Full Build: "Overtaker" Caddy Hearse Wakes the Dead

Today at Detroit Muscle I found another gem to surprise Mark. Then we'll take this applauded hurst for an 8th mile spin and return it to the shop so we can transform this hauler into a mauler by adding some performance upgrades to make it scream. on the track, well, it's time for us to start another

build

on this next project. I had to dig around a bit, but that's okay, the question is, do we make a Ford Mopar or even a GM? What I have up my sleeve. Some of you may have cold feet riding in one.

I wanted something just to have a little fun and I wanted it to have a big power plant because you know old sand has no replacement for displacement and it was necessary. Getting noticed with the name Detroit Muscle Choosing what I like to call a top-notch Muscle Car is usually a no-brainer, kind of like a '69 Charger that doesn't like one of those that some people consider the sexiest Mopar ever. with its smooth and flowing coke bottle lines up a roofline that screams speed, an aggressive grille with those hidden headlights plus a handful of that iconic pistol grip shifter that just begs for a person to run between the gears or maybe what you are looking for needs to be a slightly more refined un chevelle with lots of power under the hood would definitely be a great option, should have those cool racing stripes and a stance that lets everyone know you mean business while wearing a fancy bow tie, but those are expensive, what I'm looking into won't cost you your life savings will definitely catch your eye and normally people are dying to choose a

hearse

and I wouldn't say it's for everyone, there are plenty people out there who are a little scared. for them because we all know what they have a purpose to do, but the thing is, as my old man used to say, it's not the

dead

that have to worry, but the living, and when we're done with this, it will be gone.

To have a lot more life than it has now, there's not a lot of aftermarket support, but there are some things that you can put together as a kind of secret recipe and make this thing really a powerhouse now, the transmission. There's just an old stock 400 turbo on this thing and you can also cheaply modify them for performance. I know where you're probably sitting from. This thing doesn't have much to do with it, except one. What I really like about it is love them or hate them. You know exactly what this car is, it's very recognizable to say the least and yes I know it's got a lot of size plus it's a heavy car and you'll probably notice that as I drive this thing over each pothole it goes over , almost destroys it, just crosses it.

You'll find that the car doesn't shake much, but the wheels will bounce and how could you not like it? I mean, it's a Cadillac, you know, I know this car isn't a driving car, it's much more of a riding car, but you know that's okay too now with this thing, it's not going to win any races per se because of speed, but it's a help with a cool factor, it's definitely a cruiser, I mean, you just lie down, you ride in it, there's a lot of room, even if you wanted to lie down, I know that overland thing is a big thing, you can camp. with a small family in this thing you have room to play racquetball hide and go get what you want say one thing you're not going to do much although that's beyond the gas station there are some vultures flying around I don't know if I can feel that this thing is coming down the road or I'm not sure we have to shampoo the carpet, at least get it out.

It sucks here. I know he didn't die or anything like that, but he kind of reeks of musk. The windows are down. I am very curious to know what Mark's words will be about this stay. I don't know if he'll love it or hate it. I know that the first time I threw him a curve ball with that Victoria crown, he wasn't interested in it at all. but after finishing it well, I guess you could say he enjoyed it, I know I did and either way, if he doesn't, I had enough fun for both of us, but I'm sure he'll like it.

I didn't say, "I love it." I said there's a kind of vibe that goes with it a lot of people like this stuff, you know, at a time of year around Halloween, it's kind of supportive for me, I've had a couple of these things and yeah, I know . They're really nothing to brag about in their original form but whenever we're done with this I would definitely be proud to have it in my driveway, just like size matters so does weight and this big old thing . Well, to say he's heavy is an understatement, so I'll probably have to put him on a pretty serious diet and try to take some of this off him to lighten him up a bit.

I don't know exactly how much it weighs, but Let's go ahead and put this on a scale just to see what the number actually is and I'm going to guess it's probably 7 7 500 pounds, but let's put this on the scale. and I bet it will weigh basically like two challengers, probably three vegas, probably two and a half mustangs, it will be heavy regardless, I have the urge to move forward, go take my ticket, ah, it's better than I thought. 63 and 40. That's not Bad, now go further, that excites me a little more, well I guess it all depends on how slow you are on the race track.

I surprise Mark with our new

caddy

and we'll see how quickly three tons of fun can come. drag strip i'm down here at us 43 drag way tommy told me he was going to meet me here he has a big surprise for me. I'm thinking it's a new project car and I hope it's this one here 61 falcon The 2 door sedan actually had a very similar car to this same year, same body, it wasn't as nice, although it was kind of a project and Tommy knows I love Fords and Falcons and I wish I hadn't sold that one.

I hope this is his big surprise for me, but it's just balls, look what I have a great deal on. I'm laughing just because I don't know what else to do you must love it yeah I mean this is a great opportunity for you to make wise jokes something as beautiful as this I don't know I just don't know what to say now I'll think of some I mean I should leave you speechless why didn't you why didn't you Don't just think about it and answer me later, okay, why let's see what he does? Want? Well, I'll put seat belts in pine boxes right now, man.

I hope people from the position can hear that guy's camera. cam, I mean, this probably just needs to be tuned and throttled halfway. I'm sure of one thing and that is that this thing runs down the track, it's not going to be anything impressive, sir, which means it gives us a lot of room for improvement, you know, at first I really thought this was a joke and although He's serious, he is, it's still a joke now, one thing's for sure, I hope I impress Mark, I guess I should accept it because there's no way you're going to.

I'm going to make this car fast, I don't care what you do to it, it has to weigh 7,500 pounds, oh, the track is sticky, your old lady will probably make fun of herself, uh-oh, let's get here, no you choke. I don't want to kill him, here we go, oh, we have a red light, uh, I have to think of something funny to say when he gets back, wow, we're cooking, oh, we can do better than that, it's changed, it's actually a little faster than that I though. It was going to be something else He has a 500 He has two in that race You can put a commercial on it I'm glad there's no one in that right lane either because I'll probably need both lanes to turn that big Son of a gun, now I know that wasn't that impressive , but you know this thing has that big old quadrijet under the hood.

