Author Topic: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC  (Read 111894 times)

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Offline stobl

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1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« on: December 16, 2011, 10:44:18 AM »
*This might take a few days, but I'll try to recap progress over the past few years, up until where I'm at now*

PICTURES:   http://stoddard.smugmug.com/BuildingTheBeast

I’ve been hesitant to make a build thread, but I figure it’s somewhat relevant.  haha. I only found this forum earlier this year.   Mainly I’m hoping it’ll help me get some ideas/help as things progress.  And, maybe some would find this somewhat interesting.  I’m just a guy with more time than money that wants to go fast.

1976 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham  - AA/BFCC

*Note: from what I’ve been able to find, this is the longest non-“limo” post WW2 Cadillac made.  It was the last year of the big land yachts with big engines (500cid v8 stock) before the EPA down-sizing in 77’.   I measured it 19’8” long with a 133” wheelbase.   The last time I weighed it before disassembly, it was 5860lbs.  The car had almost every option available from the factory (electric windows/seats, AC, couches for seats, etc.) so it’s quite a beast.

Quick history rundown-

Grandfather bought it in 1978.  Before that it was a chief of police car for some city in Michigan, iirc. (I have the original papers for it somewhere).  It sat in the garage in Florida until he died in the and gave it to my dad.  It was finally brought up from Florida to my parent’s house in 2004, then I ended up taking it as my daily driver while in school.  When I acquired it, it had about 60k miles and it appeared to be in great condition.  Thanks to Virginia’s abundant use of salt on the roads, that didn’t last long.  I still drove the car daily until late 2007 when gas was between $4-$5 a gallon, and I realized I spent was spending upwards of a grand in gas a month.  32 gallon tank and I was averaging about 5-6mpg on a good day.  Then it was relegated to weekend warrior.  Even then, thanks to a failing transmission, it wasn’t getting much use. 
   Around 2008 I decided to rebuild it.  At first it would be a mild rebuild of the motor (500hp/600ftlbs with rebuild) and be a weekend show cruiser.  Then I got hooked up with a set of heavily ported heads (porter’s mistake when all I wanted was a mild cleanup) …then decided I wanted turbos…new pistons, roller cams, a few intake changes, etc.  Slowly but surely it went way overboard and I had to admit it would inevitable be a “track only” car.  Needless to say my parents (still technically “theirs” since I never switched over the title) were none too pleased.

The car circa 2004/5.  Before the salt got to it.



Then in 2006 the vinyl top had to go.  It was cracking and I didn’t want the metal underneath to rust.  This started the downward spiral of madness :)


The reason I ended up blowing the transmission.  It got a laugh.  Apparently a loose column shifter linkage promotes going from second to neutral with angry noises resulting.  I have a video of the run somewhere on youtube that i'll have to find



Which brings us to the actual build.  First and foremost, as a lot of you have experienced, no parts are available other than junky oem replacements, and the relevant information about making a nearly 6000lb car handle is little to nill.  Luckily at least, over the past few years there has been an increase in aftermarket support for the motor, so I was able to make sure I built that right.  However, the rest was left up to me to figure out on my own.

DISCLAIMER:  Pretty much everything you see, I’m learning and coming up with as I go.  If it looks like junk (aka my fuel tank as you’ll later see), I mainly build them as a “version #1” to at least get this on the road and see what the car actually needs, or what works best. 

Also, I’m making this thread as I look through the pictures I took in chronological order.  I feel it helps you see how the process works, how much I jump around, and that something as simple as welding a tab on can take me months, since I will get angry and not want to mess with it until I forget why I was mad in the first place.

When you look at the photo albums, older pictures are at the back, and newest are at the front.  Essentially work backwards.

