classic car advice please

[TMAXXKING1]

most state inspectoins for that old of a car are as the following

lights brakes glass and an idle test thats about it ... no dyno no probe in tail pipe ...
some states like newhampshire you cant have any rusted floor boards ..

[joez]

Its a 71 eldorado, its got 54K miles. 90% of that generation of caddys were bought by old folks who literally dont drive anywhere. My neighbor just traded in his mint condition 1974 coupe DeVille that he bought new, and it had 36,700 documented miles. Not to mention he said that they know the guy they got it from.


As for mileage, you will get better than 12. Most people who drive with a relatively light foot have gotten over 20mpg. Dont beat on it to hard, that 500 likes to eat CV shafts anyway. Straight line they are fine, but to many hard corners with the pedal mashed will blow parts, if they are orriginal. Unless you live in Komufornia, smog tests will be a breeze, if you even have to take them. For paint, i always like the 76 caddy silver, real sharp looking color, and easy to keep clean. If you do all the prep and pull the interior and doors they will paint the whole body, and if they dont have to prep it the cost isnt to bad. Then the only part that wont match would be the firewall.

Visit www.500cid.com for any engine parts you need. Pulling 600 horse and over 700 ft-lbs is relatively simple on these motors, and their torque curve is amazing. I will probobally be replacing my diesel with a built 500 this spring, if diesel fuel prices dont come down. 500 ft-lbs off idle on pump gas with a redline 2 grand more than my diesel will be nice.

Good luck with the car.

[Eagle]

does it have whale skin hub caps and big brown baby seal eyes for headlights? Or was that just the 1967 model?

[Brak]

pyro, it has 54k miles on it. joez it right, its an old lady-owned car. it has been maintained for the past 33 years by the guy (gas station owner) who we are buying it from. no fraud here. thanks for the advice everyone, im surprised at the gas mileage, its better than a H2 so its cool with me. im a heavy-footed driver, but im not crazy, so im gonna go easy on this and try to maintain this car as well as possible. i want it to last a long time for me. any other maintanance tips? i want to keep it in tip-top shape.

right now according to the old caddy advertisement i found on a site it has:
Gross HP 345 @ 4400 RPM
SAE net HP 235 @ 3800 RPM
Gross torque 535 ft.-lbs. @ 2800 RPM
SAE net torque 410 @ 2400 RPM

is there a way i can get some more power and at the same time make it more reliable? like replace old, less effecient parts with newer, dependable, more effecient parts?

oh, and no emissions here. they stopped testing emissions 2 years ago because it was so corrupt. even if you passed and you didnt slip them a 20, youd still fail, so they just stopped alltogether

[joez]

pyro, it has 54k miles on it. joez it right, its an old lady-owned car. it has been maintained for the past 33 years by the guy (gas station owner) who we are buying it from. no fraud here. thanks for the advice everyone, im surprised at the gas mileage, its better than a H2 so its cool with me. im a heavy-footed driver, but im not crazy, so im gonna go easy on this and try to maintain this car as well as possible. i want it to last a long time for me. any other maintanance tips? i want to keep it in tip-top shape.

right now according to the old caddy advertisement i found on a site it has:
Gross HP 345 @ 4400 RPM
SAE net HP 235 @ 3800 RPM
Gross torque 535 ft.-lbs. @ 2800 RPM
SAE net torque 410 @ 2400 RPM

is there a way i can get some more power and at the same time make it more reliable? like replace old, less effecient parts with newer, dependable, more effecient parts?

oh, and no emissions here. they stopped testing emissions 2 years ago because it was so corrupt. even if you passed and you didnt slip them a 20, youd still fail, so they just stopped alltogether

Where did you pull that info from? In 70&71 the eldorado with the 500's Gross HP rating was an even 400hp. That appears to be the HP rating of the 425.

As for effeciency, yes, anything that you can do to make the engine breath easier will make it more effecient, to a point. You cant put dual 650 demons on it and expect better mileage. But, for a little bit more power and about the same economy, i would do a mild cam from 500cid, matched with an edelbrock intake manifold, mainly because they are the only people who make one for it. You can either modify BBC headers, or get a set of 500cid.com's block huggers. Get a bigger air filter, but stay away from K&N. Paper filters filter much better, as long as they are not fram.

Edit: That HP rating you have doesnt match any numbers i have. 472's were rated at 375 gross HP and 500's were rated at 400 gross hp.

[rehme]

if you wanted to get good gas milege get a fish carburetor.

yeah i have the same problem with my car i can pass anything on the highway execpt for a gas station.

my car is a 64 buick riviera numbers matching car.

[skife]

Where did you pull that info from? In 70&71 the eldorado with the 500's Gross HP rating was an even 400hp. That appears to be the HP rating of the 425.

