How about petitioning GM Performance?

[LymanSS]

As you may know, GM has a performance division which is concentrating on making performance versions of many of GM's production vehicles. There is also GM Performance parts, which makes aftermarket products for GM vehicles, and vehicles equipped with GM parts (IE hotrods with GM engines). Either, or both of these divisions would be capable of providing performance equipment for Northstar equipped vehicles. For example, they recently released a supercharger for the 2.4 liter inline four cylinder engines. There's an excellent business case for that product given the enormous number of people in that market who modify their cars, and the large number of vehicles produced. I believe that there is also a decent business case for northstar equipped vehicles. With about 100,000 devilles per year, 25,000 sevilles, 15,000 or so Eldos (untill they were discontinued) 25,000 auroras (until discontinuation) and soon there will be pontiacs with 4.4 liter northstars as well. One might expect that these cars are less likely to be modified, but I posit that there are plenty of owners out there who want more power, and who have the financial resources to afford performance parts.

It would take a large scale show of support to effect any sort of influence at GM, but given time I think that it would be possible. Would anyone else here be interested in starting a petition to GM performance asking for performance parts for the northstar? I would like to design a proposal to GM stating what we are looking for (a rough estimate of desired power increase) and what sorts of products we would like (supercharger? Intake? heads and cams? handling products too?) and then begin collecting signatures of as many cadillac owners who are interested in this. We could have this forum serve as the center of it, but seek support from people all over. Other forums, car shows....even dealerships are often willing to support such efforts and inform their customers about it. Is anyone interested in such an effort? Do you have ideas about whether it will work? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Scott

[LymanSS]

In the above post, I mentioned a "proposal" and I wanted to let you know what sort of thing I was thinking of. I wrote up a list of requirements that we might lay out. We could say that the people signing would be explicitly interested in purchasing a product that met the following requirements:


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A 25-30 percent increase IE:375-390 hp for DTS STS engines

No loss of low end torque or driveability.

Retain the smooth, sophisticated feel and responsive nature of the Northstar engine

No more than 10 percent fuel economy penalty

CARB Certification - emmissions legal

Factory appearance

Bolt on installation. No internal engine work, removal of heads/cam, etc

price under 15 percent of initial vehicle cost
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Those aren't necessarily exactly what we would ask for. But I'm thinking this sort of information would show what exactly we are asking for. Does anyone else think this is a good idea?

Scott

[playaman]

Hell yes!!! Even though it would take at LEAST a year for them to get products out to the main market.

[kcnewell]

That's a great idea, I would imagine knowing what I do about vehicle manufacturers that they've already got some R/D done on just such products but perhaps they don't think there's enough of a market! Sometimes these companies can be amazingly slow recognizing a trend like the recent trend of hot rodding Caddys again. ( Again.....'Cause it was big in the '50s )

[LymanSS]

Well, we know that they've made supercharged Nortstars before. The Evoq concept debuted with a supercharger, and most likely they're working on a production version as we speak. It's obviously going to be for the next gen northstar (the one in the XLR and SRX, with VVT) but it wouldn't be too hard to make it fit the older northstars.

The guy in this link, Mark Reuss is the one whom I think we need to contact. There might be someone below him who is more directly responsible for our needs. http://media.gm.com/events/productseminar/bios/markreuss.htm

I'm trying to determine approximately how many signatures we would need, and in what format. Internet petitions have notoriously little weight, because it's difficult to determine whether people are submitting multiple "signatures," and whether they are people who's opinions count, or if they are just jokers who want to have their say. One idea I had was to have a petition where people could sign their name, and optionally include the make, model and maybe VIN number of their caddy. That would add credibility to our petition, as it would demonstrate that we are in fact cadillac owners. We would need software that allows people to submit their data confidentially, and have it archived somewhere. I have a hosting space, and I'd be glad to host it, but I don't know what software to use. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Scott

[Katshot]

Sounds great but the thing won't fly unless you can convince them that there's a market for it, and that's not going to be easy.
On top of that, I doubt you'll see Cadillac endorsing ANY performance enhancements for the Gen I Northstar since the top-end is not up top the increased stress.

