it could of been very cool, after market bottom end , the good stuff. head work and a cooler looking intake manifold, all polished up like candy with a big turbo hanging off each head . ya i could see the vision.
As advertised by Cadillac the Northstar V-8 could be driven for 50 miles with no coolant...in an emergency. This engine looks like the owner ran an independent test on that theory. Jury still out on if it passed or failed...
customers ( i worked in a "caddy aftermarket shop" so this engine and the 500ci was the boss's favourite plus diesels-hobbies of his ) have gone 50 miles ( western NE aka flat and easygoing ) i just don't recommend it even as they got away with it now 100-mile's nope definitely spin's a bearing's/pop's gaskets generally N8 cylinder next to the brake booster is the hottest one and front 2 in the middle get more air-cooling
I've done Northstars including head and main stud conversions, not for the faint hearted! Once fixed they're a great engine! P.S. I can do the starters in under 30 minutes easily. The junk inside the water passages is most likely due to those horrid GM coolant tablets that GM told you to put in the cooling system! Some dumb goon has done a bottom end reseal on that oil pan and used too much silicone.
The tablets were anti corrosion additive replenishment for the dexcool coolant. The junk in the passages is from mixing incompatible coolant with dexcool. The dexcool fiasco wasn't necessarily the coolant, it was GM's ineptitude in engineering. Formulating their own coolant to deal with electrolysis was a swing and a miss. Their electrical engineering was the real problem. Iron and aluminum react with the coolant, but when the coolant carries the ground load of the electrical system due to poor ground connection methods things get out of hand quickly.
The Northstar head bolt debacle was corrected for the 01 model year and newer. I got 255k out of my 01 SLS before sending it to the boneyard with a bad transmission. Still ran strong...
Eric, they make a special tool that looks like a giant socket to remove the water pump from the housing. It turns about a quarter turn and pulls straight out. It seats in the housing against a large o ring.
Used to rent that socket out all the time when I worked at AutoZone. Important note you turn it clockwise to remove the pump and counter clockwise to tighten the new one in.
also the silicone used to seal the crankcase is an extremely common repair on Northstars...they love to leak in that area. However, the previous tech likely put WAY TOO MUCH sealant on there.
@@photodan24 Exactly. There's a molded silicone seal that goes into the bottom of the block. It's part of the lower gasket set that includes the oil pan and front cover gaskets and the main seals. They either couldn't figure out what it was called to order it or cheaped out with RTV.
You could put that Northstar back together & it'll run! Re-seal the case halves, drill out the head bolt holes & put the helicoils in, drill the broken bolt out of the camshaft, replace the water pump & tensioner, & that thing will run for another 100K miles! I've done plenty of them! BTW, NEVER, EVER, use slicone sealer to seal the case halves. Use anaerobic sealer. That's all we used at GM. I appreciate your videos.
I do Transmissions (both manual and automatic) and You should ALWAYS use anaerobic sealer. The biggest problem with silicone is that you can come back a week later and find wet sealant. Which can not only cause leaks but get into the system you are working on and then real problems start. (I don't do many engines anymore, normally a few a year just for my racing customers but transmissions seem to be the one thing I never run short on)
I blew up my 460 because I went overboard with silicone on the oil pan gasket and all the silicone spaghetti clogged the oil pick up screen. Some WOT runs and it was hammering.
Used to have one of these in a STS they car was fast and handled well, but I sold it after about 2 years due to knowing it would ultimately become a money pit. The entire car would have become a money pit, to be exact.
Saturday night at Eric's! Never miss a teardown ( or any other vid!). Thank you for taking your time making these vids on teardowns. Your engine knowledge, across many makes, gens, diff engines, etc is refreshing and highly helpful to thousands of us out here working on our own stuff and interested in working an fixing things we wanna try for the first time. Thank you for your time doing these vids and hope you, the business and your family are doing alright. Kudos man, keep it up, you're reaching the masses!!!
I'm always interested in seeing Northstar information. I own a 2004 Cadillac Deville Base, bought it in March of 2015. The car runs great. It, of course has the Northstar. I wasn't actually looking to buy a Caddy- I was looking at Buick Park Avenues. All were pretty high mileage. These early 2000's DeVilles are incredibly good values- as the issues with these engines seems to have put a DC-10 type of reputation on them, resulting in very low resale. I have the build sheet for my car, and the sale price- was $41,000. A LOT of money in 2004, for an American luxury car... especially a base model. I have heard that by the 2004 model year, GM had fixed the head bolt issue on these engines. I am not sure... anyone know? The car has some really stupid things that go bad- like the window regulators, and a terribly frustrating Passkey III/ ignition switch/ module issue. Still cannot find a particular 'dead' left rear door issue. Other than that.. I maintain the car religiously. Regular oil changes, and parts replacements. It has a new radiator, power steering pump, starter (Yeah, it's a pain) and a huge MOUSE nest under the intake! When we did the starter, we found dried out injector 'O' rings and replaced them. Overall, I'm still driving, and loving this fast, quiet, comfortable car. Eight years and still runs great, and the engine makes noticeably more power than my old Mustang GT. In a 4,000 pound car, I get 22-23 mpg on the highway. Not bad for a 19 year old car. I think these are actually great engines.. and with the head bolt fix- they are reliable and powerful. THANKS for this excellent video!
Regarding your question about the head bolt repair; GM finally got smart about the head bolts. The 1st iteration of the engine from 93-2000 has relatively short and narrow head bolts. The 2nd iteration had longer head bolts, like in this video, from 01-04. All engines from 2004.5 and up had longer and thicker head bolts which solved the thread killing issues. Sadly, the reputation was destroyed already. If you contact Northstar Performance in Canada, they have head stud kits and bulletproof kits for all 3 iterations. I had an 02 DeVille DTS, and it ran great! Changed the water pump and did a coolant flush on it, and ended up clogging the heater core and radiator. Ended up trading it in for my 2020 Civic, but I still miss the old girl. The other issue mine had was it burned a quart of oil every 500 miles. 500, not 5000. It really needed to be freshened up, but I couldn't afford to have it down to have everything done right since I didn't have a 2nd car. Maybe someday I'll get another, and do what I wanted to do to it.
@@BigRedtheGinger THANK YOU for taking the time to respond to my question! I love the Caddy. Just put in a new Duracell battery from Batteries Plus. Same type- Group 79, that I bought 5 years ago. A hard to find battery nowadays.
I’ve had a 2003 Deville for 12 yrs. The HG finally failed on me a few months ago @ 170k. Was hoping maybe I’d be a lucky one. Nope. After Bars Leak didn’t work, I found a 2-part HG in a bottle some guy in CA invented. Thermalweld I’m 7k on it now. I don’t expect it to work forever, but for the $, it’s been worth it for a few more days with her. Perhaps a more experienced mind knows otherwise about that buildup being from Dex?… But I’d bet $ it’s from HG in a bottle.
I do a couple of these starters a year, you CAN pull the intake without messing with the fuel rail. Swivel 10mm socket and work that bolt up as you lift the manifold up then run it down as you put it back down. It's a little awkward but it's faster and easier than pulling the rail and messing around with seized fuel injectors on a plastic rail.
42:44 I'd take a closer look at that thrust surface, it looks pretty ate up to me and would explain all that endplay you found when trying to remove the harmonic balancer.
I guess i am the only one here who had a pleasant experience with a Northstar. Put 215000 miles on it. Did plugs once. Water pump belt and tensioner and a blower fan. Ran like a scalded dog and got great mpg. This engine was neglected. However, there was no catastrophic failure. Rods and bearings were intact. No piston to head contact. No stretched chains. Pure lack of preventative maintenance. Change your oil often and flush that coolant. Really a miracle with all of the silicone gasket material in the oil pump pick up.
I have an 06 STS-V. By the 2000s they figured out the head bolt issue and these engines were actually really well designed and amazingly reliable. Other than some annoying part placement decisions it really is a great motor.
First, the RTV issue. There was a special policy repair on the lower block union oil leak. Was probably done by some idiot at a dealership. The blocks and head gaskets were upgraded to address leakage and thread pulling. The cooling system corrosion was due to low coolant, which allowed air into the system. The water pump had been leaking for a very long time. Very common issue. A special socket is used to turn the water pump out of its locks. I've seen them locked down, almost always resulted in head gasket failure. I own one, only because I couldn't find a decent used Lesabre. Working on cars for 45 years killed me physically, got to where I could no longer get in and out of my Duramax. I hope my 08 DTS will make it for a little. Good video.
@@cmdrclassified Actually, GM switched to a cheaper grade of aluminum for the blocks in 1995 which caused the bolt-pulling problem. Early Northstars don't have anywhere near as many problems with this because they use higher-grade aluminum for the block. Late Northstars used a revised head bolt design which greatly reduced the problem in 2002 and solved the problem in 2005. 1995 to 2001 are the years to avoid.
First off I'm one of the idiots that worked at Cadillac. So you are completely right. Unlike the 4.1 4.5 and 4.9 Cadillac engines we had to cram coolant sealant tabs in the cooling system. 2005 and above use a 1.5 thread pitch head bolt which helps eliminate thread bolt pulling. I love the Northstar engine. My 2008 DTS has 178,000. Bought it off a customer $900 because he thought the engine was bad. Best car in the world. I had already resealed the bottom case halves a few years prior. Still going strong us idiots always replace the oil pan baffle. The Northstar put my kids through college
I had a 99 DeVille and that sucker was actually pretty fast. To this day it is still my favorite car I've ever had. Very comfortable and quick. And I always liked the old digital dashes. I would have had it much longer but I totaled it when I hit the back of a box truck!
What really scared me was they had two timecert kits for these. First one for original failure and a second one for when the first one failed. Only way to fix these was the Northstar Performance stud kits.
No the only way is to have a professional machinist rebore the threads and put in larger ones, there’s someone that does it and has a 100% sucess rate in completely stopping any failures due to head gasket bolts.
After watching so many videos of very late model OHC engines being torn down, I've seen so many with those long timing chain runs directly from the crankshaft to the cams and have wondered why none of them had intermediate cam reduction and now see this and what a pleasant surprise. This engine's system is so much cleaner and more efficient that the later ones, fine engine design (from an old school motorcycle tech). Most later designs are disappointing by comparison.
If you think about pushrod GM V8s, it also seems kind of expected that they'd have an intermediate idler in approximately cam-position (in an OHV V8). So the chain from the crank to that is approximately like the timing chain on one of those. But yeah this design seems to work well.
This Northstar appears to be fully rebuildable and there's a head stud upgrade kit for it that includes retapping the block for larger diameter studs, bigger studs included. Probably worth doing.
