/6/8 engine?  Eek.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

Yes, because unlike most 4100s, they lasted long enough for me to be able to drive them.

I remember when the Northstar came out.  I was high school, and my autos teacher, a very staunch Ford enthusiast who pronounced GM "Generous Motors", said that there had only been 2 or 3 Northstar engine failures in the country.  Meanwhile when he was looking for dissection engines for class, the Caddy dealers generally had about 50 4.9s behind the building at any time.  Cadillac didn't want them back for analysis or anything.  They'd corrode the block away from the wet cylinder liners or have oil pressure issues.  Also, the outer row of head bolts were visible from the outside of the engine, so the bolts and threads could corrode.  

I think people ragging on the Northstar is a sign at just how good engines have come since the early 90s, because for the time they were one of the best engines on the market.  Chevy and Ford still made crappy all iron engines that could barely meet emissions standards, BMW had some nice V8s as long as you ignored that North American gasoline was dissolving the cylinder wall coatings, Rover had a nice V8 except for how they made them cheaper by pressing in the iron cylinders instead of casting the aluminum blocks around them...

Are we arguing about northstars and not the insane amount of work it must have taken to make that adapter. That is a level of crazy that I cannot even fathom at a garage level. 

wearymicrobe said:

Are we arguing about northstars and not the insane amount of work it must have taken to make that adapter. That is a level of crazy that I cannot even fathom at a garage level. 

I just added the most hated to the title here in jest.

Mostly just wanted to highlight the video and Calvin's awesome work and good YouTube channel. 

Streetwiseguy said:

ShawnG said:

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to Caperix :

It's a YouTube video title. Of course it's hyperbole. I'm not sure the Northstar even qualifies as the most hated Cadillac engine. 

That title goes to it's predecessor, the HT4100

Have any of you guys ever driven the 4/6/8 engine?  Eek.

Yes . They sucked. My sister was looking at a new Caddy when they first came out and the salesman refused to sell her one. Told her he would order her a car just like the one she was looking at but with a different engine. May have been because I was  working at the Oldsmobile dealership across the street and was friends with the Caddy parts manager.

Came in expecting VQ35, only because of hearing people complain about how terrible they sound

Calvin doing his best to hide this supercharger?

In reply to drock25too :

See, the thing about the Caddy 368 engine (the V8-6-4) was that it was the same engine family and same dimensionally as the Caddy 425 that preceded it... which was the same as the 472/500 that preceded it.

It's kind of a shame that there wasn't as much cross-manufacturer tech sharing and that fuel injection hadn't been as prevalent, because we are seeing variable displacement engine and small turbo engines today too, and small turbo engines seems to still be the winner just like back then when there was the Cadillac, and the Buick turbo sixes (which were carbureted).

Could you imagine if Caddy did a Rolls-Royce and slapped a turbo or two on the 368, maybe with a further decrease in bore for strength/smoothness, instead of doing the cylinder shutoff scheme?

OTOH maybe GM was just plain spitballing and Caddy was trying this new, more expensive cylinder deactivation tech while Buick was just hanging a turbo off the V6 like Olds did in the early 60s with the 215.