Well I did it! I finally was able to sell my POS 1997 Cadillac
Eldorado last night. It�s been sitting in my garage and/or driveway
for two months with a �For Sale� sign on it and advertised on
Craigslist. I had to practically give the dn car away to get rid
of it. My Eldo wasn�t always a toilet; at one time it was the
classiest, nicest ride I ever experienced until 91,449 miles when
the headbolts on the rear head pulled out of the block. From that
point it turned into a real stbox. It virtually fell apart
overnight! $42,886.00 pile of junk! I finally got tired of pouring
money into that monument to 1990s GM crap and cost cutting and
replaced it with the X300 VDP I recently bought. That Eldorado sat
in my driveway for two months leaking everything everywhere without
the least interest in it from anyone� Until last night. I dumped it
for pennies on the dollar. I was badly burned by GM�s cost cutting
on �90s Northstars � never again! BTW my bride of 32 years much
prefers the �Pace with Grace� of her VDP. When she�s happy I�m
happy�–
Roger’95
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In reply to a message from Roger’95 sent Mon 23 Aug 2010:
That Northstar engine should have been what saved GM,
instead, it’s engineered to fail. Unbelievably sad.
Actually, it’s their cost cutters that ruin some of the best
automotive engineering in the world. You’d think after so
many other cost cutting efforts that have cost GM billions
of dollars, they’d learn to listen to the engineers and not
the accountants.
Like you, my wife has the X300 and yep, when she’s happy
with the car, I’m happy!–
The original message included these comments:
the least interest in it from anyone� Until last night. I dumped it
for pennies on the dollar. I was badly burned by GM�s cost cutting
on �90s Northstars � never again! BTW my bride of 32 years much
prefers the �Pace with Grace� of her VDP. When she�s happy I�m
happy�
–
91 XJ6, 93 Sov, 97 Sov – Driveway’s crowded!
Tampa Fl, United States
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In reply to a message from Win sent Mon 23 Aug 2010:
The Northstar is a world class design. Porous castings of dubious
alloy, suspect headgaskets, headbolts with too short a threaded
shank with fine pitch threads and a cramped engine bay that trapped
some serious underhood heat created serious reliability problems
for that motor. I wouldn’t buy ANY pre-'03 Cadillac under any
circumstances. The threat of head bolt/block failure is just too
great.–
Roger’95
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MORTY: How would you feel if we sold the Cadillac?
JERRY: What? The Cadillac I bought for you?
MORTY: It’s too much car, Jerry.
JERRY: Aw, c’mon, you love that car. What about the Northstar system?
MORTY: I don’t think we even use it.----- Original Message ----
From: Roger’95 rlaferriere53@HoTMaiL.com
To: x300@jag-lovers.org
Sent: Mon, August 23, 2010 3:19:16 PM
Subject: Re: [x300] Finally! I got rid of it!
In reply to a message from Win sent Mon 23 Aug 2010:
The Northstar is a world class design. Porous castings of dubious
alloy, suspect headgaskets, headbolts with too short a threaded
shank with fine pitch threads and a cramped engine bay that trapped
some serious underhood heat created serious reliability problems
for that motor. I wouldn’t buy ANY pre-'03 Cadillac under any
circumstances. The threat of head bolt/block failure is just too
great.
In reply to a message from Roger’95 sent Mon 23 Aug 2010:
A very close friend had a late 90’s Northstar engine that he wanted
me to turbo charge for him. In addition to the lack of room under
the hood and the need to deal with the added heat from the two
turbo chargers, we had to do something about increasing the
clamping force of the head bolt system.
The design on paper was state of the art. The head bolts reached
all the way down to the main bearing webs, as such, the bores were
not distorted when the heads were torqued down. The unconventional
main bearing support reminded me of the crank girdles that I used
an high dollar race engines. And by the way these were 4.6 liter
engines that held 9 US Quarts of oil, isn�t that familiar. The
made approximately 300HP in stock trim.
Normally, all I would need to do to an engine like that would be to
replace the head bolts with custom made studs and glue them into
the block. The problem was the Northstar Blocks were cast in some
Southern American country and were so porous that it was imposable
to get any kind of threads to work, every bolt hole had to be Neli-
Coiled. Except the head bolts, that was not good enough for them,
the block was simply too porous and even the Heli-coils pulled
out�.I eventually installed a kit that GM provided, It replaces
the threads in the aluminum block with 3/4 inch diameter slugs of
steel that were set into counter bored holes where the threads were
originally. The steel slugs were glued and pined in place. It was
a pretty good well engineered system and worked quite well, but the
time and effort to install such a system was very expensive. In
addition the crank shaft was not up to the task of producing well
over 100HP per liter, and I had to have one custom machined from a
steel billet.
Other than the normal lack of attention to careful machine work �
typical for production engines � I had to re-machine every surface
in the engine. In the end, it turned out OK and made over 500HP,
which made the owner very happy. It’s that engine the made me
take a personal oath to never - ever hot rod an aluminum block
engine again. It ended up being a very fast Allante and was a very
attractive car with active suspension and all the other neat tricks
of the day… Eventually my Son bought it and he drove it for
several years before selling it.
The turbo chargers ended up not being a problem in the tight engine
compartment. I ended up installing them under and near the back of
the car, running the pressurized charge through a pair of air to
air inter coolers in the rear and then all the way back to the
front of the car. I had my doubts for a while, but carefully
insulating the exhaust, to preserve as much heat as possible,
worked pretty good.
Bottom line I agree with everything that’s been said about those
engines, and the bean counters that killed that engine and the
company. It will go out of production this year.