@@agenericaccount3935 baring the head-bolt issue, they are great engines and have a dedicated following. I owned 3 cars with them, and only certain years actually have the head-bolt problem, weirdly enough. The 96 Deville and 94 Seville I had; it was the Transmission that went at 200k miles. The 99 Seville had the head-bolt issue. I would love to do a 4.4 RWD/AWD Supercharged build one day if I ever had the money. Of course, I'd have the head-bolt and crank-bolt fixes implemented and the transmission overhauled with a shift-kit. The fact these fixes exists shows there's plenty of people out there willing to spend the money. All 3 cars served me well, actually. I only had to do 2 water pumps and 1 alternator on them. The water pump is easy to do, I hate the alternator though.
Thanks for the northstar teardown, I had never seen one tore down, so it was cool to see an early GM ohc 4-valver. That dexcool is just so nasty, I wonder if not only mineral water but possibly mixing in the "universal" green coolant helped make that jello. The front timing cover looked very thin/stamped - seemed like it was bending as you were peeling it off. I hate the location of the starter, but if memory serves me right, the tundra has one that way and a few German vehicles also.
I am of the belief, those who returned the core melted the pulley and broke the bolt. Only then did they discover the seized water pump. Of course it got left in the rain, before, during or after it got installed. Only for it to have to come back out. A super sketchy repower, right from the start. Thanks again for your hard work. I, like many others here really appreciate your efforts
oh yay! Weird engine time! Also, Why is it out of every DOHC V8 engine i have ever seen, with timing chains atleast, only ford gets them right? Having a whole front Timing cover that comes off is so much nicer than this BMW style Chains through the heads stuff. The Jag/Lincoln AJ-V8 is leagues ahead of this when it comes to repairability for the chains.
My first car was a 2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue with that 3.5L Shortstar V6. Needless to say, it died in the form of a head gasket failure. Shocking, I know.
As a retired Cadillac tech I can tell you the Northstar engine is an awesome engine. Incredibly well designed engine originally a LOTUS design. Early pre 2000 blocks had issues with head bolt threads. The later 2000 and up GM changed the alloy used in the engine block and eliminated the head gasket issue.
I read some where years ago that the reason the starter ended up under the intake was they were working on an instant start system. The idea being to fire a key cylinder (fuel & spark) to start the engine. Most engines stop in one of three positions and the computer would use the starter to correct this position if need be.
It wasn’t eliminated, they made a change but it never was fixed , and because the only way to remove the engine is out the bottom , these cars were destined for the junkyard.
25:44 this is exactly why you need to change your Dexcool per the time frame specified in the manual. In this case it will destroy your engine if you don’t. If you have a 3.1 it will eat the intake manifold, when it turns acidic from it breaking down.
My dad had a '94 Seville with the 275HP version. I did all the maintenance on it in the 13 years and 100k miles he had it, and nothing went wrong other than the water pump shaft seal seep and A/C compressor leak. These loved to rev and were pretty impressive for having been designed in the late 80's. Even the 4T80E trans shifted well. Too bad it was FWD. I remember reading about these having a limp-home feature where you could drive for 50 miles with no coolant. If overheated, it would run on 4 cylinders, alternating between banks so that the shut-off cylinders could air-cool themselves IIRC. If it got into this mode, the PCM would afterwards say "oil change required" as that would have cooked the oil.
Realistically though, if your Northstar is out of coolant, it's probably because a failed head gasket resulted in it blowing all of its coolant out, so the engine is already dead, regardless of limp-home mode. Ask me how I know....
These did have limp home mode that cam pulley for the water pump broke on mine and allowed me to drive slowly and dash would tell you "Engine too hot" I shut mine off 5 miles from my house and got a tow because I didnt know about the limp home mode until after I did the repairs.
I don't have time to watch now but I'll get to it when I get off work. Thank you for all your hard work and the amazing content you produce. We all love you!! Have a great rest of your weekend and have a solid week!👍
I have a theory about that buildup. We all know what a modern wonder Dexcool is, unrivalled in its gunk-producing ability. The pressure tank on Northstar/Aurora powered cars has a translucent bottom half and a black plastic top half, making visual inspection of the level very hard. It also includes the float for the level sender, which alerts the driver info center to ding a "low coolant" message when the aged Dexcool gunked up the float track and the float stuck. Continually adding coolant will blow the pressure cap, meaning the coolant actually does go a little low. Repeated cycles of the above, perhaps combined with knowledge of the head bolt issues, might have led someone to overuse stop leak, clogging everything, perhaps causing actual overheating, and toasting the water pump. The irony being it wasn't actually overheating or losing coolant at first. The oil starvation is due to a really sloppy way to solve the Northstar Drip, which is the exhaust heat related oil pan leakage almost universal to these engines. Thanks to clearance issues, fully removing the oil pan means engine removal from the car and subframe. Many techs have gotten around this through some creative finagling of the pan while still in the car. Its a pain for sure. Whoever did this overshot the RTV target, thinking more is better so they wouldn't have a comeback and have to do it again or take the engine out and do it the right way. Great thing is, the drip makes a mess but thanks to an almost 8 quart oil capacity (!) You can really reliably run these a quart or more low with minimal problems. The starvation didn't happen because of low level, just impeded flow. Finally, the insides of all Northstar bores are gonna look like that. GM new spec on these was 1 quart of oil burn per 1k miles was normal. That doesn't sound bad these days, thanks to ultra light weight MPG oils and everybody's engines letting it slip past the rings, but back in the Northstar's heyday of the 90s, when 10W30 or 5W30 was specced, a quart per thousand was a bad joke. It was always fun to mess with a green tech by asking where the starter was on one of these or a Lexus V8. GM made the trail of breadcrumbs easy, though. Follow the Purple Wire. Still one of the most pleasing noises on turnover of any engine I have ever heard. It sounds so expensive yet mechanical. Similar to the panic-inducing coolant level float, the oil pressure sender would often get clogged (these came with 10W or 5W30 non-synthetic oil and an oil life monitor programmed for around 6-7k oil changes) and sporadically or repeatedly display low oil pressure warnings on the DIC. Some models also had a realtime oil pressure gauge (or, in GM, "Gage) that could be seen dipping well below normal. Many were misdiagnosed with worn bearings, when in reality an engine flush and maybe a new $50 oil pressure sender was the culprit. Thanks to the burning oil clogging the rings and the oil pressure sender issues, a good old Italian Tune Up is basic regular Northstar mantenance. Not many of the seniors who owned nearly all Northstar equipped cars did that though, worsening both issues and probably leading to many being unnecessarily discarded. The cars also depreciated horribly, interiors were weak, fuel economy was atrocious even for the time (14-18 mixed in my mom's Aurora's case), electricals questionable, every piece cost cut to the Nth degree. Water pumps seep every 30k miles and require the special tool. Solidly designed engine built poorly and put into beancounted cars. Northstars and their parts are pretty much scrap value. Except the missing coil cassettes. Pre-2000 had coil packs like the 3800 family. Post 2005s had individual coil on plug. The stop gap were big 4-coil cassettes on each bank, silver in the front and black in the rear to match the valve cover. Any coil failure kills the whole cassette. Delco replacements run $300-500 per bank depending on where you buy. GM pioneered this setup on the Quad4 and reused it on the newer Ecotec (Cruzes, Sonics and Encores have these). The original head bolts were lengthened in 2000 (and they started using threadlocker), helping cut the failure rate by like 90%. The 2005 redesign made use of the much coarser thread LS engine head bolts, curing the issue.
My current 03 Deville of 12 yrs just had the hg fail @ 170k. That build-up is hg in a bottle. I’d put $ on it. After Bars Leak didn’t work, I found an obscure product that nobody really knows about. Thermalweld 2 part hg in a bottle. I’m 7k on it now. I don’t expect it to last forever, but for the $, I’m not disappointed.
In the 90s Honda/Acura considered it "within spec" if their engines burned 1 qt of oil or less every 1000 miles. Most engines I dealt with had similar specs around 1qt per 1500ish miles.
@@matthewbowen5841 Yeah in theory it's within spec to run out of oil between oil changes. That's why I remember those numbers so vividly. I was like "so you're telling me it's within spec for my engine to run out of oil between oil changes?" Honda was like "Yes that's why you need to check your fluids regularly"... Stuck with me hard. I don't know what the rule of thumb or what is spec for domestics. The only domestic I did a lot of work on was a 72 nova and I had built the engine myself and I considered "within spec" to be a whole hell of a lot lower than 1 quart every 1500 miles... Most of the Honda engines I worked with had a 3.5 qt capacity including the oil filter. None of those cars went through 1 qt per 1000 miles. Even my friend's abused oil burning civic went through less than 1 qt per 1000 miles.
@@ToolofSociety We all thought Subaru was insane around 2013 when they switched to 0w20 in their boxer 4s and said 1 quart per thousand was fine, on a car with a 4.5 qt capacity (the 2.0 in the Impreza). I didn't know Honda had a similar history. Hondas love to leak, and burn oil at high mileage, but the directive back then about fairly new cars is news to me. Makes GM seem less slap dash with the Northstar, since at least it holds so much oil. Around the 0 weight switch was when every manufacturer started saying a quart per thousand was the new normal. GM, the Germans, Toyota, all of em. And then came 0w16 and 0w12... along with lighter-built engines. My mom's 4.0 Northstar uses the same amount at 120k as it did new, so at least it seems to be a design thing and not a progressive failure. Meanwhile, my Toyota 1MZ uses just about zero between 3000 mile changes on good old fashioned 5W30 conventional, all at 223k.
This is a common misconception. LT5 was designed by Lotus in the UK- they were owned by GM at the time. The NorthStar was entirely GM North America, but they were open about the fact that they took some inspiration from the LT5 if the read the old article about it.
@@IwanTchernenkoI thought the same thing until seeing a few vids in 2014 GM reapplied LT series to mean a whole buncha things, but pushrod is common theme and 8 cylinders. I too thought LT1, LT4 always meant 350 cast iron block like I had in my Roadmaster.
Water pump comes out with a special tool. Turned counter clockwise. I think it was a 3 hour job. I would like to see the Olds 3.5 IF you ever acquire one.
This reminds me of your last video on the Ford 300---lack of cooling system maintenance roasted the head gasket(s). For those that are new to auto repair, I hope this tip will help. When applying RTV to flat mating surfaces, you want to have full, even coverage all around the gasket surface, but the RTV should be THIN. How thin? There should be just enough so that if you were to smear it with your finger while it's on the gasket, it shouldn't spread. If you tighten the bolts to spec and you see ANY RTV oozing out, you used too much.
that doesnt makes sense to me. sure, if it oozed out there was too much, but guess what, what should be there is still there, so isnt that still functional? not enough would be the bigger problem, youd do all that work for nothing because it'd leak all over again. better to have and not need than need and not have. also, like previous guy said, you shouldn't be putting gasket material on a gasket, thats what the gasket is for.