If you were to remove the air filter because I think it is suffocating it and could be killing me. I don't know if I can't tell if you're sick, no, I'm serious, go ahead, get over that, that's cheap energy, don't scratch your bank, don't worry, I'll speed it up and scare you, whatever you want. Leave it here so it doesn't weigh on you, yeah, we're probably in second place right there, oh, I can say that's better, wow man, that ring is falling, that's still not impressive, that sounded better, wow, that's faster though. About what I thought. to be and it ran smoothly, I had high hopes for it, you know, I have to say it wasn't the fastest, but just like a Cadillac, the whole thing is pretty smooth and sleek.

I don't know if that air filter was that restrictive or it just weighed so much I think it was so restrictive because it sounded so different it was what you would run it's not in Brazil we don't need it I was going to say well whatever it had can I tell you what What was I going to say? Yes, yes, that number would be impressive if it were a quarter mile. I already said that too. One last race. I didn't know that the slower you went, the longer it took you to pit. They were that embarrassed.

No. They just said the park was done. Here near the daisies and I thought this is what they meant so let's think of a project name or what we're going to have to think of something and it can have a lot of syllables and all that stuff I've been accepting it, yeah man , you should, I mean, this car is something to deal with, so we have a better place, but it's not a place, how about

dead

weight? It's not that bad, wait, it's a shame the people overtaking will recognize it for sure, friend. You have one, an Overtaker project name, no, that works for me.

I'm telling you I'm almost speechless because I'm ready to dive into this, yeah, tear it apart and come back and play with it. I have to say this is the most fun car I've ever driven around the track, okay it's not the fastest it's the smoothest but hey I can't wait to see what you're cooking up buddy it's going to be amazing go to the store, surely you don't want to ride. I have room for you two and she starts, look at this bumper key, don't hate that, to make it faster we'll need to lose some weight starting with the transmission, we start breaking down our

hearse

, I bet some of you all think that I have lost my mind dragging this big thing to the workshop and that could be the case, but I have to say that normally, if it is a large body, I will do it now with this delivery vehicle next to the grave, we have a plan. a task and is to make it work and have a lot of fun doing it and if you look at it, we have a lot of fun to have this thing it doesn't cost you much to buy it and under the hood. it has a 500 cubic inch engine so getting the engine to run that well usually isn't that difficult now with the design of this particular chassis it's pretty straight forward and it also has disc brakes in the front, coilover suspension coils, leaf springs in the rear, so Some performance upgrades aren't going to take much work, now what we're going to do is make this thing about 500 horsepower and 700 pound-feet of torque, get it back on the track and

build

a car that everyone will use.

Know it when you see it To start, we are going to be busy under the hood, the power plant will have several components like the cam intake and the carburetor to resurrect a lot of horsepower, plus the transmission will need some attention. so a new converter and swap kit is a must with the factory exhaust manifolds and tiny pipes it's easy to say they have us down so we'll install them and install headers and build some bone shaking side pipes. Those loud pipes will give the exterior a bit of a sinister look, but we won't stop there, let's check out the suspension to give our creepy hauler a bad attitude, take off those fancy caps and spray him with a fresh coat of gloss black on the wheels. and put some slicks on the rear to have perfect grip on the pavement.

We really want our hearse to move down the track and a good way to do that without spending a lot of money is to lighten the load, so the plan is to attack the interior and get rid of some dead weight, like the couch GM used as front seat, it has to be heavy so changing some buckets should help when it's all over, overtaking will be a gripping ride. your soul's attention regardless of your status or existence to remove our engine we are going to have to drain the fluids and then we can start taking apart the engine compartment making sure to get rid of that clunky radiator, that copper radiator is heavy, damn.

Drop that too man we get some power in this thing it'll lift my spirits sure we won't use the factory exhaust so it can run man then we'll remove the drop axle something that's unique to a cadillac. It has a metal fan that has become the main support of the car. Now with the performance mods we're planning on doing, we're not going to be using that mechanical fan that this thing comes with from the factory, so I'm going to do some trimming to get this big chunk of metal out of the way and yeah, that probably saved us at least eight grams.

One interesting thing about taking this ugly old engine out of this ugly hearse, you really don't have to be. too timid with that, you can't really worry about hitting things, don't break anything, but that's okay, and scratch something because we have to remove that transmission, we'll need a firmer shift on the track, so we'll improve the pit we justdo. We took the engine and transmission out of our old hearse and the first thing we're going to get dirty is our transmission. Now this is just a 400 turbo, just like they put it in trucks and big cars, etc., etc.

Go ahead and what we're going to do with this is make it shift a lot better than when it was in this old big black car, because riding in a Cadillac, you know, the shifts are smooth every time we went out for those quick laps in our truck, this worked as it should, nice and comfortable. But that is not what we are looking for, we are looking for a change focused on performance and with that we are going to install a BMW shift improvement kit. Now the kit isn't that complicated, it comes with some gaskets, a mid plate and a couple of bits that we have to make the decision of whether we want to go down the RV and the trailer path or down the street and get naked, and I bet Because you already know the answer before installing one of these in your vehicle.

I need to make sure the transmission itself is in good condition, now ours ran fine, but we're going to remove that pan to make sure there aren't a bunch of chips and dropped clutches in there, so it's time to get started. greasy, that's all. I mounted that transmission on the bracket like it was for a reason. I wanted all the settlement in the pan to stay in the pan if you flip that transmission over. Sometimes all of that falls back into training. Now look inside. In our tray, the fluid looks good, it's all red, you don't want the fluid to burn or brown that kind of thing and with it we also have some settling on the bottom here, but that's normal, it's time to Let's grab that valve body.

If we had found much more dirt, we would be considering a complete overhaul. This modification will not only improve performance, but will also help extend the life of our training by reducing clutch slip if you are breaking a transmission and haven't. It hasn't been modified, there should be six control balls, if you only find three, someone already installed a street and teardown kit. The goal here is not to remove all the transmission fluid, but you just want to check the entire gasket service to make sure it is clean. We're in pretty good shape, we're going to tap our valve body in the vise so we can compress this piston, we're going to remove the e-clip, we're going to take that spring out for our street setup and we're going to strip, the next thing we're going to have to do is take this drill bit. 3 to 16 that is supplied in the kit and enlarge the two holes here on our plate, it's not a big deal, but it will surely activate that transmission, since we are looking for a firm shift that we are only going to use. three of the six control balls, now I know doing something like this can be a little intimidating, but if you take your time and follow the instructions, you'll be squealing your tires in no time.