But I guess 20 years is a lot longer that I would have guessed it
was going to last. I heard they were going to make a 12 cylinder
version in 2011 but with the financial problems that company is
having they will end up with a V6 instead.
Pete–
SpeedyPAL 1995 XJR
Milford / OH, United States
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It really is a shame as the Eldo was a helluva nice looking car, IMHO.
I spent 30+ years of my life at GM dealerships, including Cad. As you said,
the Northstar was a world class design but the execution was a boondoggle.
Stuck rings, oil consumption, massive oil leaks, head gaskets, knocking.
Generally it wasn’t too bad for original owners who kept the cars 3-4 years
and moved on. Subsequent owners, though, were often stuck with problems.
They were expecting a Cadillac-quality, good ol’ Amuricun V8 that you
couldn’t beat to death if you tried but they ended up with…something
else.
Cheers
Doug Dwyer
Longview Washington USA
1995 XJRFrom: “Roger’95” rlaferriere53@HoTMaiL.com
The Northstar is a world class design. Porous castings of dubious
alloy, suspect headgaskets, headbolts with too short a threaded
shank with fine pitch threads and a cramped engine bay that trapped
some serious underhood heat created serious reliability problems
for that motor. I wouldn’t buy ANY pre-'03 Cadillac under any
circumstances. The threat of head bolt/block failure is just too
great.
In reply to a message from SpeedyPAL sent Mon 23 Aug 2010:
My Eldorado�s Northstar was THE model for everything that was wrong
with that motor: stuck piston rings � it burned so much oil at
highway speeds that the smoke screen was mortifying! That motor
leaked so much oil, trans. fluid from the side cover gasket and
coolant from the water pump cover that I had to check fluid levels
every two or three days. And my car always marked its territory.
Junk from Cadillac �The Standard of The World�!
The Northstar was on the market for twenty years � at least half
of which was ruined by engineering errors, manufacturing shortcuts
and shortsighted penny pinching. �Lack of cooling system
maintenance� has nothing to do with what was wrong with the
Northstar � GM incompetence is what ruined it. I�m sorry to see GM
end production of the Northstar because it is still a great motor
in terms of performance and those manufactured from �03 -�04 onward
have had many/most of the problems corrected. But the Northstars
made during the �90s were trash. And my Eldorado really pissed me
off�–
Roger’95
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I’ll be trailering my '98 Concours up to Northstar Performance in Canada in
a week for Jake to fix the headbolt and block leakage issues. He says it’ll
be guaranteed for 100K miles. I haven’t heard anything bad about the
company up to this point so we’ll give him a go.
I was never a Caddy fan (bought it for price for use in business travel) so
as long as she runs and can last awhile that’s all I’m interested in. Ya
pays your money and takes your chance I suppose.
Cheers,
Jack - '99 XJ8L PA USA
< snip >
My Eldorado’s Northstar was THE model for everything that was wrong
with that motor: stuck piston rings - it burned so much oil at
highway speeds that the smoke screen was mortifying! That motor
leaked so much oil, trans. fluid from the side cover gasket and
coolant from the water pump cover that I had to check fluid levels
every two or three days. And my car always marked its territory.
Junk from Cadillac “The Standard of The World”!
The Northstar was on the market for twenty years - at least half
of which was ruined by engineering errors, manufacturing shortcuts
and shortsighted penny pinching. “Lack of cooling system
maintenance” has nothing to do with what was wrong with the
Northstar - GM incompetence is what ruined it. I’m sorry to see GM
end production of the Northstar because it is still a great motor
in terms of performance and those manufactured from '03 -'04 onward
have had many/most of the problems corrected. But the Northstars
made during the '90s were trash. And my Eldorado really pissed me
off.–
Roger’95
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< snip >
In reply to a message from Jack Hollibaugh sent Wed 25 Aug 2010:
I’ve heard great things about Jake and his studded repair for
Northstars; you should be fine. I Timeserted my block using the
Timesert Northstar kit and inserts. I followed the instructions
exactly and without taking shortcuts and using only hand tools. My
Timerserts had 3-1/2 years and 30,000 miles and were holding fine.
If I had known about Jake’s studs then I would have used them over
the Timeserts. IMO they’re a far more robust repair. In any case
everything else on my Eldorado was going to h**l faster than I
could fix it. My low estimate was $7,500.00 to fix everything that
needed fixing and included a new motor. I’d rather spend $7,500.00
fixing up a Jaguar than a Cadillac.–
Roger’95
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Yeah, Jake seems to be the best. He’s got a good business going; I called
to schedule and he was about three weeks out. He says the job takes about
two days.
My Concours only has 75K miles on it so I figured why not put some money in
it. Everything works, even the 12 cd changer so far. I hear you on rather
having a Jag though, I’ll keep my eyes open for the right XJR to come along.
< snip >
I’ve heard great things about Jake and his studded repair for
Northstars; you should be fine. I Timeserted my block using the
Timesert Northstar kit and inserts. I followed the instructions
exactly and without taking shortcuts and using only hand tools. My
Timerserts had 3-1/2 years and 30,000 miles and were holding fine.
If I had known about Jake’s studs then I would have used them over
the Timeserts. IMO they’re a far more robust repair. In any case
everything else on my Eldorado was going to h**l faster than I
could fix it. My low estimate was $7,500.00 to fix everything that
needed fixing and included a new motor. I’d rather spend $7,500.00
fixing up a Jaguar than a Cadillac.–
Roger’95
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< snip >