@@BobSmith-mc7uq It seems that there are no good quality gaskets for Northstar as there isn't a single gasket that doesn't start leaking after few years. That's why RTV is often used. Ofcourse this here is complete overkill.
@@danielknepper6884 agreed! Aside from intake gasket leaks and an intake manifold egr port that can crack and hydrolock the engine they're really stout and seemingly can run forever.
The early 231 Buicks ones aren’t great.. plagued with oiling system problems… GM 3800 series 2 is an amazing motor. My Buick 109 (grand National v6) has all kinds of oiling mods and it still doesn’t have great oil psi lol
@@jafferm1938 the oiling in pre-corporate era Buick engines has always been a weak point unfortunately. There are several good fixes out there though. I've rebuilt a Buick 350 (pretty much what the LC2 was based off of, which itself is derived from the 215) and it uses an identical oil pump setup. An adjustable pressure regulator and high pressure oil pump plate do wonders for addressing some of the oiling issues. I did the same thing in a worn out 455 I have, that motor makes over 60psi at idle on cold start and 20psi hot at idle. The 3800 series of engines made big changes to address some of this, including switching to a more modern and efficent gerotor oil pump driven off the crank instead of the cam sensor or distributor. One big mistake many guys make with the Buick V8s is installing high volume oil pump gears. These put a ton of stress on an already failure prone front cam bearing. The crank driven oil pump in the 3800 eliminates that issue. There is a forum post a GN guy made where he modified 2 timing covers to add a 3800 oil pump to his LC2.
Another great teardown always enjoy watching your channel and content. You always have a great variety of engines in the lineup it is worth waiting for the next video. You also have video's on you fixing your own vehicle's. You are a great commentator you have great personality also you explain everything thourghly. Thank you for sharing these video's with us they are always enjoyable.
Considering the amount of RTV in the oil drain passages, this engine is in surprisingly good condition. It appears to be rebuildable. It could have been much worse. The rods are very thin. They don't look like they can handle much horsepower. Very cool tear-down!
I changed the engines in quite a few of those cars, Cadillac, and Aurora. Had to drop out the sub frame to work on it. I changed head gaskets on one, when I was torqueing the bolts down several on the back bank pulled the threads, learned a lesson there, and replaced the rest with replacement engines. Never used any wrecking yard engines, could be as bad or worse than what you were taking out. Wrecking yard would give you another engine, but you had to eat labor, and fluids. Cars used to be fun to work on, now it is never our fault, you did something wrong installing it.
Used too see a lot of these engines with the original formula dexcool having a lot of crystalline, or peanutbutter like deposits. Sometimes if you mixed green in the system it would turn the whole thing into a muddy mess.
But this one was good enough to be sold as a second hand engine by a junkyard. So it likely was running last and has been left possibly upside down considering the oily plugs.
One of the highlights of my Saturday nights - waiting for the next teardown video drop. Thanks so much for filming teardowns and producing these videos. I remember when the Northstar came out all the car magazines raving about how GM had finally produced a V8 engine on a par with Germany and Japan. Unfortunately, the hype came to a screeching halt when customer cars began reaching 100k miles and separated heads/blown head gaskets caused these engines to drop like flies. Now we see the aftermath of a Cadillac engine likely mechanically totaled by a blown head gasket. No carnage like bent/broken connecting rods or piston deletes, but it was still pretty bad. Talk about nasty. I hope you found enough good parts and can make something more than scrap value off this thing.
@@nickyj3571 No, the LD8 was the Deville and SLS Engine. 280Hp, The L37 was 300Hp, Still Have one in my 1998 STS. Studded the block ten years ago, still running strong at 165,000 miles !
@@nickyj3571 the gearing is also different between the 2 versions. The lower power versions have a bit more torque to move with the higher final drive ratio.
@@danr9584 I drove both versions didn't notice anything different except for the performance model having magnaride which did turn better at higher speed and the 18in wheels looked nicer
Ok, I did 38 long, miserable years as a Cadillac Tech. '71 till '08. I had 171 Northstars out of the car for one reason or another. Yes, they had issues. I never used any RTV on reseals, ever. The gaskets and seals were quite good. They were leakers though after XXX number of miles. A special tool is required to R and R the water pump. If I ever see another N* it will be too soon!!
17:06 As a (former) DSM owner, I felt that one. Regarding the rod size, remember that size is only part of the story (there’s probably a joke there). The Northstar is an expensive engine that was only installed in expensive cars. The 5.3 LS is a cheap truck engine. The Northstar is meant to spin up to 6500-7000 rpm. The 5.3 LS is made to spin up to 5500rpm. In other words, the rods are made of stronger, lighter materials in the Northstar, whereas the 5.3 rods are made of cheap, heavy materials. So yeah, size is only part of the story.
Well that's one water pump you can't say "looks great, should totally save that" before throwing it in the dumpster 😂 Definitely enjoy seeing how all the engines you've torn down are put together - and of course the carnage when they fail!
ProTip: Don't look down the hole. 😅 On a serious note, the Northstar is like two head gasket puking Quad4s stuck together, I bet the same people designed both. The early Quad4s, like mine, had the PS pump rub off a short belt off the back off the camshaft, later ones drove the PS pump right off the back of the cam. Mine liked blowing the that cam seal, besides the head gaskets.
I enjoyed seeing it, especially because I never owned a Northstar. We all had high hopes for it, especially in light of the disaster known as the HT4100. I remember their introduction, as I recall GM claimed that they could be driven some distance without coolant. I doubted it then and after seeing this engine and knowing the head bolt thread situation, I still seriously doubt it. Cadillac sure screwed the pooch in so many ways.
The NorthStar is pretty much the opposite of the LS. It's actually (in theory) not a bad engine at all, really cutting edge ahead of it's time. They where pushing 300hp from a 4.6 in 1993 which is really really impressive. I think the issue with it was too much at all at once. The LS really if you look at it, is a product improved 2nd gen small block chevy. The northstar is a really really advanced engine that i think if it had more time would have been a great motor. It has a fully supported crankshaft like performance engines, the lower oil pan forms the bearing journals. It also had fully controlled spark and fuel timing among other electrical goodness. Those valve covers are magnesium I think, because light like plastic but not cheap and break. Consider what ford did in 1992, they made the absolute disappointment that was the modular pretty begrudgingly after wanting to discontinue the mustang for a Mazda and v8s all together. Chrysler was still using the LA from 1964 with pretty much 0 changes they had AMC cranking out their abysmal 4.0 becuase they didn't have an engine worth shit that wasn't by Mitsubishi. GM tried. I mean they totally fucked it up and this engine was hot garbage all things considered. But they had a go at it, unlike the others. And i forgive them for everything cos they went back at it and made the LS. They didn't try to stick to it like ford. God I hate the modular. The cayote sucks too.
Good take. As someone else said, it could be considered two Quad4s joined together, and while Quad4s also had problems, they were very close to the most thermally efficient engines for their time and definitely for the price, pretty much only Ferrari and Lamborghini were selling cars with higher mean effective pressures in normally aspirated engines at the time. GM running hot and cold on innovation and investment meant the Quad4 and Northstar both had lots of potential and good ideas that weren't given the time and resources to gel into something really developed and ready for market at the volumes and price points GM wanted them to.
@@Trendyflute Yea i think it was just time and testing. The other thing is i think this engine was a victim of culture, Americans where so used to the bombproof reliable Chevy small blocks that they weren't ready for a engine like this. I bet in a German car the NorthStar would have been praised as one of the best engines. Is this any less reliable than a M60? or a M113? The main issue it had was oil consumption and overheating (which was usually owner fault) I've slapped small blocks together with multiple gaskets because the deck is warped and those things run and run fine. You can't do that sort of thing to one of these. Granted I might take all this back, I'm looking for a decent NorthStar engine to build and NorthStar swap something in place of my usual LS swap. And maybe it really is a garbage fire. Won't know till I try.
The modular ford, one of the most reliable engines ever made. And you bad mouth it like it's garbage. They have also gone faster than any ls in any configuration. Yep that horrible engine.
You sound like a complete fool and ignorant GM fan boy bashing the Ford modular V8. 400 to 500k stock in Taxicabs and Police cars. The Coyote is better than anything GM currently has on the market. Even engine builders are switching over to them for their ability to handle massive amounts of power on stock internals. GM does one thing well, pushrod engines. Everything else is garbage and history has proven it.
How could testing not show how weak the block is where the head bolts tread into. Major design flaw that any engineer worth his money should have known. Typically GM most likely the thin head bolts were a few cents cheaper. And the Ford modular motors are best in class and way advanced compared to an LS.
I prefer it in a lot of cases. Its easier to get out than say a toyota 3.4 v6. The intake comes off in a matter of minutes and its just right there, rather than struggling under the car on your back for a while getting dirt in your eyes.
Really nice video! As others say, you have a lot of skill with various engines and I am really impressed. Your videos have made me much more proactive about checking the oil level in my own car engine. I'd certainly like to see a Subaru FB-25 engine teardown, if one happens to be in your shop.
New t-shirt slogans: "Why'd I look down the hole?" "definitely worth keeping... Crash!" "why did I take such a deep breath of that?" Man I always enjoy your videos!
I owned one of these Northstars. Loved it! Never had any issues with it. I did change the oil every 4-5K and engine was a solid engine. The Deville it came in had electrical issues... but the engine was good. Only drawback for me was it needed a starter at 80K and it was expensive as you have to pull the intake manifold off to get at it and it's BIG!.
Removing the intake manifold to change the starter on a Northstar is potentially a lot less painful than removing the exhaust pipe on a small block Chevy. As for the oil change interval, mine was using a quart every 500 miles, and there's no use in changing anything but the filter when it's leaking and burning oil that fast. My STS was a great car, aside from the engine.
Eric, loved this Northstar tear down! I wasn't too surprised that the rear bank looked a bit dirtier than the front bank, in fact that would be expected..... I must commend you on your hard work on these videos; your thoroughness and dedication shows. I believe that 200k subscribers would agree!
It is crazy to see how relatively complex the northstar is compared to an LS4 that made more horsepower with a much simpler design. GM has taken flak from many auto journalists for sticking with "ancient pushrod V8s" but they work, and they are dead simple to repair and maintain. That being said. I love quirky engines and I absolutely do not see myself jumping on the LS swap the world bandwagon.
Once the head studs are repaired with a kit from Northstar performance these engines are actually pretty cool. I think I saw one on TH-cam years ago that made 700hp with a turbo and spun to... I think 8700RPM and sounded absolutely sick. If I had a project I would totally consider shoving one of these engines into it.