Basically how these few modifications work, increasing the fluid volume to the clutch packs and modifying the timing for less overlap between gears, well that's just one of the many modifications we're going to make to this old Cadillac back here. I know some of you probably don't like hearses, but you will. Eventually today we will be at Detroit Muscle, dive into the heart of our hearse and upgrade our 500 cubic inch engine with a new cam and better flowing induction. We'll give our 500 cart a facelift with new paint and accessories and then head out to find a rear end. extreme that can transfer all that power to the track Hello everyone welcome to Detroit Muscle when it comes to pure American horsepower.

One thing that probably doesn't cross your mind is a cadillac. We have one here in the workshop and to call. It's a ton of fun, that's an understatement now that we've got the engine out from under the hood and today our task is to apply a recipe to make some heavy horsepower, this is 500 cubic inches of Detroit Engineering, I know you don't No seems like a lot right now and the power output isn't that impressive either, around 200 horsepower, but after changing a couple of parts and tightening some wrenches, this thing will make one horsepower per cubic inch, so that's 500 oh and the torque number is quite impressive.

Try 700 of them to achieve those numbers. We will start by disassembling the accessories of our engine, we will remove all the old and heavy parts, such as the alternator. for the clumsy air compressor, then we'll unscrew the power steering and fuel pumps. A small portion of these pieces we will reuse, but it's safe to say that several of them are past their prime, so they'll be heading to the scrap bin without all of our trinkets. Outside of our power plant, it's time for us to scrape a little and spray a little because I can't put this decrepit looking thing back into that fine Cadillac specimen we're disposing of 44 years of accumulated junk.

This old workhorse requires a little effort and finesse, but once we scrape off the dirt and grime, we'll spray it with some degreaser. Time to spray, we are using CRC Professional Heavy Duty Degreaser, it is water. -Biodegradable foam-based foam that penetrates heavy oils and fluids. We spray this stuff on, let it sit for a few minutes and boy, it melted that grease after a little scrubbing and a little TLC, we're pretty much ready to go ahead and rip. This thing below looks pretty good, but it's going to be very heavy. I hope the previous intake is not so heavy.

I need a cherry picker. Could be I bet it's heavy. Some of you may have heard the old saying. The cheapest way to go faster is. unloading the truck, that means just getting lighter now with this big old cadillac, this thing weighs over 600 pounds

full

y loaded, now we're going to try to lighten this thing a little now with our driveway, it's made of cast iron, so Come on, they make an aluminum one that will flow much better and that's what we're looking for. Now there will be some other things that we are going to get rid of, but first let's remove this entry and no more.

I'm not looking forward to this, it's not that bad, it's not very good, although jeez, I'm just a little curious, let's see what this damn thing is that weighs almost 50 pounds, yeah, that other one will be a lot lighter than that, now let's get this valley pan. and let's hope we don't find any treasure that's not so bad it's actually pretty clean there's a little bit of gunk here around the hot spots on the head other than that where the old motor isn't bad at all left it loose somewhere every Taking out the pushrods is usually pretty easy, but every time you go to take out those lifters, sometimes things can be a pain and here's why, if you notice that there is some dirt built up here on the bottom of that elevator every time you do it. try to get that out through all that dirt bound inside the surface of the board, that's what's stopping you from getting it out.

A quick trick to get them out is to spray some solvent or lubricant on the lifter to help dissolve that gunk, finally now we can. Take the heads off now, normally we'd take those exhaust manifolds, but we're not really in the market for boat anchors so we'll just leave them there Ben, where are you back now with the knees? In a few days, it's worth £75. Yeah that's heavy, now Mark gives me a hard time for being a fan of big bodies like this big car behind me and the reason I really enjoy them is because they usually come with big cubic inches under the hood and this is a perfect example, i have a piston from a small block chevy, it's a 350 flat top, look at this inside the bore of this thing, this thing is almost 3 8 of an inch smaller than the bore of this engine, so that someone coined the phrase there is no replacement for displacement, we are planning to change our shock lever on our cart so some more tearing down is necessary so we can remove this distributor timing cover, oh I can't forget it all.

These camshafts with the sticky, sticky insides out, I have a little more cleaning to do, but I can tell you that we are almost ready to exercise the demons with the engine removed, now it's time to install our upgrades, making this Caddy 500 a torque monster. We are about to add some motivation back to our cadillac. We've removed the intake and the heads, cams and lifters and it's all clean, so it's time for some new parts. Now a key component to making a cadillac breathe fire is everything. in the heads I have a friend of mine here, he's John Walker, he's what I call a Cadillac connoisseur and he brought a table

full

of delights, what's up with those heads?

A set of 425 heads we baked and ruined, we cleaned them all. They have five CNC access ports and we open them up for larger valves on the combustion chamber side. You can see where we opened up the seat to accept 110,000 larger valves and then opened up the ports on the factory cadillac heads. They are known to be restrictive in application performance. These valves were CNC ported for both port volume and airflow and we both know that means power. Is there something special about the valves? These valves were originally for a Pontiac 455 and work great for a Cadillac.

Now I also looked. These rocker assemblies are pretty impressive, especially compared to that crap we got out of that thing. They are a full length shaft system made for us by Harlem Sharp. They come in a 1:7 ratio, both adjustable and non-adjustable. They are stylish and I can't wait for all these good things to get on that 500 over there and play in my hearse. Do you have any suggestions for us? Press the nitrous button and hold on tight. Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Consideration, I have to get to work, let me let you out buddy, well those cylinder heads will definitely improve the performance of our Cadillac and you know there are not many parts available on the market for these things, but luckily there are some that include this one. camshaft and timing assembly we got from racing at the summit, this thing has more lift, more durability, it will really complement those heads very well, we'll add some assembly lube to our cam and then slide it in lift on this one cam, is 520 thousandths on the intake. and 504 on the exhaust, duration at 50,000 lift is 234 degrees on the intake side and 249 degrees on the exhaust side.