General motor build specs:

-Original 1976 block bored .050” over (512”cid)  4.350” bore x 4.304” stroke
-oem nodular iron crank (from a 1970 Eldorado)
-oem small chamber iron heads (from 70’ Eldorado) ported way too much with oversized valves
-Hyd roller cam, roller rockers
-one-off main cap girdle with steel center mains.
-one-off Diamond pistons giving roughly 8.5:1 compression.  Coated with ceramic/teflon.
-Block is filled with fancy reinforced grout (embeco 885) to 3.5” from the deck
-Homemade Dry sump oiling system/ belt drive fuel pump
-Homemade reverse flow cooling system
-Fuel injection (160lb x 8 injectors) and spark (ls2 coils) controlled by Megasquirt 3x.
-Way-too-big intake manifold with equally way too big throttle body (105mm)
-Two Precision Turbo pt-76 turbos, dual 60mm tial WG’s and 50mm bov’s.
-A/W intercooler with huge ice tank (22 gallon for now-most likely bigger later) in the trunk
-Running on e85


For LSR I'm planning on running the AA/BFCC class as i figure if i'm trying to go faster than i ever should be allowed, i might as well modify the car to the extreme.  Plus I like to punish myself and over complicate anything I do.  And the fact I’ve never seen anything like this done before is pretty entertaining in itself (to me, at least).

Hopefully I can sum up the work in a way to see how things evolved/how I jumped around quite a bit.
-Blake S

Offline stobl

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NOVEMBER 2008- pulling the motor
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2011, 10:47:56 AM »
NOVEMBER 2008- pulling the motor



You can see the state of the car then.  I pulley off the trim, had to pull off the vinyl top, etc.  It wasn't horrible, but not as nice as the first pictures



Engine disassembly:

As it first looked


When I took off the intake, I found the source of engine troubles. You think you have problems with Squirrels?  Scrap yard wouldn’t give me much, so I decided to keep her.


One of the weaker links of the engine- the stock rockers.


Relative size comparison of the 4.3” cylinders:


Overall, engine was still in good shape.  Bearings looked good, clearances were fine, etc.  Just old and tired.


The motor was actually in very good shape.  The main caps were incredibly tight, no major bearing damage, and there was still some cross hatching on the cylinders.
-Blake S

Offline theazoldcrow

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #2 on: December 16, 2011, 10:52:46 AM »
 :cheers:
  The "out of the ordinary" always piques my interest!!  Good Luck with your endevor, and I'll see you on the Salt!
The Earth, is an intergalactic insane asylum.!

Offline stobl

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #3 on: December 16, 2011, 11:01:34 AM »
OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2009

Now, I have to admit, a LOT of the parts I use on this are steals off ebay and friends.  Just be warned.

I picked up a used intake that was a first generation of the manifold and was way too big.  Note the plenum filled with epoxy.  The others I’ve seen in use had had the runners epoxied also.  Also i sent it out and had the injector bungs welded in.


There was around an inch of that epoxy layed up.   Took me nearly a week to get it all out


I found an Adams Pump on ebay.  I had no clue what it was at the time as it was just listed as some nascar take-off.  I picked it up because it was setup for external plumbing and looked promising. The napa “performance” pump is next to it for comparison.


Also found was an old q45 throttle body.  Here's an initial picture of how I was thinking of mounting it.  I ended up slightly porting the inside and knocked off all the extra brackets on the outside.

-Blake S

Offline stobl

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2011, 11:04:37 AM »
JANUARY 2010 (When the real progress began)

Admittedly, I was still trying to figure out the direction I wanted to go with the car, so not much was really accomplished in 2009.   2010 is when I really started making progress.

I ended up taking a slice out of my heads since I broke a piece off of one of the bolt bosses, and being the low compression- big chamber heads, its not even worth repairing.


At the time I was planning on running the stock fuel tank, so I welded on a sump.  At least the other car is handy for something (Was filling the tank with exhaust fumes while drilling)


Drilled some holes


Formed and Welded on the sump

« Last Edit: December 16, 2011, 11:10:33 AM by stobl »
-Blake S

Offline stobl

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #5 on: December 16, 2011, 11:10:20 AM »
FEBRUARY 2010

Parts finally started showing up.

An old comp flat tappet on top (I never installed it, but bought it used), and the new roller on bottom


Some Carillo K1 H beams


I then drew up a new throttle body plate in autodesk and had a friend cnc it for me at his work



I also picked up a used dry sump pump off ebay for pennies


Around this time I got the new set of heads back.  I originally wanted a mild port job, but apparently the guy mistook “street port” for “extreme”.  This started the downward spiral of excess.