The last time Cadillac had its own engines that didn't need a revision to keep them running for the long term, it was the big block 500/472/425 series of the 1970s. You almost NEVER find one of those engines that is blown up. Especially they almost never, EVER are seen with a bottom end failure due to lack of lubrication. Every engine after this series has had this problem or that problem.
Weren’t those Cadillac big blocks known to have lubrication issues that caused them to spin bearings if they get revved over like 4000rpm for any amount of time?
Don't remind GM. A fair compromise going forward is to offer whatever Buick Chev GMC offering as a Cadillac performance package with hood ornament Landau top and opera lights.
Yet another banger of a video! Hey Eric, any chances you could do a teardown on an early non-sulev N52? I did my valve cover gasket and have been slowly refurbishing all the gaskets and parts on this E90 and I gotta say, what a fantastic engine! I can see why the forums say it's one of the most reliable BMW engines ever made, and probably the last N/A i6 engines as well.
Let me answer your ? On why these engines have so much sealant, because this engine tends to leak a lot and I understand why the owner had so much sealer on it😂😂
This one had the VVT I believe , the roller lifters were a nice change, my 98 had the old bucket style lifters. The VIN K engine code L37 engine was rated at 300HP factory, a good engine, it was just mostly neglected from owners who have no idea what " preventative maintenance" is. This is a good rebuildable engine, use a Northstar Peformance engine head stud kit and the bottom end stud kit as well and this thing will last forever. Jake in Canada owns NSP and patented his own engine stud kit with the tools to do the stud kit including the jig plate, drill bit tap thread locker and everything needed. The 4.6 Northstar is so underrated, it's an amazing engine!!
Couldn't have said it better myself. Most of the time when I see these nowadays it's a single mom with 3 kids on 2.donuts putting 87 octane in and leaking oil everywhere. Do you really think she cares about maintenance 😂
Educational as always. When you pulled the oil pan and base plate off, there appears to be a cast in (or machined) groove in the mating face for an o-ring running around the full perimeter. Did not see any evidence of an o-ring as it came apart. My guess... most Northstars were leakers and it appears that someone tried to fix the leaks with $58 worth of RTV in place of the o-ring.
Did you change / upgrade your mic? Or move it to a different location? The audio sounds great in this video! I love hearing all the details of you tearing down an engine. Great video as always. Each one is better than the last!
Honestly, I'm surprised that the engine was in as good a shape as it was. With the later revisions (2000's) I was hoping for broken head bolts and far more carnage. Learned something new everyday.
Out of all the engine channels out there you seem to be a very likable guy! I love your channel, hope you get 37 million subs! Keep up the great stuff! And thanks for sharing!
I had two Northstars via Cadillac a few years back. Never again! Two cars I bought both of them used, four blown head gaskets with both less than 140K on either. Pieces of garbage. The first Cadi had blown gaskets (both) on a trip in 2005. I think the car was a 1998. Anyway, the repair was $3000.00 and took 3 days. As I said before the car had around 140K miles on it. The second was on a 2005 Cadi in 2016. Again both head gaskets but the cost this time was quoted at $6000.00 for a car that high booked at $900.00. Nope, sold to someone that felt they could fix it themselves. They couldn't and it was junked. Really sad because the rest of the car was in prime condition. It was a Deville DHS with every bell, whistle and switch you can imagine. It became one of the nicest looking lawn ornaments you can imagine.
Just did an oil pan one one of these, and I found the same if not more silicone in the pickup, so it must be a common problem. I did find a forum saying that GM's reccommended service is to use RTV instead of the gasket they made, which is quite interesting. I ended up using both, but I found it odd that GM themselves reccomended no gasket and just a bunch of silicone, and it clearly had a negative impact with the pickup if we both had this issue.
My dad had the 1994 Seville STS with 298,000 miles on it and it was still running strong.The engine was great but everything around it was falling apart.It never overheated.It always stayed between 195F to 225F .Then he had to get rid of it as it needed alot suspension work and my friend gave me for free a 93 Lexus LS400 and that now has 303,000 miles and running smooth.
Former Cadillac dealer tech here. In 15+ years, I never ever saw a Northstar Starter fail unless it was flooded, and that was only once. Seems like a crazy location, but it was very dependable based on my experience.
What a shame the history of these engines… they are so strong and I have so much love for them! It looks to me like whoever had this engine ran it a while with the block leaking like that so he suffered from some oiling issues… the mechanic put the silicone on with his eyes closed and maybe forgot to do the valve cover gaskets! As far as the coolant goes, if you keep up on the flushes and put the right stuff in it then she’ll be fine. He probably doesn’t know but this motor is in pretty decent condition compared to some of the ones I’ve seen 😆
I read an article years ago from the mid 90s said the Northstar engine despite what people think was an engineering masterpiece and it really one upped the Germans
I remember when they rolled these out. So much hype, after Cadillac had been such a joke for the previous decade. These seemed to be an engineering victory at first, but quickly degraded back into a joke.
Started in North Star engine school in 1992. Compared to the HT4100 they were great. They ran strong and didn't leak as much. Hearing one in a 3.5-liter Indy car at speed was pure mechanical symphony.
The 4g63 crankwalk joke was appreciated lol I imagine when you'll be taking the gr86 motors apart in the future you'll find even more rtv from subaru 😂
I have several of these with zero issues besides oil leaks from half case issues. Almost 300k on mine. I bet somebody thought it was a bad HG and dumped Blue Devil "fix" in it and plugged it up. That or used a ton of coolant stop leak in coolant. Both a major no no regardless of engine. I've had a dozen apart and none looked anywhere bad, this one was absolutely neglected. They have a bad rep which really isn't deserved. Good mileage and HP. What other engine is designed for 50 miles with no coolant and will be fine. For the cylinder walls to be scored is absolutely due to abuse and lack of maintenance. The have the best finish pretty much you'll ever see from the factory so to be scratched is very rare
This video brought back so many memories from when I worked at a Cadillac dealer. I rebuilt a few northstar engines. The rtv was a bulletin to use silicon instead of the cheesy rubber gaskets along with the anaerobic sealant for oil pan. I loved working on those money pit engines 😅. Imagine working on that engine in a no room engine bay 😂. Thanx for the tear down.
This could have been a world-beater, but GM, as always, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory
it could of been very cool, after market bottom end , the good stuff. head work and a cooler looking intake manifold, all polished up like candy with a big turbo hanging off each head . ya i could see the vision.
Lol sure
The engine that ruined Cadilac .............
@@robc8468 Well, it helped, but you misspelled Cadillac, and Cadillac management did most of the damage
@@robc8468never heard of the 4-6-8 I see.
I’m not mechanically inclined, but I’m fascinated by your videos, they never get old. Great work
Same here. Never even owned a car.
As advertised by Cadillac the Northstar V-8 could be driven for 50 miles with no coolant...in an emergency. This engine looks like the owner ran an independent test on that theory. Jury still out on if it passed or failed...
Based on the smoke stain on the valve cover and the charred pulleys, I'd say there were external exothermic issues that led up to any cooling issues.
customers ( i worked in a "caddy aftermarket shop" so this engine and the 500ci was the boss's favourite plus diesels-hobbies of his ) have gone 50 miles ( western NE aka flat and easygoing ) i just don't recommend it even as they got away with it now 100-mile's nope definitely spin's a bearing's/pop's gaskets generally N8 cylinder next to the brake booster is the hottest one and front 2 in the middle get more air-cooling
100 miles
Oldsmobile touted it first because they kinda made the engine, it's technically a derivative of the aurora v8.
@@BigWheel. Northstar, brought to you by the same people who couldn't keep head gaskets in the Quad4.
I've done Northstars including head and main stud conversions, not for the faint hearted! Once fixed they're a great engine! P.S. I can do the starters in under 30 minutes easily. The junk inside the water passages is most likely due to those horrid GM coolant tablets that GM told you to put in the cooling system! Some dumb goon has done a bottom end reseal on that oil pan and used too much silicone.
Those were anti-knock coolant tablets. Coolant lines within wall adjacent to oil pan. RTV easy fix.
Have a 97 GM, and yes the tablets were part of the cooling system service. It seemed strange, so I never used the tablets.
The tablets were anti corrosion additive replenishment for the dexcool coolant. The junk in the passages is from mixing incompatible coolant with dexcool. The dexcool fiasco wasn't necessarily the coolant, it was GM's ineptitude in engineering. Formulating their own coolant to deal with electrolysis was a swing and a miss. Their electrical engineering was the real problem. Iron and aluminum react with the coolant, but when the coolant carries the ground load of the electrical system due to poor ground connection methods things get out of hand quickly.
@@truracer20Wrong!
The Northstar head bolt debacle was corrected for the 01 model year and newer.
I got 255k out of my 01 SLS before sending it to the boneyard with a bad transmission.
Still ran strong...
2004 was the complete redesign and it become next to impossible to blow up
Eric, they make a special tool that looks like a giant socket to remove the water pump from the housing. It turns about a quarter turn and pulls straight out. It seats in the housing against a large o ring.
I have one of those tools new in the blisterpack. My dad traded in his '94 Seville in before I could change out the pump. Anyone want it?
Used to rent that socket out all the time when I worked at AutoZone. Important note you turn it clockwise to remove the pump and counter clockwise to tighten the new one in.
Cadillac North Star, the official car of “they make a special tool for that”
Yea that's Ford now special tool to take off parts
@@heinrichgerhardt6119 would love to have the tool
also the silicone used to seal the crankcase is an extremely common repair on Northstars...they love to leak in that area. However, the previous tech likely put WAY TOO MUCH sealant on there.
Heheh hey ! Its mower moddin
It looked like there was an inset for a rubber seal but I didn't see a seal come out.
I wouldn't refer to a previous 'tech', tech implies it was somebody who knew what they were doing.
@@photodan24 Exactly. There's a molded silicone seal that goes into the bottom of the block. It's part of the lower gasket set that includes the oil pan and front cover gaskets and the main seals. They either couldn't figure out what it was called to order it or cheaped out with RTV.
what's just right , sploodge every were.
You could put that Northstar back together & it'll run! Re-seal the case halves, drill out the head bolt holes & put the helicoils in, drill the broken bolt out of the camshaft, replace the water pump & tensioner, & that thing will run for another 100K miles! I've done plenty of them! BTW, NEVER, EVER, use slicone sealer to seal the case halves. Use anaerobic sealer. That's all we used at GM. I appreciate your videos.
Thanks for the tip on the anaerobic sealant!
I do Transmissions (both manual and automatic) and You should ALWAYS use anaerobic sealer. The biggest problem with silicone is that you can come back a week later and find wet sealant. Which can not only cause leaks but get into the system you are working on and then real problems start. (I don't do many engines anymore, normally a few a year just for my racing customers but transmissions seem to be the one thing I never run short on)
Yeah, ît would be nice to see him put an engine like this one back together and get it running again!