Now we are ready to install our timing chain assembly and we will torque it to specifications. Now it's time for our oil. The pump and filter housing are actually a very nice design and we want to tighten them too. The next tommy cap gasket is next and we will use some rtv on both sides of our gasket to make sure it doesn't leak. then we can add our cover and install the water pump gasket followed by the water pump. We got the water pump along with the gasket kit from rockauto.com. Now all that's left is to tighten it with the new seal on our timing cover, it's time.

To install the crankshaft hub, this is a rare design where the harmonic balancer is bolted to the hub, which is a press fit. Now we can turn the cart 500 so we can install the oil pan, but first we want to clean the surface and then we can install it with a new gasket and bolt it on. Now we're tightening these oil pan bolts from the inside out and the reason we're doing that is because we want to make sure they're all tight. In the same way, it will prevent it from escaping over time. Well, we have a short block.

Now we just need a pair of cylinder heads and maybe even a new coat of paint. This thing will be like new. We finished improving our cart. 500 and I'll show you a tip on how to properly measure your pushrod. We're making pretty good progress. We have the bottom end of our cart fully assembled. I'll put the gasket in place and then I'll have the joy. of picking up this giant piece of iron, you got it, yes, I have most of it, I have the easy job and that is to prepare these harp head bolts. These things are great because they come as a kit that fits right into our cadillac and then these things as well.

We're going to hold more than we could throw with this thing, I mean we're going to spray it and this is one of the precautions you have to take and it's easy to get excited, so excited, you know the torque sequence, no, you know. A torque spec, I get it, I bet we'll need a cheater tube. Well, we've got it set up for you for the first round. Well, let's tighten them in three different settings using the same sequence that ends at 110. With all of them. tight, now it's time to spray a touch of color, excuse me, excuse me, what do you guys think of that electric green paint?

I wanted that cadillac to turn heads even with the hood up. Now itNext thing to do is measure pushrod length and this is a high performance application but even with a stock rebuild it is a good idea because what happens sometimes is the heads can be milled or the block can be covered and that alters the length of the push rod. The first thing you need to do to start is bring the lifter with which you are going to start adjusting well in the base circle. Let's start with these two because they are easy to see.

This is the intake riser, so to get it to where. we need it, we're going to crank the engine until the exhaust lifter starts to rise. Now we need to drop our rocker shaft assembly and check the contact point of our roller tip with the top of the valve. Ideal operating contact. is in the middle third of the valve stem tip, you want to start at the top third and roll down and then back up with our application. We have to squeeze them to get an accurate reading. Now I want to check the tip and see exactly where. is on and then we'll use this little marker, tell me the store.

I'm going to scribble a little bit of this in there and hit the roller. That line indicates our point of contact. It's in the top third, just like we have to do now. For a task like this it helps to have the right things like these pushrod measuring tools that we got from the summit races. Now we're going to need this big, long one for this big, old cadillac, but they have them in different lengths for different applications and how it works, basically, just unscrew one end. and that makes it longer, let's hit this thing to see where we are.

You want to make sure this push rod is seated on both ends and you keep unscrewing it until you feel some pressure that you don't want to keep turning. and press the plunger into the elevator. What is this? Now I need to take out this rocker assembly to get the rod out and then we can measure it to get our exact length. I like to use a set of calipers, just slide them on and hold them. down and that gives us the length of this pushrod, this number is at zero and since we don't have adjustable rockers on this one, we're going to have to add 50 thousandths to give us some preload, the next thing we need What we do is give it One slap on that entry and we're getting dangerously close to having this ready to put in our cart.

Before we put in our driveway we will add some rtv and a new gasket to make sure everything seals properly. We are going to complete this cadillac with this aluminum intake that we got from the summit races. Now it will really add quite a bit of power because it is less restrictive than the factory unit and it is also much lighter than the original which was almost 50. this one costs less than 20. I know we can't bolt them on yet, but I want to see what it looks like, Look at that baby, yeah, yeah, only 850. I can't wait to see that in the car is a man's trash.

Another man's treasure, we headed to a Fort salvage yard to look for some parts for our cadillac. Well, we've been making pretty good progress on our hearse and today I'm here looking around trying to work on our next one. Upgrading it's easy to say with that

caddy

it's a dark car and the aftermarket support is minimal and what I want to do is fix the rear end now with that hearse that has airplane gears underneath and I want something with a little more of sand, something that you know is going to peel off the pavement, so I'm hoping I can find something here and all these old carcasses that made me think about digging in a Ford salvage yard is one of these.

The 8.8 rear axle comes in everything under the sun from mustangs to trucks and even SUVs and they have a lot going for them and that is the reason why it makes them so popular with hot rodders as they are plentiful, that means. they are cheap, plus the gear ratios on them are a wide range from low speeds to smooth airplane speeds, and plus these things come from the factory, often with a pause unit, now this won't work for our application because it is a little narrow and probably too small but luckily for us this thing has a bigger brother so what I'm looking for is the 975 and that refers to the diameter of the ring gear and it comes in the large SUVs and pickup trucks. now its gear ratios are 355, 373 and 411.

For our application, this 373 will be sweeter than honey. This rear axle has a lot to offer. It has the relationship we are looking for. It has the pause unit and this thing. I have factory rear disc brakes, so let's account for that, okay, okay, let's get this out from under, so there's a lot here, no joke, well, I have a rusty gem. I'm going to have to make some modifications, but that's just a stone's throw away today at Detroit Muscle our caddy hearse has an exhaust that will wake the dead, plus we added cooling and fuel systems to keep our caddy 500 engine running correctly and then we top it all off with a little boost to bring the horsepower to the pass.

Gosh, I think the green paint is a little brighter than the lid. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't match the car at all, but that's what makes it great. It looks like a crate motor and it is not. This is the same boat anchor that Tommy pulled out. We got away from this a while ago and then improved it on the cam input of the ported heads and that will add quite a bit of power, but that won't double the power like we want to do. We're actually going for over 500 horsepower with this now to ensure that big number, well, we're going to spray this thing with about 150, maybe 200, maybe 300, either way, so that this thing generates that kind of power, we also have to address the other systems on this thing and one of them would be the exhaust, right, I'm going to go ahead and grab the headers now with the exhaust on this car, it's not going to be just an old double stick sticking out the back with the tips of your paws, it will be a little different, add some style and possibly even allow us to burp some fire.

