Cadillac 500 Build for my 1984 Regal (LOTS OF PIX)

[online170]

All done.

 

[online170]

Here it is running.
http://youtu.be/Z7BtopOEwcI


Hopefully time slips in a few weeks.


[youtube]Z7BtopOEwcI[/youtube]

 

[DRIVEN]

Updates?

 

[online170]

Its winter lol.

It put up a fight on a few other items, which i couldnt resolve in time. Ive got starter, càrb and oil leak issues. I did take it out for a spin (basically its maiden voyage) before it went into storage. Its a pretty exciting drive. Sure creeps up on that rev limiter quickly (5500rpm).

Will have to wait till the salt/snow is gone.

 

[olds307 and 403]

Awesome build! Great to see a fellow Canadian go something other than the sbc route. Just curious what duration does that roller cam have? It must be huge to idle like that in a 500. What rear gears are in the 9"?

 

[online170]

Awesome build! Great to see a fellow Canadian go something other than the sbc route. Just curious what duration does that roller cam have? It must be huge to idle like that in a 500. What rear gears are in the 9"?

Thanks. Its actually just a Hyrdaulic Flat Tappet. If memory serves me right its a 245* @ 050. About .580 lift with my rockers.

The last owner told me its 3.41 but I havent verified that yet. I didnt drive the car alot since owning it.

Heres a good sound sound bite of the cam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s94fjqNSsw4

 

[online170]

Updates?

Driven;

Since you asked. Were I stopped this thread last, I had a few more issures with oil leaks and carb running rich that i didnt bother posting. To be honest I had run out of steam, and didnt feel like dealing with even the basic tuning stuff. So i just put it away for the winter, and will deal with it this spring.

The short list of TO DO's;
1) Rebuild Carb and test it on an engine prior to spring.
2) Install Cork Valve Cover Gaskets
3) Install new starter, and possibly new flexplate.
4) Possibly looking at getting a Vacuum Pump. GZ motorsports is looking good.

If you look at the video on the previous page, you will notice the car blows out two giant black plumes of pig rich smoke when revving. This is the carburetor issue. Brand new out of the box Demon 850 (BG model). It ran "fine" but very rich on the stand during break in. Once installed in the car, and the idle set correctly with the transfer slots correct, i could not get it to idle. The boosters were pouring fuel in like it was at WOT, and the engine would just flood out. The immediate response from everyone was FUEL PRESSURE! For as long as I have been into cars, I thought 7psi was the hot ticket, even though the performance car Carter pumps only put out abut 3.5psi. I measured 6psi in my system at 2 different places with 2 gauges. System is a Holley Black electric pump, with aeromotive regulator (Return Style), with 1/2" fuel lines everywhere. I also tried taking the carb apart and cleaning out the passages with compressed air, to no avail. Plan is to rebuild the carb, test it on my corvette or a buddy's Olds 455, and if it works try it on my car. If it still floods, then I'll crank down the fueel pressure till it stops.

For the moment I stuck the old Edelbrock 650 back on. Its not enough carb.


Also after the stopped, I had numerous oil leaks. Basicaly what I fixed in the last page didnt work. Its like the rear oil pan gasket keeps pushing out because of the oil pan. Good news is, if the car is warmed up, the leak will stop after a while. I also had the intake manifold leaking, and dripping/burning on the headers. My RTV bead had pushed out. So I had to reseal it. This time i used RIGHT STUFF, and holy crap! I cant beleive I never tried this stuff before. It works great.

I also had the valve cover gaskets pop out. So I glued with RTV one side to the block. They held for a bit, but pushed out after a while on my maiden voyage. Going to switch these out for cork. The cork weeps a bit, but I like that they "swell" when oil soaked, which helps to reseal them after heat cycles. Finally all of my Oil PSI fittings had to be resealed. Which was a harder task than it sounds.

The starter and flexplate issue has been a challenge from day 1.

My Powermaster 9600 starter which was supposed to fit perfect right out of the box had awful clearance, and the instructions were garbage.

Most starters you need to shim, but this one was too far from the ring gear. I ended up having to mill off .075" from the mounting block (opposite of shimming) to get proper clearance. It seemed to do the trick. But I had chewed up my SFI flexplate pretty good by this point.

It worked for a while, but now the starter wont engage. The new process for starting the car starts with crawling underneath to enagage the starter and flexplate by hand lol. I have a new starter and flexplate, just need to put them in. This starter is OK, but I dont want to deal with it not working again, so its goin on the shelf for a while.

See video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFpSg-cJUys
[youtube]kFpSg-cJUys[/youtube]




Other than that, like I said, its in storage for now. The maiden voyage drive was amazing. it would roast the tires in any gear at any speed. Its a bit mind boggling how quickly this thing revs! Love it.


Here is a pic of the car immediately after its maiden voyage.

 

[online170]

And some more boring videos;

Here is an example of the fast revving. The blip at 10 seconds is 5000rpm on the tach. This is where the rev limiter is set.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOfDuGhPo7Q
[youtube]yOfDuGhPo7Q[/youtube]


Here is a boring drive up a hill, where I was trying to get some confidence in the car. The wierd revs and throttling is because of my A/F Ratio gauge reading. Notice it is very lean throughout this entire vid. This is with the Edelbrock 650. I was throttling the car everywhere to see how it was behaving with different driving conditions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7wyUYsfLKQ
[youtube]V7wyUYsfLKQ[/youtube]


And last one of the car idling with the edelbrock 650 on its way to storage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owrd63I8a6Y
[youtube]owrd63I8a6Y[/youtube]

 

[online170]

Some updates coming, stay tuned.

 

[online170]

Wow, so Feb 2014 is the last time i posted an update. Alot has happened since then, but mostly i started school later that year, so time to do car stuff has been just about nill.

The short and sweet of it is that essentially 3 things were holding me back, and it took an extremely long time to figure out their fixes.

#1) i had a starter issue.
#2) Vacuum leak and Carburetor issue
#3) Damage from storage.

And finally just being a little burned out with the brand new engine not cooperating with me.

Starting from the top, i started to narrow down the issues and attack them one by one, whenever i had free time. The fix would take a couple of years as i now know.

The starter i had purchased, which was supposed to work right out of the box, was too far away from the flex plate. Almost 1/4". Normally you shim to get it closer, but mine was too far the other way. I had to mill the starter mounting block down to get it close to meshing with the flexplate ring gear teeth. Immediately after making it fit and using it a handful of times, it broke and would just freespin, due to some damage from backfire. Can be seen here;

After not being able to figure our what was happening or how to fix it after trying many things, i first gave up and decided to spend the money on a summit starter, that someone had definitely made work on a cadillac, and this happened (see pic). Exactly the same distance issue as before with the powermaster, only worse, as in farther away from meshing than before.


So i sold that summit starter, and after way too long, i contacted powermaster, and they gave me a list of likely causes. A small rebuilt kit $13 to start was part of the solution. The issue was caused by this little washer on the right, that is included in the kit.




Its not supposed to be broached like that. It is responsible for pushing the starter gear out. Since then, powermaster has revised their design. So if you have a 9600 and this happens to you, the rebuild kit eliminates the washer completely. A welcome change!
I replaced the washer, and tried it out and it worked great! Cant believe i had so much trouble! The clearance had already been machined into it. Im not sure what would cause this clearance issue, but it was a problem that made zero sense to me.