Yeah I agree. I use the anaerobic sealer for intakes and superchargers on 3800s. Namely In camaro and firebird.
I blew up my 460 because I went overboard with silicone on the oil pan gasket and all the silicone spaghetti clogged the oil pick up screen. Some WOT runs and it was hammering.
Used to have one of these in a STS they car was fast and handled well, but I sold it after about 2 years due to knowing it would ultimately become a money pit. The entire car would have become a money pit, to be exact.
Seeing the cylinder heads after they went through the hot-tank was very satisfying, please show more hot-tanked parts in the future.
The “rust” in the water jacket is probably degraded dexcool coolant.
Saturday night at Eric's! Never miss a teardown ( or any other vid!). Thank you for taking your time making these vids on teardowns. Your engine knowledge, across many makes, gens, diff engines, etc is refreshing and highly helpful to thousands of us out here working on our own stuff and interested in working an fixing things we wanna try for the first time. Thank you for your time doing these vids and hope you, the business and your family are doing alright. Kudos man, keep it up, you're reaching the masses!!!
I'm always interested in seeing Northstar information. I own a 2004 Cadillac Deville Base, bought it in March of 2015. The car runs great. It, of course has the Northstar. I wasn't actually looking to buy a Caddy- I was looking at Buick Park Avenues. All were pretty high mileage. These early 2000's DeVilles are incredibly good values- as the issues with these engines seems to have put a DC-10 type of reputation on them, resulting in very low resale. I have the build sheet for my car, and the sale price- was $41,000. A LOT of money in 2004, for an American luxury car... especially a base model. I have heard that by the 2004 model year, GM had fixed the head bolt issue on these engines. I am not sure... anyone know?
The car has some really stupid things that go bad- like the window regulators, and a terribly frustrating Passkey III/ ignition switch/ module issue. Still cannot find a particular 'dead' left rear door issue.
Other than that.. I maintain the car religiously. Regular oil changes, and parts replacements. It has a new radiator, power steering pump, starter (Yeah, it's a pain) and a huge MOUSE nest under the intake! When we did the starter, we found dried out injector 'O' rings and replaced them.
Overall, I'm still driving, and loving this fast, quiet, comfortable car. Eight years and still runs great, and the engine makes noticeably more power than my old Mustang GT. In a 4,000 pound car, I get 22-23 mpg on the highway. Not bad for a 19 year old car. I think these are actually great engines.. and with the head bolt fix- they are reliable and powerful.
THANKS for this excellent video!
Regarding your question about the head bolt repair; GM finally got smart about the head bolts. The 1st iteration of the engine from 93-2000 has relatively short and narrow head bolts. The 2nd iteration had longer head bolts, like in this video, from 01-04. All engines from 2004.5 and up had longer and thicker head bolts which solved the thread killing issues. Sadly, the reputation was destroyed already. If you contact Northstar Performance in Canada, they have head stud kits and bulletproof kits for all 3 iterations.
I had an 02 DeVille DTS, and it ran great! Changed the water pump and did a coolant flush on it, and ended up clogging the heater core and radiator. Ended up trading it in for my 2020 Civic, but I still miss the old girl. The other issue mine had was it burned a quart of oil every 500 miles. 500, not 5000. It really needed to be freshened up, but I couldn't afford to have it down to have everything done right since I didn't have a 2nd car. Maybe someday I'll get another, and do what I wanted to do to it.
@@BigRedtheGinger THANK YOU for taking the time to respond to my question! I love the Caddy. Just put in a new Duracell battery from Batteries Plus. Same type- Group 79, that I bought 5 years ago. A hard to find battery nowadays.
Dave, watch the Car Wizzard on TH-cam about the Northstar.
@@michaelthomas-fu8rs I have watched his channel, he's really good.
I’ve had a 2003 Deville for 12 yrs. The HG finally failed on me a few months ago @ 170k.
Was hoping maybe I’d be a lucky one. Nope.
After Bars Leak didn’t work, I found a 2-part HG in a bottle some guy in CA invented.
Thermalweld
I’m 7k on it now.
I don’t expect it to work forever, but for the $, it’s been worth it for a few more days with her.
Perhaps a more experienced mind knows otherwise about that buildup being from Dex?…
But I’d bet $ it’s from HG in a bottle.
I do a couple of these starters a year, you CAN pull the intake without messing with the fuel rail. Swivel 10mm socket and work that bolt up as you lift the manifold up then run it down as you put it back down. It's a little awkward but it's faster and easier than pulling the rail and messing around with seized fuel injectors on a plastic rail.
42:44 I'd take a closer look at that thrust surface, it looks pretty ate up to me and would explain all that endplay you found when trying to remove the harmonic balancer.
My dreams have come true!!! My man finally did a Northstar tear down. It's popcorn time!
I clicked on this video so fast
Yessir! Same here
So did I.
@@arlendriver4113 same
I clicked on this video when I was ready to sit down and enjoy it.
I clicked on this comment so fast
I guess i am the only one here who had a pleasant experience with a Northstar. Put 215000 miles on it. Did plugs once. Water pump belt and tensioner and a blower fan. Ran like a scalded dog and got great mpg. This engine was neglected. However, there was no catastrophic failure. Rods and bearings were intact. No piston to head contact. No stretched chains. Pure lack of preventative maintenance. Change your oil often and flush that coolant. Really a miracle with all of the silicone gasket material in the oil pump pick up.
They have good power when they work at least
Failure of leadership at GM; for the umpteeth time.
At one point my sts was getting 8mpg lol although it was a fast car that handled well for its size
@@chrisscott4607 How does a sts get 8 mpg?
I have an 06 STS-V. By the 2000s they figured out the head bolt issue and these engines were actually really well designed and amazingly reliable. Other than some annoying part placement decisions it really is a great motor.
First, the RTV issue. There was a special policy repair on the lower block union oil leak. Was probably done by some idiot at a dealership. The blocks and head gaskets were upgraded to address leakage and thread pulling. The cooling system corrosion was due to low coolant, which allowed air into the system. The water pump had been leaking for a very long time. Very common issue. A special socket is used to turn the water pump out of its locks. I've seen them locked down, almost always resulted in head gasket failure. I own one, only because I couldn't find a decent used Lesabre. Working on cars for 45 years killed me physically, got to where I could no longer get in and out of my Duramax. I hope my 08 DTS will make it for a little. Good video.
2008 is pretty safe. In 2005, GM started using LS head bolts in the Northstars. Problem solved.
Dexcool was the real problem here. And the engineers of this engine should be flogged in public!
@@cmdrclassified Actually, GM switched to a cheaper grade of aluminum for the blocks in 1995 which caused the bolt-pulling problem. Early Northstars don't have anywhere near as many problems with this because they use higher-grade aluminum for the block. Late Northstars used a revised head bolt design which greatly reduced the problem in 2002 and solved the problem in 2005. 1995 to 2001 are the years to avoid.
First off I'm one of the idiots that worked at Cadillac. So you are completely right. Unlike the 4.1 4.5 and 4.9 Cadillac engines we had to cram coolant sealant tabs in the cooling system. 2005 and above use a 1.5 thread pitch head bolt which helps eliminate thread bolt pulling. I love the Northstar engine. My 2008 DTS has 178,000. Bought it off a customer $900 because he thought the engine was bad. Best car in the world. I had already resealed the bottom case halves a few years prior. Still going strong us idiots always replace the oil pan baffle. The Northstar put my kids through college
@@aaroncostello8812 or studding the block and 14mm shank i knowledge from my boss's shop that was into modifying caddy's
add the 500ci as well
I had a 99 DeVille and that sucker was actually pretty fast. To this day it is still my favorite car I've ever had. Very comfortable and quick. And I always liked the old digital dashes. I would have had it much longer but I totaled it when I hit the back of a box truck!
What really scared me was they had two timecert kits for these. First one for original failure and a second one for when the first one failed. Only way to fix these was the Northstar Performance stud kits.
No the only way is to have a professional machinist rebore the threads and put in larger ones, there’s someone that does it and has a 100% sucess rate in completely stopping any failures due to head gasket bolts.
After watching so many videos of very late model OHC engines being torn down, I've seen so many with those long timing chain runs directly from the crankshaft to the cams and have wondered why none of them had intermediate cam reduction and now see this and what a pleasant surprise. This engine's system is so much cleaner and more efficient that the later ones, fine engine design (from an old school motorcycle tech). Most later designs are disappointing by comparison.
If you think about pushrod GM V8s, it also seems kind of expected that they'd have an intermediate idler in approximately cam-position (in an OHV V8). So the chain from the crank to that is approximately like the timing chain on one of those. But yeah this design seems to work well.
This Northstar appears to be fully rebuildable and there's a head stud upgrade kit for it that includes retapping the block for larger diameter studs, bigger studs included. Probably worth doing.
They needed the stud upgrade as they munched on head gaskets
No Northstar is worth the trouble.
@@agenericaccount3935 baring the head-bolt issue, they are great engines and have a dedicated following. I owned 3 cars with them, and only certain years actually have the head-bolt problem, weirdly enough. The 96 Deville and 94 Seville I had; it was the Transmission that went at 200k miles. The 99 Seville had the head-bolt issue. I would love to do a 4.4 RWD/AWD Supercharged build one day if I ever had the money. Of course, I'd have the head-bolt and crank-bolt fixes implemented and the transmission overhauled with a shift-kit. The fact these fixes exists shows there's plenty of people out there willing to spend the money. All 3 cars served me well, actually. I only had to do 2 water pumps and 1 alternator on them. The water pump is easy to do, I hate the alternator though.
I'd part it out.
@@agenericaccount3935 it's why Cadillac used LS
Thanks for the northstar teardown, I had never seen one tore down, so it was cool to see an early GM ohc 4-valver. That dexcool is just so nasty, I wonder if not only mineral water but possibly mixing in the "universal" green coolant helped make that jello. The front timing cover looked very thin/stamped - seemed like it was bending as you were peeling it off. I hate the location of the starter, but if memory serves me right, the tundra has one that way and a few German vehicles also.
I’d love to see a 95-99 Taurus SHO engine tear down
I am of the belief, those who returned the core melted the pulley and broke the bolt. Only then did they discover the seized water pump. Of course it got left in the rain, before, during or after it got installed. Only for it to have to come back out. A super sketchy repower, right from the start. Thanks again for your hard work. I, like many others here really appreciate your efforts
I have never clicked on a video so fast. I am currently planning on building a 700 hp N/A Northstar for my 2008 DTS. This helped.
oh yay! Weird engine time!
