Sounds of the mighty piston engine. What do you like? Hate?

[sKiZo]

I keep hoping I find one in a junkyard someday ... wishful thinking that.

I do know the Northstar has a bit of a bad rap as being next to impossible to repair. I find the trick to keeping them healthy is to just beat the crap out of them ... wide open throttle regularly cleans out all the carbon and keeps it from seizing up. Passing strange they'd put a motor like that into a luxoboat that's gonna be driven to Sunday meeting by lil ol' ladies, but hey ... no sense trying to make sense of it all ...

Here's mine ... I named it "Bob" ... <G>

 

[gadget73]

I've heard of the requirement for a regularly scheduled Italian tune-up on Northstars from a number of people. All of them people who have had one a good while, so there must be something to it.

 

[electronjohn]

Likes not necessarily in order:

Honda RC 166

BRM The BRM is not a V-16 as so often stated, it's an "H" configuration, basically a stacked pair of 8 cyl boxers. It is my opinion the finest sounding piston engine ever made.

Detriot 6V53/8V53 A screamin jimmy speaks for itself.

Lanz Bulldog I love German engineering.

EMD 645-12 open exhaust ports

Thanks for posting that ol' Jimmy doin' its thing! My Dad drove a similar rig for a short while when I was just a pup and it was a pretty big deal to go along with him on a short run. Still remember him workin' those levers...and can't mistake that sound! Speaking of 2-stroke Detroits, here's a 12V-71 doin' its thing in of all things...a Brockway!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQnA6nsgZEo

A little lumpy at the start, but she hums right along once he gets her "up on the step"

 

[electronjohn]

I'm compelled to add another aircraft. A brace of Wright R-3350 "Duplex Cyclones" sing a sweet tune...with the bonus of a light show:

 

[E-Stat]

The shriek of a V12 F1 engine at 17,000 RPM.

 

[Alobar]

I'm compelled to add another aircraft. A brace of Wright R-3350 "Duplex Cyclones" sing a sweet tune...with the bonus of a light show:

Connie's were classic old passenger planes of their day. Made the DC6 look like a school bus with wings!

 

[beat_truck]

My friend works at a shop that refurbishes and sells hearses and limos, so he gets to work on Northstars all the time. Usually replacing head gaskets, it seems. They run good, but not an engine I'd want for sure.

One came into the shop that I used to work at, and it turned out to have bad head gaskets. My boss didn't want the headache, and the owner didn't want the expense, so he convinced her to let us dump a bunch of stop leak in it, and she'd take it and trade it in.

 

[sKiZo]

I've heard of the requirement for a regularly scheduled Italian tune-up on Northstars from a number of people. All of them people who have had one a good while, so there must be something to it.

Here's Bob clearing his throat ...

Been beating on this one for years now and doing my own maintenance. No real problems.
(Famous last words, right?)

 

[Pio1980]

It won't sound like the engine pictured, however. The IRL version (shown) has a flat crank. (mostly) useless piece of trivia for the day.

https://jalopnik.com/what-is-a-flat-plane-crank-and-why-is-it-so-loud-an-ex-1659688239

 

[slow_jazz]

The biggest thing with Northstar is making sure to replace anti-freeze regularly.

 

[4-2-7]

 

[4-2-7]

 

[4-2-7]

 

[sKiZo]

The biggest thing with Northstar is making sure to replace anti-freeze regularly.

I hear that a lot, but that's only if you use standard antifreeze. The corrosion protection in that breaks down and that's not a good thing considering some of the metals used in the Northstar. DexCool doesn't have that problem (different formulation), which is why it will last pretty much forever.

As far as gasket leakage - it's usually a slow process leading to bigger problems. Until the late '90's, GM used a stop leak additive in every engine that helped prevent the big leaks by sealing micro leaks as they developed. They stopped that, mostly because people complained that it made their antifreeze look dirty. That additive is still available at any Caddy dealer, but you have to know what to ask.

 

[N8Nagel]

My friend used to own a shop, and his one tech was so proud that he could replace a starter in three hours. That doesn't sound like something that I want to work on.

 

[beat_truck]

My friend used to own a shop, and his one tech was so proud that he could replace a starter in three hours. That doesn't sound like something that I want to work on.

The starter is down in the valley underneath the intake manifold. I had the intake off of one because the rubber coupler between the intake and throttle body went bad. It wasn't that bad of a job. I was shocked to see the starter in such a place, though.

As far as the head gaskets letting go, if I remember right, part of the problem until 2001 or so was that GM used under sized head bolts, and the threads ended up pulling out of the block. The fix was to drill and tap it for larger hardware. I've never done one and honestly hope I never have to. I see nice Caddies on CL fairly often for dirt cheap for the same reason.

 

[N8Nagel]

The starter is down in the valley underneath the intake manifold. I had the intake off of one because the rubber coupler between the intake and throttle body went bad. It wasn't that bad of a job. I was shocked to see the starter in such a place, though.

As far as the head gaskets letting go, if I remember right, part of the problem until 2001 or so was that GM used under sized head bolts, and the threads ended up pulling out of the block. The fix was to drill and tap it for larger hardware. I've never done one and honestly hope I never have to. I see nice Caddies on CL fairly often for dirt cheap for the same reason.

I may be getting my engines mixed up, but my memory says the starter usually failed because of coolant leaking on it because of a metal coolant pipe that was in the same area that was usually the first part to fail in an unmaintained cooling system so that had to be replaced as well and the cooling system flushed and refilled as part of the job. Or am I getting two different engines mixed up?

 

[beat_truck]

Until the late '90's, GM used a stop leak additive in every engine that helped prevent the big leaks by sealing micro leaks as they developed. They stopped that, mostly because people complained that it made their antifreeze look dirty. That additive is still available at any Caddy dealer, but you have to know what to ask.

Those are the pellets that look like sawdust that you crumble up into the coolant, correct? That's what we loaded into the one with the leaking head gaskets that the owner wanted rid of. I remember that they came from GM.

 

[beat_truck]

I may be getting my engines mixed up, but my memory says the starter usually failed because of coolant leaking on it because of a metal coolant pipe that was in the same area that was usually the first part to fail in an unmaintained cooling system so that had to be replaced as well and the cooling system flushed and refilled as part of the job. Or am I getting two different engines mixed up?

Hmm, I'm not 100% sure. That was almost 10 years ago. I don't think the intake even had coolant going through it, but there were a few metal/rubber coolant lines in the area that I had to disconnect. One on the opposite end was starting to corrode and seep.

Those were a strange engine, to say the least.

I think I put a water pump on that same car, and it ran off a belt driven by one of the camshafts. It took a special tool that went on a ratchet to turn and unlock it.

 

[John James]

I would like to see about a minute more of that. Wow! Wonder what it looked like at the end.