As for effeciency, yes, anything that you can do to make the engine breath easier will make it more effecient, to a point. You cant put dual 650 demons on it and expect better mileage. But, for a little bit more power and about the same economy, i would do a mild cam from 500cid, matched with an edelbrock intake manifold, mainly because they are the only people who make one for it. You can either modify BBC headers, or get a set of 500cid.com's block huggers. Get a bigger air filter, but stay away from K&N. Paper filters filter much better, as long as they are not fram.

Edit: That HP rating you have doesnt match any numbers i have. 472's were rated at 375 gross HP and 500's were rated at 400 gross hp.

K&N's dont filter as well, but if your going for power a K&N will give you more power than no filter.

its a big block caddy... i dont think a few specs of dust are going to harm it much. It might, but i dont think it will. joez, you mentioned something about breathing easier, you forgot to mention exhaust if you can breath in all that air, it doesn't do much good if you can't get it out just as equally fast right? Get a decent set of headers and a decent dual exhaust setup, no mufflers would help it alot, it would be loud but sound way badass.

[joez]

You can either modify BBC headers, or get a set of 500cid.com's block huggers. Get a bigger air filter, but stay away from K&N. Paper filters filter much better, as long as they are not fram.

Skife, im quoting myself here. The way i see it, if headers are being mentioned it goes without saying that a good exhaust will follow them. Big block chevy headers need the flange cut off and a new one welded on, or he could buy a set of 500cid.com's blockhuggers. No muflers are not a great idea on a daily driver, maily because with the now almost 0 backpressure, fuel needs to be increased, and by quite a bit on a big block caddy. This kills any hope he had for fuel economy. Like i said, helping it breath will help economy, but only to a point.

As for K&N, i will NEVER run another one of their products, nor will i ever recomend them to anybody else. They dont just let a few specs of dust threw.

[PyRo]

K&N's dont filter as well, but if your going for power a K&N will give you more power than no filter.

its a big block caddy... i dont think a few specs of dust are going to harm it much. It might, but i dont think it will. joez, you mentioned something about breathing easier, you forgot to mention exhaust if you can breath in all that air, it doesn't do much good if you can't get it out just as equally fast right? Get a decent set of headers and a decent dual exhaust setup, no mufflers would help it alot, it would be loud but sound way badass.

Ok why don't K&N filters work as well as others? You have been misinformed on that 2nd statement. Using no filter WILL give you the best flow, I guess the K&N filters are made of tiny microscopic superchargers woven together and that is how it flows more air than no filter. Ontop of that the flow differance between a K&N filter and decent paper filter is miniscule meaning you arn't going to notice any differance even on a dyno unless your motor is really starved for air. Those few specs of dust will harm the motor that is what air filters are for.
You don't need a dual exhaust, 3in mandrel bent pipes will do you just fine. If you are planning on driving it on the street put in a muffler and if you feel like being nice to the enviroment keep the cat. If you need to make a lot of noise just get an electronic cutout, flipping a switch goes from a quiet emissions freindly exhaust to an earth shaking smog pouring exhaust.

[skife]

Ok why don't K&N filters work as well as others? You have been misinformed on that 2nd statement. Using no filter WILL give you the best flow, I guess the K&N filters are made of tiny microscopic superchargers woven together and that is how it flows more air than no filter. Ontop of that the flow differance between a K&N filter and decent paper filter is miniscule meaning you arn't going to notice any differance even on a dyno unless your motor is really starved for air. Those few specs of dust will harm the motor that is what air filters are for.
You don't need a dual exhaust, 3in mandrel bent pipes will do you just fine. If you are planning on driving it on the street put in a muffler and if you feel like being nice to the enviroment keep the cat. If you need to make a lot of noise just get an electronic cutout, flipping a switch goes from a quiet emissions freindly exhaust to an earth shaking smog pouring exhaust.

hot rod magazine did a test 2 months ago, i think it was the september issue that had a BBC and they took and ran a bunch of different filter on it and then no filter, a K&N ran the most performance, Its because a filter sort of funnels the air down the carberator

[PyRo]

That's news to me, I have seen tests done with differant types of filters. The K&N flowed a tiny bit better than the best paper filter, and no filter flowed a tiny bit better than the K&N.
And how were they doing their tests?

Open filters sounds cooler too :)

[skife]

That's news to me, I have seen tests done with differant types of filters. The K&N flowed a tiny bit better than the best paper filter, and no filter flowed a tiny bit better than the K&N.
And how were they doing their tests?

Open filters sounds cooler too :)

on a flywheel dyno indoors.

[PyRo]

on a flywheel dyno indoors.

How reliable is that? Their are a million thing that can affect hp; slight variations in temperature, humidity, etc.

[skife]

hahahahaha.

[PyRo]

Whats so damn funny :)