Well, you think it would be a little difficult to find a set of headers for a 1975 Cadillac hearse, but Summit Racing had exactly what we needed with these headers. by Sanderson, these are mid-length, so they will fit what Tommy has planned for the rest of the exhaust system, but other than that, they have many other benefits: they will release energy over those factory exhaust manifolds are more lightweight and have three-and-seven-eighths-inch primary collectors and a nice ceramic coating. We have a lot of space to put these things here. We just need to screw them in and we can.

Let's move on to the rest of that system, it's not uncommon to have problems with a set of headers during installation, but when working with large bodies, they now fit perfectly into place, it's easy to say that our old Cadillac curse makes a big statement. I want to do the same. The first thing we need to do to get started is Measure the car a bit here, we're trying to get this as close as possible to the front of the rocker near the wheel with a couple of bends and some spot welding, we get to the sweet spot, well , I have my advantage. exhaust pipe basically where I want it now the next thing I need to do is pull that big old pipe and then the intake pipe to see exactly where we are I'll probably have to trim it down a bit no big deal our main pipe is four inches and the inside is three, yes, we're going to have to cut it.

I like the height there, although that transition doesn't bother me. I need to mark a little bit the tube that comes out of our head is two and a half inches, so I made up an adapter to connect it to our 90. Now here on the back, it's a little more aesthetic than what I would call function because basically the Exhaust is going to come out of this thing and it's going to be in the direction you're pointing it now, usually people ride a tip horizontally or kick them down a little bit and you've probably seen it kick up some dust.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to bring it up and then cut it into a C shape and that's going to give it a little bit more of a monster feel and after we get it out we're going to remove this thing, move to the table and then we can build the bowels. Now the next step is going to turn our side pipe into a head tube a little bit more like a muffler and what we're going to do is add these baffles that we have now, what I need is 87 and 5 8 from this tab to that little mark of there, so we're going to have to solder a couple of these tubes together, that's no big deal, okay, it worked, it's good enough, we're going to slide these stamped rings that will help locate and hold. our baffle pipe, once that's all secured, we can slide our baffle into our exhaust pipe and hit it with a body saw.

Makes it easy to carve our custom tip and we'll smooth out the edges, with a small amount of massaging and burning with some wire and We're almost to the finish line, now we just need to craft some hangers to hold these side tubes in place . We don't have to get too fancy here, we're just using flat material with some cuts. Drill a hole and an insulator. a little soldering, screw it in, wow, that's not what I expected, but I like it, it's pretty impressive, isn't it? I think it's the biggest muffler I've ever seen. The wheelbase had a lot to do with it.

It's going to be loud, oh brother, it's probably going to be pretty loud. We changed the mechanical fan to an electric one to save horsepower and keep our engine running cool. We're plugging in our Cadillac Hearst. We are calling ahead and we are trying. to make this thing scream on the race track now, when you talk about making a car faster, there are a couple of things you can do, let's say, something easy to achieve, one would be to lose weight and the other will be to free up horses of strength and we are doing both here under the hood of our cart.

One thing we have done is completely eliminate the AC compressor, which is the original, it was big and heavy, along with the condenser, that's about 40 pounds we saved and when we're talking about losing weight a pound or two here and there, It's good 40, well that's pretty significant. Another thing we have done is eliminate the manual fan. This is a factory 500 cubic inch engine, a big heavy car, there's a lot of stress. That cooling system required a big fan that had a lot of resistance and that sucked power out of the engine, maybe 10 or 15 horsepower, so we got rid of that and the next thing we're going to do is fill this big gap here.

And that will be another way to save some weight. You probably could have guessed that we were doing an aluminum radiator swap, but why is it such a popular upgrade? When you look at this factory radiator that came out of our cadillac there is a lot to be desired here this is a copper and brass style it has copper tubes and fins with brass tanks it leaks but that is not the only downside to this they are super heavy and they are expensive to repair and even more expensive to replace, so if you were doing a chalk mark style restoration on an old caddy or any other old car, you might want to keep it, but other than that, you have aftermarket radiators that are easily available, in fact, we have this aluminum. one from rockauto.com is much lighter and is even slimmer when talking about the design.

Radiators have increased in efficiency over the years. This is a single core one and a quarter inches thick, as efficient as the original three-core radiator. two inch thick core now we'll talk about weight savings, the original was almost 30 pounds, the new aluminum is 10 pounds, so we have a savings of almost 20 pounds, because we eliminated that mechanical fan, we had to replace it with an electric one. There isn't much aftermarket support for these old caddies now, so we had to go with something universal. We got this kit from the freeze. We just need to mount it on the radiator and connect it.

We're going to hold it in place with a panel clamp and we're just going to mount it using some regular tech screws and washers at the right time for some hoses. When we were at rockauto.com ordering that radiator we also got these stock replacement hoses you just need to add some water and a cap and that's good now when you're doing an electric fan conversion like we did you want to make sure that your alternator is going to handle it now, maybe it's just that this is a hearse or all the cadillacs had it, this is a big enough alternator to handle that, we just need to put a relay in there to run those fans, which we'll do later After installing the fuel system and that's next, we'll put our tank in the overtake by adding an upgraded fuel system, well I guess you could.

Let's say we're about six feet deep with our makeover on our old Cadillac, the next thing we're going to delve into is the ignition system.fuel. We did a little detective work and realized the factory tank that was under this car. It had some corrosion on it, so the next thing we're going to have to do is swap out a fuel cell, which is the best solution we have, so you're just going to throw it in there and mount it with those little do you call those anchors? Yes, it would be a great idea, but we need you to know that you are a little safer.

Okay, where do we have to start? Well, I know after looking under the car there is a large twisted bracket running across the back. side here, so we're going to have to move forward, cut a big square hole and I want to recess the tank so it's nice and flush, looks like it belongs. I like it, what do you want me to do? I'm going to go around, no problem, I need a screwdriver, I don't really know what to call these things, but we'll start by taking off the coffin retaining plates and the rollers. The bracket I mentioned above is 19 inches from the bumper towards the car, which is why I made my mark.