I had a set of diamond pistons made.   The only thing “off the shelf” available for the Cadillac is high compression pistons around 10:1.  Since I was planning on boost, I needed much less.  These are around 8.5:1.


Another ebay catch (that ends up being a common occurrence).   Busted up circle track oil tank.  Nothing a hammer and a few hours couldn’t fix.  Not bad for 20 bucks

-Blake S

Offline stobl

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2011, 11:18:19 AM »
MARCH 2010

Roller shaft rockers and a torque plate showed up.


Also I found the “better” nodular iron crank from a 1970 eldorado.  Shipping this from Seattle to VA was horrible.


Now, after looking over the engine and thinking about it for a while, I decided I was going to partially fill the block with grout.  The measurement from the bottom of the water jacket to the deck was 10.8”.  The stroke is only 4.3”.  My thinking was why not fill the jackets up to the stroke length, so the sections exposed to combustion are cooled, but the rest is supported?   Also, because of the reverse flow cooling I was planning, I needed a way to extract water, and the center freeze plug seemed like the ideal place.  I used Embeco (BASF) 885 grout.  Apparently it’s the same stuff they use on the space shuttle launch pad?  Supposedly its expansion rate is extremely close to that or iron.

So water needed to come out that center freeze plug port you can see


This is what I came up with:  Copper 90* elbow, 1-1/2” reducer from mcmaster, ebay npt tap, and lots of jb weld connecting the two.


After pouring the grout this was the result.  A nice open return port for water

I even made a drain hole using some vinyl tubing.  It actually ended up coming out nice


other fleabay pickups- pulley (from a sbc I think?) and a sweet power steering pump.  1500psi one, as the oem steering pump put that out, I figured it was what I should aim for.


This is when I first started to tackle the intake elbow.  Mind you, I have no fancy tools.  I used a jigsaw, and a work bench.  Oh, I did draw this out in autodesk first so I had a general idea/ a pattern I could print out and trace on the metal.


this + a 2x4 with my weight on it = my high tech break


The blue marks on the intake are where I wasn’t able to fully reach with my holesaw and drill press.  I had to auger it out later with a die grinder


I also tried to make a roof for the elbow using a leftover piece of sheet, but after I finished I decided it needed to be redone


I simply beat it over an air compressor tank


I had the same friend who did the intake elbow plate cut out some coil brackets I also drew up for ls2 coils.  The Chevy ones didn’t work due to my 5” bore spacing.  


**Note- Later in March I took the motor and all the parts to the machine shop in Richmond to get it built.   Owner told me no problem to have it done by June….
-Blake S

Offline stobl

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2011, 11:48:57 AM »
APRIL 2010


After struggling for a bit to try and build my own solution, I finally caved and has jones racing in PA make a crank mandrel for me.  


As it was getting warmer, I decided it was time to start stripping the car


The engine bay fenderwells were huge


Detroit quality circa 1970’s (this is original)


Out came the interior bits


AC unit came out.

Hole it left behind


Front end finally stripped down.  


The end result of yanking out all the wire under the dash and in the engine bay.  There must be 20-30lbs easy.


I also pulled out the seats.  As everyone knows, those back seats are like a buried treasure chest.  Here’s the booty:

An empty pack of cigarettes, 11 cents, marker, pen, old lipstick tube, gum wrapper, dead lizard, and it looks like someone got a meat gift basket without the card.
-Blake S

Offline stobl

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2011, 11:51:24 AM »
June 2010

I ended up driving to Harrisburg, PA to pick up a spare engine block while mine was at the machine shop.  I needed to build the motorplates.

Piece of 12” (or was it 14”) x 48 x 3/8” piece of aluminum.  No one makes motorplates for this thing, so I have to improvise.


Take the timing cover, center punch all the holes, drill them out

success!


Same thing for the midplate, but using the gutted transmission


Also around this time I picked up the 105mm TB (someone had used it for mockup)

-Blake S

Offline SteveM

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #9 on: December 16, 2011, 11:55:47 AM »
WOW!!!  (in a good way). 

I had to look up the record for AA/BFCC - 249.xxx mph.  I hope you can "Get R Done" with your Caddy.