Also, Why is it out of every DOHC V8 engine i have ever seen, with timing chains atleast, only ford gets them right? Having a whole front Timing cover that comes off is so much nicer than this BMW style Chains through the heads stuff.
The Jag/Lincoln AJ-V8 is leagues ahead of this when it comes to repairability for the chains.
I have a DOHC ford V6 that also has a correctly designed timing setup. Much easier to access everything.
My first car was a 2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue with that 3.5L Shortstar V6.
Needless to say, it died in the form of a head gasket failure. Shocking, I know.
I also owned a 2000 Olds 3.5 Intrigue. I sold it a few years ago with 362000 miles. No major engine parts replaced. I guess I got lucky.
I had thee same car. I loved it. Handled great, and had lots of power. Never had an engine issue.
@@imonaboatmfg72 no they dont have the head bolt problem like some northstars
As a retired Cadillac tech I can tell you the Northstar engine is an awesome engine.
Incredibly well designed engine originally a LOTUS design. Early pre 2000 blocks had issues with head bolt threads. The later 2000 and up GM changed the alloy used in the engine block and eliminated the head gasket issue.
I read some where years ago that the reason the starter ended up under the intake was they were working on an instant start system. The idea being to fire a key cylinder (fuel & spark) to start the engine. Most engines stop in one of three positions and the computer would use the starter to correct this position if need be.
It wasn’t eliminated, they made a change but it never was fixed , and because the only way to remove the engine is out the bottom , these cars were destined for the junkyard.
a fiero came in with a Northstar engine at kwik car in 1996
How can I get power out of the 4.6
@@jmcbreazysell the car and buy something better
25:44 this is exactly why you need to change your Dexcool per the time frame specified in the manual. In this case it will destroy your engine if you don’t. If you have a 3.1 it will eat the intake manifold, when it turns acidic from it breaking down.
My dad had a '94 Seville with the 275HP version. I did all the maintenance on it in the 13 years and 100k miles he had it, and nothing went wrong other than the water pump shaft seal seep and A/C compressor leak. These loved to rev and were pretty impressive for having been designed in the late 80's. Even the 4T80E trans shifted well. Too bad it was FWD.
I remember reading about these having a limp-home feature where you could drive for 50 miles with no coolant. If overheated, it would run on 4 cylinders, alternating between banks so that the shut-off cylinders could air-cool themselves IIRC. If it got into this mode, the PCM would afterwards say "oil change required" as that would have cooked the oil.
Realistically though, if your Northstar is out of coolant, it's probably because a failed head gasket resulted in it blowing all of its coolant out, so the engine is already dead, regardless of limp-home mode. Ask me how I know....
@@KevinJames-yg9eu :Nah. Usually a failing waterpump that was ignored til it locked up completely. The overheating ruins the headgasket.
These did have limp home mode that cam pulley for the water pump broke on mine and allowed me to drive slowly and dash would tell you "Engine too hot" I shut mine off 5 miles from my house and got a tow because I didnt know about the limp home mode until after I did the repairs.
There is something very satisfying about watching / listening to your high-speed segments of bolt removal etc. The sound in particular is fun.
I don't have time to watch now but I'll get to it when I get off work. Thank you for all your hard work and the amazing content you produce. We all love you!! Have a great rest of your weekend and have a solid week!👍
I have a theory about that buildup. We all know what a modern wonder Dexcool is, unrivalled in its gunk-producing ability. The pressure tank on Northstar/Aurora powered cars has a translucent bottom half and a black plastic top half, making visual inspection of the level very hard. It also includes the float for the level sender, which alerts the driver info center to ding a "low coolant" message when the aged Dexcool gunked up the float track and the float stuck. Continually adding coolant will blow the pressure cap, meaning the coolant actually does go a little low. Repeated cycles of the above, perhaps combined with knowledge of the head bolt issues, might have led someone to overuse stop leak, clogging everything, perhaps causing actual overheating, and toasting the water pump. The irony being it wasn't actually overheating or losing coolant at first.
The oil starvation is due to a really sloppy way to solve the Northstar Drip, which is the exhaust heat related oil pan leakage almost universal to these engines. Thanks to clearance issues, fully removing the oil pan means engine removal from the car and subframe. Many techs have gotten around this through some creative finagling of the pan while still in the car. Its a pain for sure. Whoever did this overshot the RTV target, thinking more is better so they wouldn't have a comeback and have to do it again or take the engine out and do it the right way. Great thing is, the drip makes a mess but thanks to an almost 8 quart oil capacity (!) You can really reliably run these a quart or more low with minimal problems. The starvation didn't happen because of low level, just impeded flow.
Finally, the insides of all Northstar bores are gonna look like that. GM new spec on these was 1 quart of oil burn per 1k miles was normal. That doesn't sound bad these days, thanks to ultra light weight MPG oils and everybody's engines letting it slip past the rings, but back in the Northstar's heyday of the 90s, when 10W30 or 5W30 was specced, a quart per thousand was a bad joke.
It was always fun to mess with a green tech by asking where the starter was on one of these or a Lexus V8. GM made the trail of breadcrumbs easy, though. Follow the Purple Wire.
Still one of the most pleasing noises on turnover of any engine I have ever heard. It sounds so expensive yet mechanical.
Similar to the panic-inducing coolant level float, the oil pressure sender would often get clogged (these came with 10W or 5W30 non-synthetic oil and an oil life monitor programmed for around 6-7k oil changes) and sporadically or repeatedly display low oil pressure warnings on the DIC. Some models also had a realtime oil pressure gauge (or, in GM, "Gage) that could be seen dipping well below normal. Many were misdiagnosed with worn bearings, when in reality an engine flush and maybe a new $50 oil pressure sender was the culprit.
Thanks to the burning oil clogging the rings and the oil pressure sender issues, a good old Italian Tune Up is basic regular Northstar mantenance. Not many of the seniors who owned nearly all Northstar equipped cars did that though, worsening both issues and probably leading to many being unnecessarily discarded. The cars also depreciated horribly, interiors were weak, fuel economy was atrocious even for the time (14-18 mixed in my mom's Aurora's case), electricals questionable, every piece cost cut to the Nth degree. Water pumps seep every 30k miles and require the special tool.
Solidly designed engine built poorly and put into beancounted cars.
Northstars and their parts are pretty much scrap value. Except the missing coil cassettes. Pre-2000 had coil packs like the 3800 family. Post 2005s had individual coil on plug. The stop gap were big 4-coil cassettes on each bank, silver in the front and black in the rear to match the valve cover. Any coil failure kills the whole cassette. Delco replacements run $300-500 per bank depending on where you buy. GM pioneered this setup on the Quad4 and reused it on the newer Ecotec (Cruzes, Sonics and Encores have these).
The original head bolts were lengthened in 2000 (and they started using threadlocker), helping cut the failure rate by like 90%. The 2005 redesign made use of the much coarser thread LS engine head bolts, curing the issue.
My current 03 Deville of 12 yrs just had the hg fail @ 170k.
That build-up is hg in a bottle. I’d put $ on it.
After Bars Leak didn’t work, I found an obscure product that nobody really knows about. Thermalweld
2 part hg in a bottle.
I’m 7k on it now. I don’t expect it to last forever, but for the $, I’m not disappointed.
In the 90s Honda/Acura considered it "within spec" if their engines burned 1 qt of oil or less every 1000 miles. Most engines I dealt with had similar specs around 1qt per 1500ish miles.
@@ToolofSociety That's baaad. Especially considering the 3.5-4 qt capacity! Heck even their modern V6s of 3.5l only hold 4.5ish quarts.
@@matthewbowen5841 Yeah in theory it's within spec to run out of oil between oil changes. That's why I remember those numbers so vividly. I was like "so you're telling me it's within spec for my engine to run out of oil between oil changes?" Honda was like "Yes that's why you need to check your fluids regularly"... Stuck with me hard. I don't know what the rule of thumb or what is spec for domestics. The only domestic I did a lot of work on was a 72 nova and I had built the engine myself and I considered "within spec" to be a whole hell of a lot lower than 1 quart every 1500 miles...
Most of the Honda engines I worked with had a 3.5 qt capacity including the oil filter. None of those cars went through 1 qt per 1000 miles. Even my friend's abused oil burning civic went through less than 1 qt per 1000 miles.
@@ToolofSociety We all thought Subaru was insane around 2013 when they switched to 0w20 in their boxer 4s and said 1 quart per thousand was fine, on a car with a 4.5 qt capacity (the 2.0 in the Impreza). I didn't know Honda had a similar history. Hondas love to leak, and burn oil at high mileage, but the directive back then about fairly new cars is news to me. Makes GM seem less slap dash with the Northstar, since at least it holds so much oil. Around the 0 weight switch was when every manufacturer started saying a quart per thousand was the new normal. GM, the Germans, Toyota, all of em. And then came 0w16 and 0w12... along with lighter-built engines. My mom's 4.0 Northstar uses the same amount at 120k as it did new, so at least it seems to be a design thing and not a progressive failure. Meanwhile, my Toyota 1MZ uses just about zero between 3000 mile changes on good old fashioned 5W30 conventional, all at 223k.
Fun Fact: The Northstar V8, the C4 ZR1's LT4, and the V8 in your Lotus Esprit were co-developed and share many similar features and characteristics.
You mean the LT5 in the ZR1 Corvette, the LT4 is just the well known smallblock Chevy.
This is a common misconception. LT5 was designed by Lotus in the UK- they were owned by GM at the time. The NorthStar was entirely GM North America, but they were open about the fact that they took some inspiration from the LT5 if the read the old article about it.
That chain drive system is a sight to behold! Plus bassheads could run 4 extra alternators and run of cam gears..
@@IwanTchernenkoI thought the same thing until seeing a few vids in 2014 GM reapplied LT series to mean a whole buncha things, but pushrod is common theme and 8 cylinders. I too thought LT1, LT4 always meant 350 cast iron block like I had in my Roadmaster.
Water pump comes out with a special tool. Turned counter clockwise. I think it was a 3 hour job. I would like to see the Olds 3.5 IF you ever acquire one.
I second that
This reminds me of your last video on the Ford 300---lack of cooling system maintenance roasted the head gasket(s). For those that are new to auto repair, I hope this tip will help. When applying RTV to flat mating surfaces, you want to have full, even coverage all around the gasket surface, but the RTV should be THIN. How thin? There should be just enough so that if you were to smear it with your finger while it's on the gasket, it shouldn't spread. If you tighten the bolts to spec and you see ANY RTV oozing out, you used too much.
@Freiherr Dinkelacker Yes, exactly!
Good Quality gaskets do not need RTV sealer. This engine was beyond overkill with the RTV!
