Cadi 500 in a T-bucket

[one finger john]

There's plenty of custom made pans for this motor.....another note-able motor thats often overlooked is the motor put into the 'checker' cabs or 'Yellow' cabs....about 500 cubes....

Could you explain the above. tnx John

 

[Ted Brown]

I'm listening Ted as I'm sure many others are too about being too quick to get the paint on the frame. This only makes sense now that you have pointed it out, but who would of thunk it?? I guess when you build a car from scratch it is a different deal than if you just hopped up some detroit iron.

Hopping up/custom stock factory Iron is what happens 99% of the time... It is way cheaper and quicker to do a rod using a stock car from the start... One does not have to re-engineer the whole car...

 

[deckofficer]

Ted,

Are you having a hard time sleeping?

Bob

 

[Screaming Metal]

Could you explain the above. tnx John

I was talking to a fella that has a bunch of those old cars. He told me there was a option of the stretch bus design that was used for limo co's and airports....the ones that had 6 doors on each side....and it had the 500 cu. in motor in it, he said he believed was the same motor that came in the Hearse. They were rear wheel drive. These on the Hearse had the normalized oil pans....
But, on the pan issues....I ran across a guy that drags the rear wheel drive caddys....and he had several custom made pans....Moroso used to make kits for the folks that wanted to rebuild their own pans years back. Its not that hard, if you wanna run that motor.

http://www.cad500parts.com/specials.htm

 

[Corley]

".....another note-able motor thats often overlooked is the motor put into the 'checker' cabs or 'Yellow' cabs....about 500 cubes...."

Screamming metal, What engine would that be? I've only heard of Checker using old Studebaker flat sixes, dodge flat sixes, and at the very end of production Chevy 327s. Every Checker I've been in was truly a piece of gutless crap...

 

[Screaming Metal]

Corley, The fella told me 500 cu.in....it got my attention after he'd already rambled on for about 20 minutes or so....I didn't catch all the details. I remember he said they were in the biggest ones....like the ones that'd go to pick up the football team at the airport. He told me they had a 1 ton or 2 ton carrying capacity....had to have the big motor to pull all that weight.

Here's a few links for Caddys....Check out that last link....a 'Purty' Caddy motor that'd look good in a bucket. 500 horses at 4000rpm....man....thats wicked!


http://www.flatlanderracing.com/hpkits-buickcad.html
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/engine/hrdp_0804_541_big_block_cadillac_v8/index.html
http://www.roadsters.com/eb/
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/...ce_parts_for_cadillac_v8_big_block/index.html

 

[deckofficer]

Corley, The fella told me 500 cu.in....it got my attention after he'd already rambled on for about 20 minutes or so....I didn't catch all the details. I remember he said they were in the biggest ones....like the ones that'd go to pick up the football team at the airport. He told me they had a 1 ton or 2 ton carrying capacity....had to have the big motor to pull all that weight.

Here's a few links for Caddys....Check out that last link....a 'Purty' Caddy motor that'd look good in a bucket. 500 horses at 4000rpm....man....thats wicked!


http://www.flatlanderracing.com/hpkits-buickcad.html
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/engine/hrdp_0804_541_big_block_cadillac_v8/index.html
http://www.roadsters.com/eb/
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/...ce_parts_for_cadillac_v8_big_block/index.html

782 hp @ 6000 is rather impressive also.

Bob

 

[Ted Brown]

I can hardly believe the amount of HP that the new all Alum. SBC Chevy engines are making... wow! way more than 1 HP per CI like the old days, we thought that was pretty good.. hehe

 

[Screaming Metal]

I can hardly believe the amount of HP that the new all Alum. SBC Chevy engines are making... wow! way more than 1 HP per CI like the old days, we thought that was pretty good.. hehe

Yea Ted, I remember back in the days when we used to have to go rent the track for a couple of days and then figure out where the horses were locked up at! Ha!
Now, with all the computer aids....gets ya close enough....then you go to the dyno cell, then its to the track....
Gotta love the old days, 'Run what ya brung and wring it out as ya go!'

The HorsePower Races, as I used to call them, remember all the factory teams and all the wild stuff they came out with?

I remember the Chevy boys or the Ford boys came up with the sohc 427 or 428, (their solution to the Hemi domination at the time!)....the sanctioning bodys jumped in with both feet and said they couldn't do that! Those were some crazy times....

 

[Screaming Metal]

Another thing nice about the caddy motors.....you can usually go to the boneyard and pick up a rebuildable motor for about 250-300 bucks. Thats pretty good. Get a complete car from the salvage yard for a little more.