I'm going to have to measure from left to right to find the center and then I'm going to cut a hole that measures 18 and a quarter by 16 and three quarters. Now think if everything is square. two lines are going to match up closely now we can cut it right that's the first hole on the top floor now we have to make another cut on the second floor no big deal we'll use a plumb bob on the four corners we'll draw a couple of lines Make a couple of cuts I'm not supposed to climb into the back of a hearse, but once this is for you, you know, times are good now, if all goes well, this little tank here should fit into place, oh yeah , I still have some things to do.

I need to remove these bolts so I can anchor it to the floor. I need to make a plate to cover from where the rollers were and I also have to run my plumbing now with this tank, the lid. It doesn't breathe and this port here is how this thing is going to let air in and out, so I'm going to run this out of the car that way, as long as you're sitting here you won't smell the fuel right. Tommy is assembling the fuel cell. I'm taking care of the rest of the fuel system, including the carburetor.

Here is an 850 cfm Holley Street HP with mechanical secondaries and it will be enough for what our Cadillac 500 will need now that I haven't built it. permanently yet because we have some spikes that we are going to spray in there a little later and for the rest of the fuel system we are using what is here on the table, it's pretty simple, we have a truck that we have I have a fuel pump and a filter back of the regulator assembly and all hoses to connect it. I'm going to take these to the back to install, we'll see how that turns out.

What do you think? Wow, even you can do things when you apply yourself, I like it, yeah, it doesn't look that bad, yeah, no, I'm all for it, you know, I got to thinking about how you were going to gut this whole thing here to say, wait, what happened to that. You convinced me, smart man, let me get out of your way. I'm going to buy a sandwich. You have to change it for our truck. We are using Holly's hydra mat. This helps prevent the pump from running out of fuel during fuel sloshing and also acts as a 100 micron micron. prefilter for your pump, now we just need to get this thing up in the air and mount that pump properly when you're mounting a fuel pump like the one we're going to use, you want to make sure of a few things, you want to make sure it's close to the tank because sometimes these pumps like to push and not pull, that note you also want to make sure it is not mounted on top of the tank because then you will have to remove the fuel and you don't like to do that, another thing you want to make sure you are away from any moving parts like the suspension, we are very far from our leaf spring here and then also from the exhaust, which with our new side pipes we don't have to do.

Worry about coming back here so we found the perfect place here. We have the support in place. I just need to assemble the pump to connect it. We're using these 175 fast fuel technologies and it's a pump and regulator combination that will hold up. 175 gallon per hour well with the pump mounted, it's time to move on to the hoses and what we decided to use is this Earl Super Stock, it's a little different than what you normally see us use, it's actually a pressure hose that makes it easier installation. nice and easy and it will handle up to 250 psi and it's that quick and simple, all I need to do is make these hoses, run the fuel lines to the front of the car, we'll have a fuel system, we've got one.

Another surprise is to give the advance a lethal injection and the exhaust system is a complete cooling system that is also made in the fuel system. We just have one more finish to do, but we're not going to do that yet because we have something special in our Mangas, this next update we're going to do is basically add 150 horses or so, maybe like 300 horses, I hope. What we are talking about is a power adder. Now normally power adders come in three different categories and the first one I'm going to talk about is my favorite and it's mainly because it looks so cool.

They are in an old school big block or a late model muscle. Oh, and they make awesome sound. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with the wine of a blower, but when it comes to cool noises, my absolute favorite has to be the whistle of a turbocharger. Chargers are a great way to add a ton of cool factor to almost any hot rod or muscle car. You'll find them as singles or twins, and since they come off the exhaust, you can mount them almost anywhere you know what these things mean. business, since they have to have their own horsepower relief valve, both have their benefits, but can be expensive and a little complicated to install for us who work on that obscure Cadillac.

We knew it would be difficult to find an application for a Cadillac Plus 500. We wanted to get our money's worth, so our plan of attack is to spray this thing with some nitrous. Its installation does not require more than a couple of hours and is also economical. Don't forget that you get a power appeal with the push of a button. come here baby oh yeah, in a wet nitrous system, the nitrous or n2o and fuel are injected into the engine through solenoids and regulated by orifices or jets, the precise amount of fuel and nitrous enters the chamber combustion, causing a denser air-fuel mixture that The mixture ignites creating higher cylinder pressure and ultimately more horsepower.

This particular kit we are using is called a plate system which we got from us and it is sandwiched between your carburetor and your intake manifold with the plate in place the carburetor can sit on top. and screw it tight, this is the reason we didn't finish the fuel feed earlier. We have a T in the fuel line because one line has to go to the nitrous system fuel solenoid and the other line has to feed the carburetor one time. We figured out the best route, we just need to cut these lines, install them and tighten them well, that's all for the fuel feed.

Now we just need to install some switches, plug it in and run the nitrous feed, which isn't really necessary. I want to make it until Tommy finds out where he's going to mount the bottle to mount a bottle of nitrous. It's very basic. Comes with some supports. You have to drill a couple of holes and you want to make sure you mount it on a solid base. Let's put ours here on the floor, now we could try to hide this a little bit, but what's the point in that look at this car? So you know, Mark, I wonder how many people in this world have put nitrous on it. a hearse um probably very few probably wouldn't hurt if there were a few more out there I'm done with my part on you yeah I've got it hooked up now I've got this purge solenoid hooked up with the little rabbit ears in there so it doesn't matter we'll fix it later when we put the hood on and come up with something fancy, so I guess all that's left now is to press the button, go ahead, make sure there are no leaks.

There you go mate, that looks great in your hand, oh that was awesome, now we just have brakes, suspension, wheels and tires, maybe a couple more things and we'll be out breathing fire and disturbing the peace in this old thing, can't wait. Well, for more information on what you saw on the show today, be sure to visit powernationtv.com. Call that mission accomplished. Yes, we should go celebrate you buying the first round. No, I'll drop you off at Detroit Muscle today, we get dirty. a junkyard axle and we'll put it under the back of our drag strip car plus give the interior a grim upgrade but what we found under the seat will give you chills now at Detroit Muscle Hello everyone welcome to Detroit Muscle, we are part. way through the resurrection of our cadillac hearse here, let's just say we're trying to get a six thousand pound car to do what six thousand pound cars aren't supposed to do and that's go fast down the track. racing now we're like Stuck in purgatory now like halfway there, we added a ton of power under the hood, a nitrous injection and upgraded the transmission with a shift kit and added a couple of other things like side pipes and a fuel cell, but what I haven't touched are the brakes, suspension and rear axle.