SteveM. 
1/2 of the Rampage Brothers

Offline Seldom Seen Slim

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #10 on: December 16, 2011, 11:56:30 AM »
Did the engine building shop tell you which June?
Jon E. Wennerberg
 a/k/a Seldom Seen Slim
 Skandia, Michigan
 (that's way up north)
2 Club member x2
Owner of landracing.com

Offline stobl

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #11 on: December 16, 2011, 12:09:06 PM »
July 2010/ August 2010

Now at the beginning of July I got tired of getting the blow-off by the machine shop.  A friend of mine who used the same guy told me he saw my engine and parts still in the corner where I left them.  I called one last time and asked the owner if he had done anything, he finally said “yeah....I don’t know if I’ll get to it.”   That was the last straw, so I went and yanked it out of there.  Being tired of machine shops giving me run around answers about “oh, its not a ford/chevy?  We can’t work on it,” (all but one told me that) I decided to take it to the Cadillac-only shop I’ve been getting my parts from in Ohio.  But before I did I needed to fix a problem.

With the reverse flow cooling, I completely forgot to block off the water returns from the head to the thermostat.   Just a small port on the front-inside corners of the block.  Easy enough to fill with the grout, but I needed a way to contain it while it hardened.   After munching on some jumbo marshmallows I figured out my solution.

Looking down through the thermostat- I need to block this passage:


Remove half-eaten marshmallow from mouth


Create dam


Yup, it worked


After letting it set


Also I welded up breather holes in the valve covers I picked up.  Finished on top/original bottom


Instead I was going to put bungs on the back, since the coil brackets would mount on top


One problem with my motorplate was that the SFI balancer I acquired was back spaced way too much.  So I needed to clearance the 3/8” plate down to 1/16” or so, right behind the balancer.  I did this entirely with a wood router and a handful of carbide ¾” bits.  It was very messy

How the balancer sits

and the clearance


The beginning of one of the most difficult parts of this.  How to I build a serpentine belt system using parts from completely difference engines.  Alternator is from an econovan, tensioner form a late model mustang, ebay dry sump/ power steering/water pump(I found its off a sb2.2 motor).


Later in July I took a day trip from south of DC to middle of Ohio (8-10hr each way?) and dropped all my engine stuff off.  While there though, I finally got some info from the builder about the hp limit of my main caps before they basically shatter, and he showed me the mockup of a new main girdle they were working on.  It didn’t take much, but I decided to get the girdle and new main caps made as I wanted to really push the motor.

Also during this time, I realized I needed to get the car in the garage if I was going to make any significant progress.  Having to stop when it was raining or when it got dark put a big damper on the whole project.

Once I figured out the weird connectors on the water pump were wiggins style, I welded on a couple -16an outlets


Picture of the stock firewall (will be relevant later)


-Blake S

Offline stobl

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #12 on: December 16, 2011, 12:16:58 PM »
September 2010

After notching the motorplate plate for the dry sump pump, I realized I needed to notch the crossmember.


Because I didn’t want the big behemoth brake booster, and I wanted a little more stopping power, I found a hydroboost from a late model mustang

Cut a hole in the floor for it

Something around here

-Blake S

Offline stobl

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #13 on: December 16, 2011, 12:21:08 PM »
October 2010

For some reason it took me long enough to notice that the water pump pulley actually lined up fairly well with the crank pulley, IF I did a little modification.  I had a friend with a lathe cut down the separator between the 3/6 rib pulley sections to make it another groove.  Also I had him get rid of the pointless forward section


To space out the belt tensioner, I traced the tensioner on a piece of aluminum plate, drilled out the hole, and welded it to some aluminum pipe to fit


I made the oil inlet plate for where the stock oil pump would be.  Traced it using a gasket and welded a bung on


Also picked up and made a bracket made for a belt drive fuel pump (realized electric pump simply wouldn’t cut it)

-Blake S

Offline DallasV

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Re: 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood AA/BFCC
« Reply #14 on: December 16, 2011, 12:40:02 PM »
Interesting choice for CC. At least you wont have to clutter you build worring about all that aero BS. Big hole going in, huge hole going out. No calculations needed.
Records or parts, I didn't come all this way not to break something.