Its a darn shame, I've seen a trend lately....alot of the old cars have gone to recyclers....shame. I'd rather fix up a older car and drive it than I would get a overpriced chuck of plastic on 4 wheels....lasts longer, burns cleaner than the garbage out there now, plus you can get better gas milage to boot!

 

[CrAlt]

Well my main concern as far as i can tell is going to be cooling.. The rad in this cadi is MASSIVE and a T-buck rad looks undersized for even a small block.. I plan on driving this car so this may be a game ender for this free cadi engine :-/

 

[Ted Brown]

As far as heat goes, if the rad will hold a shop towel up at an idle, it should keep your engine cool enough because it is not working as hard and you should be able to run a lot more lead in the timing system, which means running cooler also... I could be wrong, but..

 

[Screaming Metal]

Well, like Ted said....your only pushing about 1/6th the weight of a dressed out car....so I imagine if you have a 3 row smallblock radiator....it'd probably be enough....in a T, you'd never even put a strain on that motor.... :thumb:

 

[Differen T]

'71 FWD caddy 500? Didn't know there was such an animal out there.

IF the Caddy 500 is in a RWD boat, you can pull the engine, trans, driveshaft and rear (the rear is W-I-D-E though).

There are a few bucketheads that have used the Caddy 500 and they LOVE it because of the stump pulling torque of the engine.

It doesn't like to go over something like 5000 rpm, but when you have gobs of torque who really cares about high rpm anyway?

There are a couple of EXCELLENT Cad 500 forums out there and they can tell you everything you need to know about that engine.

I still want one, just haven't found the 500 yet. Two 425s and one 472, but no 500 yet. YET.

(edit)
It seems that the Eldorado was FWD... I had no idea. Learn something new everyday.

FYI The only difference between 472 and a 500 is the stroke, same block, different crank and pistons

Al

 

[Blacksmith54]

I have used the 500 CID engine in custom cars as the customers love the fact it had a Caddy engine in it I would have preferred a more durable engine but what the customer want is want they get most of the time. My oldest daughter loves Caddy's and has has three of them and has killed all of them because when you over heat one of them they loose prime on the oil pump and them no matter how good the bottom end is NO OIL equals NO MOTOR. The main Achilles Heel is the cooling system if it is not big enough it will over heat. Also GM went to the cross flow radiator on Cad's because if they start to steam up it will still flow and the steam will condense and go back to doing it's job. I have built more cars for my customers using SBC or BBC than anything else for myself I prefer Ford 460's (I have about eight of them, most I picked up off Craigslist) In the T-bucket I am still collecting parts for I have several engine choices two of them are Ford 460's a Maserati 4.2L and a 4.9L and a 440 with 727 from a 72 Imperial and a Cad 500 and the reason the Cad engine is listed last is it is last on my list of choices.

 

[one finger john]

Caddys are an interesting engine group. Produced in both the 472 version and the 500 version, I believe that their main problems are the oiling system and the fact that the decks are weak (relatively). Throw in the fact that the cam cores are smaller than expected (small cam cores equal small lobes that are not receptive to todays cam profiles (or rather, the small cores/lobes were never designed for the lift/duration of todays cam designs wasn't even thought of at the time.) with limited (expensive) roller profiles and you have a lot of unrealized potential. There are limited after market parts, only two manufacturers for aluminum heads and pay as you go one crank at a time forged cranks. And did I mention 4 head bolts per cylinder, with that relatively weak deck. Cylinder head sealing is a problem under boost or on a 250 or more hit of nitrous. You are looking at 5,000.00 to 7,000.00 for a good reliable 600 to 700 hp. Same as a BBchev. But then there is that big CADILLAC engraved on the valve cover and all is forgiven. Fix the oiling issues and your half way there.

John

 

[one finger john]

Caddys are an interesting engine group. Produced in both the 472 version and the 500 version, I believe that their main problems are the oiling system and the fact that the decks are weak (relatively). Throw in the fact that the cam cores are smaller than expected (small cam cores equal small lobes that are not receptive to todays cam profiles (or rather, the small cores/lobes were never designed for the lift/duration of todays cam designs wasn't even thought of at the time.) with limited (expensive) roller profiles and you have a lot of unrealized potential. There are limited after market parts, only two manufacturers for aluminum heads and pay as you go one crank at a time forged cranks. And did I mention 4 head bolts per cylinder, with that relatively weak deck. Cylinder head sealing is a problem under boost or on a 250 or more hit of nitrous. You are looking at 5,000.00 to 7,000.00 for a good reliable 600 to 700 hp. Same as a BBchev. But then there is that big CADILLAC engraved on the valve cover and all is forgiven. Fix the oiling issues and your half way there.

John