You can say that all of these are designed for the rider, not the driver, so today we are going to cure all those diseases and start again here with the rear axle under our hearse. It has some advantages, but not much. First of all, it has a factory pause and I imagine it is there because of this scenario. Can you imagine this old and somewhat unusual car on a soft grassy field? point absolutely, so having that break would be an added benefit now with our gear ratio that's on this thing, it's what I call airplane gears, it's got very long legs, if we were to stretch it on the interstate it would be perfectly fine, But since we're going to take this around the race track, well, some deeper gears are in order, there's not really any aftermarket support, so we can't change them.

Next up are the brakes, this thing has drums and brake shoes, we're looking for something a little more efficient and you know switching to a disc setup can be expensive and labor intensive so this has to go well. I like to give Tommy a hard time and tell him that if you want to fix a GM, put some advanced parts on it. Well, we're going to do that again today, but instead of a nine-inch rear end, we're actually doing a 9.75 rear end from a first-generation Expedition. I know what you're thinking, why a truck tail end, well there's a lot going on for this thing.

It's got that big green gear, it's got a pause unit, 373 gears are already here from the factory, and huge 13-inch disc brakes in the rear that will eliminate those drum brakes. There are some drawbacks, although it has several supports that we are going to have. To cut this was a four link with a Panhard rod and can be purchased here for coil springs. We'll probably have to cut most of this off, but for a 200 investment I'll do a little torching and soldering. We are using our oxyacetylene torch to do heavy cutting. This is a tool we don't use that often in the workshop, but it's definitely something handy to have on hand with the brackets cut off so they don't get in the way of debris.

With our four and a half inch disc, the goal here is to remove most of the metal and then we can follow up with the flap wheel to smooth it out. Looks like you're making pretty good progress buddy yeah no thanks to well I appreciate all the contributions from him and since they're all reinforced I need the pads taken off after I skin this thing. It's ready to find its new home, recycling our old stand and some hardware makes locating this thing easy. Out of the factory, our old Cadillac came with these little rubber bumpers that were here on the top and bottom of the leaf spring.

They were designed to dampen and control vibrations for better ride quality, but with the purpose of continuing with this. big old hearse which isn't necessarily good because that would cause some deflection so things hit the trash can, that being said we have the axle sitting pretty much where it's going to live but we still have to mark the exact location where we have to measure it from side to side, make sure it's centered on the car and then also set the pinion angle, but we can't do that second yet because we want to make sure the car is sitting on the ground, suspension fully compressed and sitting at ride height we won't be able to do that for a while, so we might as well move on to installing the rest of oursuspension and brakes, then a suspension setup that will surprisingly improve our big block cart's drag strip grip.

It's going to make a significant amount of torque and as we take this to the track we want it to have the best passing performance possible, so what that means is we need all the traction we can get now normally when people think about the traction they need. Think of the back of the car with a huge stain when, in reality, there is a full truck in the front. What I'm talking about is weight, if we can get some of what's up here to shift back every time we hit a skinny car. pedaling without doing us any good, the way we plan to do it is relatively inexpensive and that is with some drag racing shocks, but one small drawback is that they are not a direct application for a 76 hearse, can you believe it?

It's really not necessary, we'll get that old one out and make something happen. A little deep sea foam will help penetrate that rusty shock hardware and Tommy's favorite tool along with a ratchet wrench and the hard part is done. and under the bottom bracket it comes out with a single bolt, those old front shocks come out a lot easier than I expected and any of you have had to struggle to fix them, you know what I mean, now on to the front. to run a set of 90 10 Lakewood industry shocks, these will give us the maximum amount of lift every time we step on the gas pedal to plant the rear of the hearse, now back we're going to use a set of them. 50 50 and this is what those numbers mean, a 90 10 shock extends quite quickly while the compression stroke is much slower.

A 50 50 compresses and extends at a similar rate with both actions, so when we pull off the starting line we want the car to lift. the front while the rear compresses a little to load the rear suspension, then as we move down the track the front will slowly start to lower and this allows the car to maintain traction as we make our pass, without this action the tires don't bite as hard and we could just smoke them off the line let's start at the front now looking at these things side by side they're basically the same except for this end so let's press this sleeve to try to get it on there and then we can move forward.

The axle press surely makes this task much easier. If you didn't want to reuse this old stuff you could use a piece of tubing but you would have to make sure it was the right diameter and ID but since these old shocks are junk it makes sense to reuse them now, this upgrade has been easy and now I just we need to hold everything on this top bracket, the general rule of thumb is to tighten this. nut until the bottom eyelet is flattened enough to be the same diameter as that washer to fit these rear shocks under the cadillac.

I'm going to have to modify what I hit a bit, it's about two inches shorter than stock in terms of compression length. It's really close, it's only about a quarter of an inch away, it's not worth messing with so I'll have to find those extra two inches somewhere, let's measure a little to see where we are, we're at 19 inches this isn't going to run, the suspension is loaded, meaning it is compressed, and our new shock is fully extended at 18 and three quarters, meaning we would have no outward or downward travel, so we have to determine if we want to move this one up. above. or that one down and that's going to be the one we're going to cut in situations like this we could make a new shock but since the factory tab is welded to the frame it's just as easy for us to cut Take them off and move them down and like we're going to put this thing under a lot of stress, we made a couple of small reinforcements and all that's left is to burn them off.