[LymanSS]

Well the idea behind a petition would be to demonstrate the market. The people signing would be saying that they are interested in the product, and that they are representative of the potential market. We'd need a lot of people. I'd like to publicize it all over the net, and through the dealer networks.

Scott

[kcnewell]

I gotta agree with Katshot on this one. The heads would absolutely have to come off and be fixed before you did much to them along the lines of higher performance! G.M doesn't want to open THAT can of worms!

[jadcock]

I don't get your guys' drift on the "top end not being up to the increased stress". The Northstar has been supercharged and nitroused before. That's pretty stressful. If you're talking about the head bolt threads, that's easily corrected with a Time-sert kit. After a block has been Time-serted, it's stronger than the original configuration. The heads themselves should be stout enough for any amount of power 4.6 liters can make on pump gas.

[kcnewell]

That was my point! Cadillac knows about the head bolt problem and I would tend to think that they wouldn't want to deal with the potential liability that might arise in our sue happy society if someone bought an authorized engine mod and then had a head bolt problem.

[jadcock]

Adding power to any engine increases the risk of failure, and I don't consider the head bolt thing a "problem"...just a normal occurance when you're dealing with bolts and threads -- especially in aluminum stock. Heli-coils have been around for decades because this sort of thing just happens sometimes. I think that if Cadillac started a factory performance program, that they would recommend the parts to do the job correctly (like the Time-sert kit). But in the end, I don't think any bolt-on would cause so much stress to catastrophically fail the head bolts.

It's recommended that whenever a Northstar is diassembled that a Time-sert kit be installed when the heads go back on, and use new head bolts of course. But this isn't a type of thing where engines just fail randomly because the head bolts fall out or anything. You can usually trace a problem with the head gaskets or head bolts to improper maintenance (usually, cooling system maintenance). This has been largely fixed with the 1996 and above engines, with the use of non-silicated DEX-COOL coolant. Sure, it still happens, but we're talking about a very small minority of engines. Millions are out there running that have never been taken apart (including mine). We just hear about the bad ones because owners get frustrated when it happens and they vent to forums like this one. Rarely do people seek out forums just to say, "man, my car is running good."

[LymanSS]

I imagine that if they did produce a product such as the one we are requesting, they would provide a warning to owners of early northstars, reccomending the use of time-serts to prevent damage. They would obviously have to produce several versions of such a product with different computer tuning modules, fasteners, and other hardware bits, depending on the year. This is the sort of thing that the engineers would figure out before producing it.

By the way....would it be possible to make this thread sticky so we could get more people to see this? I'm working on hunting down some software for internet based petitions. I've got one thing so far, but it's a little tricky to use.

Scott

[BeelzeBob]

I guess we could set something up right here in these forums for a petition. It would probably be more meaningful if Cadillac knew that only one user per email can sign up here and sign the petition. It's a little more controlled here than elsewhere. The only downfall would be that people have to signup here. But, I can get a quick signup form going where you'd only need to leave your username and email address - or close to it.. So it would be quick and easy...

Let me know what you think. We could have one really long thread with the signed name, VIN if desired, and comments...

[ljklaiber]

The only way all aluminum race engines stay happy with fasteners ,is with studs, ...not bolts . ARP sells grade 8 stud kits, but not for NS. Can be ordered if you lay the boost on it. stud the block.

[jadcock]

You're absolutely right -- studs are the way to go, performance-wise. I bet a stud job on a Northstar would be a custom endeavor -- I don't know of anyone making them either. The bottom end is already very robust on the Northstar. Your normal engine, even a "4 bolt main" engine, has individual main bearing caps. The Northstar uses a main bearing girdle on the bottom end, to really tie everything together. There are 4 bolts at each main bearing, so it's still strong, but it's also sturdy because of the girdle architecture.

There are, if I recall correctly, 29 bolts holding the bottom end together. That's a good many bolts -- and a good many studs for a custom job.