RTV shouldn't be used with gaskets. Thin might be better, but NONE is the proper way.
(unless specifically documented by the engine manufacturer)
that doesnt makes sense to me. sure, if it oozed out there was too much, but guess what, what should be there is still there, so isnt that still functional? not enough would be the bigger problem, youd do all that work for nothing because it'd leak all over again.
better to have and not need than need and not have. also, like previous guy said, you shouldn't be putting gasket material on a gasket, thats what the gasket is for.
@@BobSmith-mc7uq It seems that there are no good quality gaskets for Northstar as there isn't a single gasket that doesn't start leaking after few years. That's why RTV is often used. Ofcourse this here is complete overkill.
An engine that would be cool to see torn down one day is a buick 3800- love the content!!
I don't think those engines hardly die
@@danielknepper6884 agreed! Aside from intake gasket leaks and an intake manifold egr port that can crack and hydrolock the engine they're really stout and seemingly can run forever.
The early 231 Buicks ones aren’t great.. plagued with oiling system problems… GM 3800 series 2 is an amazing motor. My Buick 109 (grand National v6) has all kinds of oiling mods and it still doesn’t have great oil psi lol
@@jafferm1938 the oiling in pre-corporate era Buick engines has always been a weak point unfortunately. There are several good fixes out there though.
I've rebuilt a Buick 350 (pretty much what the LC2 was based off of, which itself is derived from the 215) and it uses an identical oil pump setup. An adjustable pressure regulator and high pressure oil pump plate do wonders for addressing some of the oiling issues. I did the same thing in a worn out 455 I have, that motor makes over 60psi at idle on cold start and 20psi hot at idle.
The 3800 series of engines made big changes to address some of this, including switching to a more modern and efficent gerotor oil pump driven off the crank instead of the cam sensor or distributor.
One big mistake many guys make with the Buick V8s is installing high volume oil pump gears. These put a ton of stress on an already failure prone front cam bearing. The crank driven oil pump in the 3800 eliminates that issue.
There is a forum post a GN guy made where he modified 2 timing covers to add a 3800 oil pump to his LC2.
Another great teardown always enjoy watching your channel and content. You always have a great variety of engines in the lineup it is worth waiting for the next video. You also have video's on you fixing your own vehicle's. You are a great commentator you have great personality also you explain everything thourghly. Thank you for sharing these video's with us they are always enjoyable.
Considering the amount of RTV in the oil drain passages, this engine is in surprisingly good condition. It appears to be rebuildable. It could have been much worse. The rods are very thin. They don't look like they can handle much horsepower. Very cool tear-down!
the engine is rated at 300 hp and 300 ft pnds torque.
Another GM gem. Nothing like Saturday night teardowns! Keep it ip Eric! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
I changed the engines in quite a few of those cars, Cadillac, and Aurora. Had to drop out the sub frame to work on it. I changed head gaskets on one, when I was torqueing the bolts down several on the back bank pulled the threads, learned a lesson there, and replaced the rest with replacement engines. Never used any wrecking yard engines, could be as bad or worse than what you were taking out. Wrecking yard would give you another engine, but you had to eat labor, and fluids. Cars used to be fun to work on, now it is never our fault, you did something wrong installing it.
Used too see a lot of these engines with the original formula dexcool having a lot of crystalline, or peanutbutter like deposits. Sometimes if you mixed green in the system it would turn the whole thing into a muddy mess.
That's what I was thinking. Someone threw dollar store green coolant on top of factory dexcool and it plugged up the system
i dont get why coolants can be so different
Loved the method of turning this engine over🤣
Hope to see the compilation video of dipstick wars in the future!
Just when you think this will be a regular teardown, you went and turned it up to 11 with the starter test!
I was honestly surprised that's all the carnage you encountered. By the time a Northstar makes it to the shop, they usually look far worse.
But this one was good enough to be sold as a second hand engine by a junkyard. So it likely was running last and has been left possibly upside down considering the oily plugs.
One of the highlights of my Saturday nights - waiting for the next teardown video drop. Thanks so much for filming teardowns and producing these videos.
I remember when the Northstar came out all the car magazines raving about how GM had finally produced a V8 engine on a par with Germany and Japan. Unfortunately, the hype came to a screeching halt when customer cars began reaching 100k miles and separated heads/blown head gaskets caused these engines to drop like flies. Now we see the aftermath of a Cadillac engine likely mechanically totaled by a blown head gasket. No carnage like bent/broken connecting rods or piston deletes, but it was still pretty bad. Talk about nasty. I hope you found enough good parts and can make something more than scrap value off this thing.
Just another reason to flush your cooling system more often than is stated in the manual. 2 years, max. is what I do for my cars.
Oh YES! As a Northstar owner (LD8) I've waited so long for this teardown video! Can't wait to see how this Rubik's cube of an engine comes apart.
Is that the 300 HP HO engine
@@nickyj3571 No, the LD8 was the Deville and SLS Engine. 280Hp, The L37 was 300Hp, Still Have one in my 1998 STS. Studded the block ten years ago, still running strong at 165,000 miles !
@@Archangel2020 I don't even understand why they had the two different engines with only a 20hp difference
@@nickyj3571 the gearing is also different between the 2 versions. The lower power versions have a bit more torque to move with the higher final drive ratio.
@@danr9584 I drove both versions didn't notice anything different except for the performance model having magnaride which did turn better at higher speed and the 18in wheels looked nicer
Ok, I did 38 long, miserable years as a Cadillac Tech. '71 till '08. I had 171 Northstars out of the car for one reason or another. Yes, they had issues. I never used any RTV on reseals, ever. The gaskets and seals were quite good. They were leakers though after XXX number of miles. A special tool is required to R and R the water pump. If I ever see another N* it will be too soon!!
171 is a LOT! Crazy that you kept track. I’m sure you don’t miss all of it.
17:06 As a (former) DSM owner, I felt that one.
Regarding the rod size, remember that size is only part of the story (there’s probably a joke there). The Northstar is an expensive engine that was only installed in expensive cars. The 5.3 LS is a cheap truck engine. The Northstar is meant to spin up to 6500-7000 rpm. The 5.3 LS is made to spin up to 5500rpm. In other words, the rods are made of stronger, lighter materials in the Northstar, whereas the 5.3 rods are made of cheap, heavy materials. So yeah, size is only part of the story.
Right 😂😂 I’m not an owner but had to do one on my buddy’s 4g63 😂😂
LMAO I came here to comment about the 4g pass he made 😅😂😂😂
Glad another fellow DSMer heard it too😂👌
Well that's one water pump you can't say "looks great, should totally save that" before throwing it in the dumpster 😂 Definitely enjoy seeing how all the engines you've torn down are put together - and of course the carnage when they fail!
ProTip: Don't look down the hole. 😅
On a serious note, the Northstar is like two head gasket puking Quad4s stuck together, I bet the same people designed both.
The early Quad4s, like mine, had the PS pump rub off a short belt off the back off the camshaft, later ones drove the PS pump right off the back of the cam. Mine liked blowing the that cam seal, besides the head gaskets.
Except there's a head stud kit fo Northstars that makes them great engines. Quad4s are junk no matter what
After watching you use two forklifts to move a breaker bar I appreciate your willingness when you go into "We're doing this" mode.
I enjoyed seeing it, especially because I never owned a Northstar. We all had high hopes for it, especially in light of the disaster known as the HT4100. I remember their introduction, as I recall GM claimed that they could be driven some distance without coolant. I doubted it then and after seeing this engine and knowing the head bolt thread situation, I still seriously doubt it. Cadillac sure screwed the pooch in so many ways.
The NorthStar is pretty much the opposite of the LS. It's actually (in theory) not a bad engine at all, really cutting edge ahead of it's time. They where pushing 300hp from a 4.6 in 1993 which is really really impressive. I think the issue with it was too much at all at once. The LS really if you look at it, is a product improved 2nd gen small block chevy. The northstar is a really really advanced engine that i think if it had more time would have been a great motor. It has a fully supported crankshaft like performance engines, the lower oil pan forms the bearing journals. It also had fully controlled spark and fuel timing among other electrical goodness. Those valve covers are magnesium I think, because light like plastic but not cheap and break.
Consider what ford did in 1992, they made the absolute disappointment that was the modular pretty begrudgingly after wanting to discontinue the mustang for a Mazda and v8s all together.
Chrysler was still using the LA from 1964 with pretty much 0 changes they had AMC cranking out their abysmal 4.0 becuase they didn't have an engine worth shit that wasn't by Mitsubishi.
GM tried. I mean they totally fucked it up and this engine was hot garbage all things considered. But they had a go at it, unlike the others. And i forgive them for everything cos they went back at it and made the LS. They didn't try to stick to it like ford. God I hate the modular. The cayote sucks too.
Good take. As someone else said, it could be considered two Quad4s joined together, and while Quad4s also had problems, they were very close to the most thermally efficient engines for their time and definitely for the price, pretty much only Ferrari and Lamborghini were selling cars with higher mean effective pressures in normally aspirated engines at the time. GM running hot and cold on innovation and investment meant the Quad4 and Northstar both had lots of potential and good ideas that weren't given the time and resources to gel into something really developed and ready for market at the volumes and price points GM wanted them to.
@@Trendyflute Yea i think it was just time and testing. The other thing is i think this engine was a victim of culture, Americans where so used to the bombproof reliable Chevy small blocks that they weren't ready for a engine like this. I bet in a German car the NorthStar would have been praised as one of the best engines. Is this any less reliable than a M60? or a M113? The main issue it had was oil consumption and overheating (which was usually owner fault)
I've slapped small blocks together with multiple gaskets because the deck is warped and those things run and run fine. You can't do that sort of thing to one of these.
Granted I might take all this back, I'm looking for a decent NorthStar engine to build and NorthStar swap something in place of my usual LS swap. And maybe it really is a garbage fire. Won't know till I try.
The modular ford, one of the most reliable engines ever made. And you bad mouth it like it's garbage.
They have also gone faster than any ls in any configuration.
Yep that horrible engine.
You sound like a complete fool and ignorant GM fan boy bashing the Ford modular V8. 400 to 500k stock in Taxicabs and Police cars. The Coyote is better than anything GM currently has on the market. Even engine builders are switching over to them for their ability to handle massive amounts of power on stock internals. GM does one thing well, pushrod engines. Everything else is garbage and history has proven it.
How could testing not show how weak the block is where the head bolts tread into. Major design flaw that any engineer worth his money should have known. Typically GM most likely the thin head bolts were a few cents cheaper. And the Ford modular motors are best in class and way advanced compared to an LS.
