Better double check your math. Going by that chart....625-575=50lbs. you're looking at the weight of the wrong small block, Scott. SBB not SBC. 625 - 450 = 175lbs
The caddy swap would be only a good backyard swap. Where you just happen to have a good running caddy 500 engine, you and your buddies get board, after a few beers with barley enough tools you thrash all night to toss it into a light car. You then beat the piss out of it till dead and junk it all. If your gonna hafta spend any decent ammout of money over basic stuff needed or a buttload of time doing proper fab and wrench work I wouldn't do it.
400 Horse, 550 ft. lb. of torque, might be a little more, or a lot less depending on the year. That's stock. You can build the piss out of them if you want, AND you have a cool unique ride. Isn't that part of what we enjoy about the auto sports? Wouldn't we have a Chevelle, Impala, camaro or Mustang if we all wanted to have nice rigs that were fun to drive, easy to find parts for and blended in at a car show? The Caddy 500 is the highest torque production engine ever built. Period. That gives it a cool factor. The 472 is a close second, the 455 third. Not a lot of them in hot rods (although getting more common), that makes them cool. If you google cadillac 500 performance, there are so many people making parts for this engine, that you have a hard time finding information on stock performance, you don't have to have shadetree cobbled work to make a 500 transplant. You can use the same srings that would work for a small block chevy, no major mods needed here either. That leaves me with the question, why not if you like it? Oh, and I forgot to add you can buy a fresh rebuilt one pretty cheap. I can look through my links and find a guy in seattle that does them as cheap as you can buy a small block chevy. Your price may vary depending on how you want it built.
Have you ever seen a big Caddy ever outrun an Electra or Wildcat? I haven't. A '67 Wildcat will outrun any Caddy with just 430cui. It's not just peak figures but how fast the motor revs. Having said that, the Qjet off a '70 Caddy 500 is hard to beat.
they make a swap kit, 472-500 caddy into 78-87 a-g bodys. reagle, monte carlo,cutlass, malabu, el camino. low buck guys use a stock motor and a small nos system to run 11s cheap. This kit does not work on the f41 suspention (ss monte-carlo, 442,)
OK, that could help you a bit to compare: Engine Width / Length / Height / Oilsump / Starter / Weight Buick 350 28.5 / 30.5 / 28.5 / rear / right / 450 Buick 455 28 / 30 / 30 / middle / right / 600 Cadillac 500 28 / 30.5 / 28 / middle / right / 600 Chevy 350 26 / 28 / 27 / rear / right / 575 :bla: Chevy 454 28 / 30.5 / 29 / rear / right / 685 Olds 350 26 / 28 / 27.5 / rear / left / 560 Olds 455 26.5 / 31 / 29 / rear / left / 620 Pontiac 455 25.5 / 32 / 30 / rear / left / 640 That should mean, no sbb springs. But you can also see that you won´t have big advantages with the Caddy 500. And if you want to build the engine you put into your car, it makes no sense to build a caddy. That won´t make much more HP or torque than the Buick.
The big caddy was about the size of a school bus, the engine was built to be a street engine, not for performance. If it were built with performance in mind, say like a GS 455 was, I think you would see a lot better results, set up the tranny and rear end for more than a sweet ride for a luxury car, and it would be better yet, put it in a car that was say.... the size of a Skylark, and you could have a screamer. You can't compare the way that a stock 70 ElDorodo would do off the line with what it could do in the hands of some one who wants to hot rod it. There are so many performance mods out for the 500 and 472 now that you can build it however you would like with no problems. It's a good engine.
If a 6000 lbs Cad out runs your 4000lbs then you need to look at your motor. The 70 Eldorado is the 400/550 torque at 2800 motor and the only one of that spec. Now some tech; when putting a cad motor into another gm car there are things to consider, like like the pass head is the lead head so the driver side head is closer to the firewall and dose create some clearance issues but can be overcome,you can get header flanges and cut the flanges off a BBC spread the pipes and weld,you need to use the Eldorado oil pan and pickup(rear sump 6 qts)and the deville exhaust manifolds. You can get flywheels to run a 4 spd but the crank needs drilled for the pilot bushing. Been there done that. Cads are not a high RPM motor nor do they need be with the amount of torque they have. But they are fuel efficient. I have transplanted 8 BBBs into different rigd mostly pickups and have done two cad swaps one in a 75 Pont. ventura (apin but worth it ) and one into a 78 Chevy stepside pickup and this one was my truck. I put it in with a 2.73 posi ,TH400 and it averaged 22-24 miles per gallon and would fly past 140 MPH. Don't get me wrong as i like my BBBs but not evrybody started with BBBs and alternative power is not all bad (at least it's not a BBC lol)
Bob - You're right. I used the wrong numbers. I get partial credit though.....the 145lb. figure was still off, as you pointed out.:grin:
I get partial credit though.....the 145lb. figure was still off, as you pointed out.:grin: eh, i wouldn't take that list as gospel anyways. noone has ever been able to tell me if that's supposed to be a dry weight or what kind of accessories are installed or even if all of the blocks were configured in the same way. the guy who compiled it even goes out of his way to note that he got these weights from many different sources and even he doesn't know what criteria they were using. it's just someplace for us to start from. considering the quality of the data set, i consider 145lbs to be approx equal to 175lbs. but there's no way i'm going to let you get away with confusing a SBC with a SBB. :spank: :laugh:
The list I posted is out of the Hot Ror magazine. All engines with the same configuration. Weights are for complete engines from flexplate to water pump, pan to air cleaner. Measurements may vary a bit because of different intakes and exhaust manifolds available. weights are without alternator, A/C or PS pump.
The list I posted is out of the Hot Ror magazine. All engines with the same configuration. hot damn, that's what i've been looking for for years. have you got a link to something online or can you tell me what issue that list is in?
Haha, it´s out of hot rod Oct. 77. :beer But if you want I can make you a scan and mail it to you (PDF or JPEG). Send me a PM with your mail adress and I will send it on friday.
oct 77? dude, they don't even offer that back issue on line. :ball: you could post a jpeg to the thread. i'm not sure which i'd prefer. i hate adobe but i don't know if a pdf is supposed to be better for this or not.
Bob, here we go. Haha, 9 of 10 times when cleaning up, I think "cmon throw away the old car magazines, why do you keep them". Thats one of the moments where I know why I keep them :Brow: I scanned it two times. One in High quality if someone wants to get a good quality poster print to hang it up in the garage (like I did now :Brow: ) and a low quality version which should be good enough for a normal print. I hope so. The HiQ file is to big for the forum. So, if anyone wants it, you have to send me a PM with your mail adress. I hope you like it :TU:
