Are there ANY redeeming qualities to the Northstar V8? Any at all?

umm it's a fucking V8 at the end of the day.

>>16241335
No.

>>16241351
I feel like there's enough cons as well as pros with being a V8 that it's not a good thing by virtue

Not really. The LS is better. The Chevrolet small block is better. The Ford modular is better. The Olds Rocket is better.

Northstars are neat but they're huge and heavy and love to blow head gaskets like nobody's business. I guess they're smooth?

>>16241405
How much does a gasket job cost if your block and head are undamaged?

>>16241421
>block and head are undamaged
On a Northstar, that's unlikely. The thing is with the Northstars is that over time the head bolts wear out the holes in the block- which is aluminum instead of the usual pig iron- from stress and pressure, and eventually after multiple head gasket replacements you won't have anything left to put the bolts into.

>>16241456
And aluminum blocks are damn expensive lmfao

>>16241421
Whoever does it for you has to pay off the second mortgage they took out on their house to buy all the special tools required to do your gasket job.

Chop the shitstar out, bodge in a 4.3 or a 350 and call it a day.

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Have we found a worse designed engine than Audi's 4.2l chain-drive V8?

>>16241335
It rides really really smooth. Thats all it was built for. Oh and shitting out the head gasket on the 3rd owner at 170k
>used cadillacs
>evet

>>16241681
Unfortunate. I really love the caddy's that come with this engine. It's a shame it's so terrible

>>16241669
Did the truth behind the giant micrometer ever come out?

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Their actually pretty neat, shame they are so unreliable.

I picked up a shitty $300 STS to run in a V8 enduro, I'm interested to see if it'll last.

>>16241405
>>16241456
>>16241658
Putting factory studs back in is asking for trouble. The aftermarket has already fixed the issue. IIRC the DIY kit to bulletproof the studs was around $600 or you can pay the shop to do it for around $1200-1500. Once this is done, they're apparently very reliable engines.

Last article I saw on it showed a 25% failure rate by 100k miles for 92-99 models and a 10% failure rate by 100k miles in 00-02 models.

Don't buy one with 400k miles that's had shitty studs put in it five times.

>>16241464
Go to a self service junkyard. They generally cost the same as any other block.

Bodging a 350 into a transverse Cadillac with a different transmission bolt pattern might not be as easy as you expect. The SBC, BBC, and 6.2/6.5 all share a pattern but the Northstar shares it's pattern with the GM V6 engines.

>>16241718
That's some very helpful information anon, thanks. When looking at a used one of these, what's the best way to tell if the head gasket is on the way out? Besides the obvious white smoke haha

>>16241718
May I present to you: The modern V8 Limpala
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LS_based_GM_small-block_engine#LS4

Goofy shit. Good luck finding one.

Oh. God dammit. 60 degree V6 pattern. My typin' outran my brain on that one haha

>>16241762
>transverse FWD LS
Jesus fuck.
It's almost as weird as VW deciding that the VR6 could do with one cylinder less and putting the resulting VR5 into all the things.

>>16241718
>Turbo V6 seville when
>muh ego-boost cadillac

>>16241703
What?

>>16241669

fuck you

i like the 4.2 that i had in my old B6

that chian whine and delicious torque

good shit.

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>transverse fwd v8
into the trash it goes

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As a poor college student with a 98 deville with 73k miles and one previois owner what should I do about the gaskets problem? If it pops I can't afford the repair and I drive 1k miles to and from school repeatedly so need reliability.

Anybody have a link to the kit that reinforces the gaskets?

I'm thinking of buying a second car and letting my cadillac sit at my parents place till summer.

>>16241703
No, we're still searching for answers.

>>16241335

Were these sold with 100k service intervals or am I making that up?

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>>16243438

>>16243452

I could have sworn I read that somewhere. Or at least something about stupidly long service intervals

>>16243415
Sell it now while it still runs. 97-99 are the worst of the worst

>>16243415
Start putting money away to do the restud yourself, or go ahead and sell it.

There's a 75% chance it will NOT fail within the next 27k miles. If it does fail, that really doesn't change the value much.

The fear of the 25% failure rate has already dropped the value to the point where everyone assumes that every example needs the repair.