Gotta love how convenient the starter is to replace in these, always looking forward to another one of your videos
Thanks Eric
BMW does it too
Isuzu trooper as well
Toyota does lots of their v8's that way
Honda 2.4 l too
I prefer it in a lot of cases. Its easier to get out than say a toyota 3.4 v6. The intake comes off in a matter of minutes and its just right there, rather than struggling under the car on your back for a while getting dirt in your eyes.
Really nice video! As others say, you have a lot of skill with various engines and I am really impressed. Your videos have made me much more proactive about checking the oil level in my own car engine. I'd certainly like to see a Subaru FB-25 engine teardown, if one happens to be in your shop.
New t-shirt slogans: "Why'd I look down the hole?" "definitely worth keeping... Crash!" "why did I take such a deep breath of that?"
Man I always enjoy your videos!
Everyone hated the starters and water pumps on these engines but they were not bad to change
I owned one of these Northstars. Loved it! Never had any issues with it. I did change the oil every 4-5K and engine was a solid engine. The Deville it came in had electrical issues... but the engine was good. Only drawback for me was it needed a starter at 80K and it was expensive as you have to pull the intake manifold off to get at it and it's BIG!.
Removing the intake manifold to change the starter on a Northstar is potentially a lot less painful than removing the exhaust pipe on a small block Chevy. As for the oil change interval, mine was using a quart every 500 miles, and there's no use in changing anything but the filter when it's leaking and burning oil that fast. My STS was a great car, aside from the engine.
Great one this weekend. Loved the starter turnover part. Just knew it was gonna shoot all that oil out that was on those spark plug boots.
Eric, loved this Northstar tear down! I wasn't too surprised that the rear bank looked a bit dirtier than the front bank, in fact that would be expected..... I must commend you on your hard work on these videos; your thoroughness and dedication shows. I believe that 200k subscribers would agree!
It is crazy to see how relatively complex the northstar is compared to an LS4 that made more horsepower with a much simpler design.
GM has taken flak from many auto journalists for sticking with "ancient pushrod V8s" but they work, and they are dead simple to repair and maintain.
That being said. I love quirky engines and I absolutely do not see myself jumping on the LS swap the world bandwagon.
Once the head studs are repaired with a kit from Northstar performance these engines are actually pretty cool. I think I saw one on TH-cam years ago that made 700hp with a turbo and spun to... I think 8700RPM and sounded absolutely sick. If I had a project I would totally consider shoving one of these engines into it.
It will definitely not hold 700 hp for very long, north star engine block is weak
@@a.a7648hey are not! Any block will crack if not sleeved to handle certain power level and using those hard solid mounts.
The last time Cadillac had its own engines that didn't need a revision to keep them running for the long term, it was the big block 500/472/425 series of the 1970s. You almost NEVER find one of those engines that is blown up. Especially they almost never, EVER are seen with a bottom end failure due to lack of lubrication. Every engine after this series has had this problem or that problem.
The power of IRON!!!!
We had a 500 when I was a kid that had to be rebuilt. Even after the rebuild it would quit pumping oil.
Weren’t those Cadillac big blocks known to have lubrication issues that caused them to spin bearings if they get revved over like 4000rpm for any amount of time?
Don't remind GM. A fair compromise going forward is to offer whatever Buick Chev GMC offering as a Cadillac performance package with hood ornament Landau top and opera lights.
Yet another banger of a video! Hey Eric, any chances you could do a teardown on an early non-sulev N52? I did my valve cover gasket and have been slowly refurbishing all the gaskets and parts on this E90 and I gotta say, what a fantastic engine! I can see why the forums say it's one of the most reliable BMW engines ever made, and probably the last N/A i6 engines as well.
Let me answer your ? On why these engines have so much sealant, because this engine tends to leak a lot and I understand why the owner had so much sealer on it😂😂
This one had the VVT I believe , the roller lifters were a nice change, my 98 had the old bucket style lifters. The VIN K engine code L37 engine was rated at 300HP factory, a good engine, it was just mostly neglected from owners who have no idea what " preventative maintenance" is. This is a good rebuildable engine, use a Northstar Peformance engine head stud kit and the bottom end stud kit as well and this thing will last forever. Jake in Canada owns NSP and patented his own engine stud kit with the tools to do the stud kit including the jig plate, drill bit tap thread locker and everything needed. The 4.6 Northstar is so underrated, it's an amazing engine!!
Couldn't have said it better myself. Most of the time when I see these nowadays it's a single mom with 3 kids on 2.donuts putting 87 octane in and leaking oil everywhere. Do you really think she cares about maintenance 😂
No VVT until the LH2 in 2004, and I'm not sure they ever used VVT in FWD applications. The LH2 was a RWD Northstar. I had two.
Educational as always. When you pulled the oil pan and base plate off, there appears to be a cast in (or machined) groove in the mating face for an o-ring running around the full perimeter. Did not see any evidence of an o-ring as it came apart. My guess... most Northstars were leakers and it appears that someone tried to fix the leaks with $58 worth of RTV in place of the o-ring.
Did you change / upgrade your mic? Or move it to a different location? The audio sounds great in this video! I love hearing all the details of you tearing down an engine. Great video as always. Each one is better than the last!
Honestly, I'm surprised that the engine was in as good a shape as it was. With the later revisions (2000's) I was hoping for broken head bolts and far more carnage. Learned something new everyday.
That means they made them for 72 Seasons. Thanks for the inspiration behind this comment to METALLICA.
Man, what a complicated and convoluted setup! Now I know why mechanics hated these things. Jesus😂
Man, Kudos for making this video at 1:30am!! I hope you know how much we appreciate it!
Out of all the engine channels out there you seem to be a very likable guy! I love your channel, hope you get 37 million subs! Keep up the great stuff! And thanks for sharing!
Really like how he's not letting the "Cram the crack caps loose" joke die.
I had two Northstars via Cadillac a few years back. Never again! Two cars I bought both of them used, four blown head gaskets with both less than 140K on either. Pieces of garbage. The first Cadi had blown gaskets (both) on a trip in 2005. I think the car was a 1998. Anyway, the repair was $3000.00 and took 3 days. As I said before the car had around 140K miles on it. The second was on a 2005 Cadi in 2016. Again both head gaskets but the cost this time was quoted at $6000.00 for a car that high booked at $900.00. Nope, sold to someone that felt they could fix it themselves. They couldn't and it was junked. Really sad because the rest of the car was in prime condition. It was a Deville DHS with every bell, whistle and switch you can imagine. It became one of the nicest looking lawn ornaments you can imagine.
Just did an oil pan one one of these, and I found the same if not more silicone in the pickup, so it must be a common problem. I did find a forum saying that GM's reccommended service is to use RTV instead of the gasket they made, which is quite interesting. I ended up using both, but I found it odd that GM themselves reccomended no gasket and just a bunch of silicone, and it clearly had a negative impact with the pickup if we both had this issue.
My dad had the 1994 Seville STS with 298,000 miles on it and it was still running strong.The engine was great but everything around it was falling apart.It never overheated.It always stayed between 195F to 225F .Then he had to get rid of it as it needed alot suspension work and my friend gave me for free a 93 Lexus LS400 and that now has 303,000 miles and running smooth.
Former Cadillac dealer tech here. In 15+ years, I never ever saw a Northstar Starter fail unless it was flooded, and that was only once.
Seems like a crazy location, but it was very dependable based on my experience.
Personally I don’t have a problem with this location. I rather do this than have to dig it out between exhaust frame and transmission.
@@I_Do_Cars and FAR better than the V6 Fbodies of the late 80s, especially one lower so 3 jacks were needed to get the height to get under the car
I just want a compilation of all the head bolts you’ve broken free in one big video. Absolute bliss.
What a shame the history of these engines… they are so strong and I have so much love for them! It looks to me like whoever had this engine ran it a while with the block leaking like that so he suffered from some oiling issues… the mechanic put the silicone on with his eyes closed and maybe forgot to do the valve cover gaskets! As far as the coolant goes, if you keep up on the flushes and put the right stuff in it then she’ll be fine. He probably doesn’t know but this motor is in pretty decent condition compared to some of the ones I’ve seen 😆
I still run a northstar 189,000 miles it was good in 2002
Great engine.The old Indy Racing Leigh used the Olds variant of this engine in late 90's.
Aura engines were a totally different design from the Northstar not even similar
Glad to see you finally do a Northstar. Heard lots of stories at the GM dealer I work at on how bad these were back in the day.
They can't be worse than working with eco tec engine series.
Its why Cadillac went LS for CTS V
@@fernando13e Don't be so sure about that.
I have a 96 aurora withthe 4.0 , I pulled it out and resealed the bottom end and rebuilt the transmission. I was very impressed with the engineering.
I read an article years ago from the mid 90s said the Northstar engine despite what people think was an engineering masterpiece and it really one upped the Germans
Interesting because the inline 6 BMW engines make great power.
I remember when they rolled these out. So much hype, after Cadillac had been such a joke for the previous decade. These seemed to be an engineering victory at first, but quickly degraded back into a joke.
That build up is the dex-cool GM like to use it’s very corrosive and left unserviced it would start to affect the head gaskets
Started in North Star engine school in 1992. Compared to the HT4100 they were great. They ran strong and didn't leak as much. Hearing one in a 3.5-liter Indy car at speed was pure mechanical symphony.
love your show. your safety bin is a riot. thanks for what you do.
The 4g63 crankwalk joke was appreciated lol
I imagine when you'll be taking the gr86 motors apart in the future you'll find even more rtv from subaru 😂
Northstar engines are extremely well known for using oil and blowing the head gaskets at 60,000 miles
"Am I working on a 4G63?"
Lort, dead.
Toyota for life❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I have several of these with zero issues besides oil leaks from half case issues. Almost 300k on mine.
I bet somebody thought it was a bad HG and dumped Blue Devil "fix" in it and plugged it up. That or used a ton of coolant stop leak in coolant. Both a major no no regardless of engine.
I've had a dozen apart and none looked anywhere bad, this one was absolutely neglected.
They have a bad rep which really isn't deserved.
Good mileage and HP. What other engine is designed for 50 miles with no coolant and will be fine.
For the cylinder walls to be scored is absolutely due to abuse and lack of maintenance. The have the best finish pretty much you'll ever see from the factory so to be scratched is very rare
This channel helps me on which vehicles with the engines to get and which ones to avoid at all costs
Excellent...now i know why my Northstar was a total lemon 1st class vid
You should be able to pry off the heads with a small flathead screwdriver. No need to remove the bolts.
This video brought back so many memories from when I worked at a Cadillac dealer. I rebuilt a few northstar engines. The rtv was a bulletin to use silicon instead of the cheesy rubber gaskets along with the anaerobic sealant for oil pan. I loved working on those money pit engines 😅. Imagine working on that engine in a no room engine bay 😂. Thanx for the tear down.