The rest is pretty simple, just like this old cart does. That'll be when I get to the drag strip. How bad are the brakes on this old caddy? Well, let's say we find a replacement that is plug and play. We are making great progress on our Cadillac hearse. We have drag dampers on all of them. A rear part was installed in all four corners. We haven't said the pinion angle yet, but as I mentioned before, we're going to wait until the car is on the ground to do it, but as for the brakes, they need some attention, as you can see. the rotors are very rusty, this is not just surface rust, they are very pitted, this thing was in a junkyard for who knows how long, several years, we can probably get them back, but it's really not worth it, I just want to replace them . and we also want to make an improvement that is for the pads, well, they are not in good condition, the friction material is almost completely worn out and the backing plates are rusted, so we decided to go to ebc brakes to get one of their pads . and rotor kits, this is their stage 5 super street kit that includes dimpled and slotted rotors that are protected against corrosion with a geometric coating, as for the pads, these are the yellow things you've seen us use before.

This is a complete racing pad. It is also capable of being used on the street, it resists the cold very well, making it ideal for the daily driver who hits the track from time to time. If we are spending money to improve our rear end, this is a great place to do it, let's see what we do. I got here, okay, let's get these pads out of here, they're actually not as worn out as I thought. There were probably 50 of them, but they are pretty rusty. This slide is loose. Let's check the other one. That one is frozen, but we might be able to. free it but we need to check the piston and compress it now the piston is frozen in the caliper this is very common especially on junk rear parts we could probably rebuild the caliper but we have a better solution so this is a remanufactured duralast The caliper we got from Autozone is made to meet or exceed original specifications.

This thing is completely rebuilt, all the new parts are already lubed and ready to go on the vehicle and we even upgraded the hose too because our hoses were already shredded which again is typical of the junkyard. rear, so this is what we're going to use to fix our brakes. We're going to have a new brake system here on the back of our cart. We'll slide in our new rotor and then we can remove the old clips. and replace them with the new ones that come with our tweezers. Place a small disc brake loop and install the new caliper.

Another cool thing about these Duralast calipers is that not only do they have new brake caliper bolts, but they also have a new pre banjo bolt. -Installed with copper joints, so all you need to do is install the hose and tighten it. You're good to go, since we switch to disc brakes, we're going to have to redo our lines here, I'm going to move on. and mount this hose to the frame, do some new hard lines and once you're done this will be ready for some wheels and tires, something you may run into if you're doing a weird duck conversion like we're on that cadillac like in the As far as the rear is concerned, it's finding a set of wheels that match the front and rear and the attitude of your ride.

Luckily for us, we found this gem. This is an original wheel that would come on an F-150, but it would be the spare. It's Ford's attempt to save some money now, as I mentioned we wanted the front and rear to match the summit. It had exactly what we needed. This is an American wheel that they offer, that's their Rat Rod series and with a touch of color on these, maybe some stripes. and even some chrome nuts and some church now I just need a clean scratch and we'll be ready to paint, we're going to spray them with some wax and grease remover because of any possible contamination that may be there. then a little hand moving a red pad we will prepare the surface for our painting and one more cleaning and she is ready to go.

I'm going to spray two coats of Summit Racing Jet Black Basecoat and then two coats of clear, I want those wheels to shine like a new penny. We're going to mix up a few ounces of paint, add our reducer and a small splash of hardener. You want to make sure you mix this well and now it is ready for activation time. painting wheels can be a little tricky because of all the curves and opposing angles, the trick here is to make sure everything is covered with a nice even coat, after a few minutes to let it dissipate we are ready to start our second coat in black. once that has dried it's time to spray our glitter on, now we need to let our goodies in the cabin dry for a while so we can handle them and while you're doing your thing I'm going to tell you about the rear tires that we're going to use under our cadillac.

I went to the summit races and bought a set of mh race master dlt approved tires. These are 275 50 that are 10 and a half inches wide and they are going to be filled. On top of that steel wheel we are going to race and it will look pretty spectacular when all is said and done. The next thing I'm going to do with this rim machine is add my pinstripe, time to do some painting. Now I know most people don't use them for this, but your turntable will help. It's a pretty piece. Now we just have to get her into the car.

Then we dug out the seat in our Cadillac hearse to make room. for some racing cubes, but what we found along the way was a spooky surprise. Well, this journey of resurrecting this old Cadillac hearse has been a pretty unique situation and I have to say that I'm very glad that we're getting dangerously close to the end mainly because I'm running out of clever and creepy sands to describe this, I'm It's killing, well the only thing we haven't touched would have to be the living room here and it leaves a lot to be desired although it's quite comfortable and has a retro look.

We need to upgrade the dash a bit, maybe with some gauges so we can keep an eye on the engine and also our seat here, it's comfortable and looks great but it won't provide the support. We especially need to drive around the racetrack, so this thing has to go and get this couch out of here and maybe find some treasures among the cushions. Well, I already found a treasure and it wasn't coins between the cushions, it's a part. from a latex exam glove box and definitely has some age. I can't wait to see what else we find below.

Well, I didn't find any coins between the cushions like I thought, but there are many treasures to discover. here under the seat earlier I found that box that was for latex gloves, so look at this, a real latex glove that's been under here for I don't know how long and I don't even like to touch this with my gloves on. then you have a flat head screwdriver a pair of pliers I don't know what they are for and then there are several flowers here, you can guess what they were for anyway I'm going to leave this mess for Tommy to clean up.

Whoever loves this car so much, I'm very fond of this old thing, so I had to show the interior some love. We went to the summit races and got a pair of their universal sport seats, they have black fabric and that will show. as stylish as a new tuxedo in there, but before I start crafting, I have to clean the house a little, I also found some good stuff, guys, look at this, this is from an old funeral home in Greenville, Tennessee, and it appears to be some aspirin and some smelling salts now, to assemble our seat you will need a few pieces of metal, the manufacturing process is simple, a flat bar, some tubes and some metal glue.

I had to make these little feet that I'm going to screw to the bottom of our seat tracks. Once I adjust them, this thing will be ready to go in the car with our seat properly adjusted, we will complement our interior with an impressive attack and we will pass at the wheel. You know, sometimes people can feel like they are chained to evil. decisions, but when they're chrome, they're fine. These bellboys get into our hearse. The next time you see this rolling coffin, it will accelerate down the race track with deadly speed. You can follow it and enjoy our day at the track. on powernationtv.com today in detroit muscle our slow and strong hearse has a chance to redeem itself this cadillac cuts on the dyno and is a hoot on the track now in detroit hey guys welcome to detroit muscle today is going to be a Pretty good day for us, because we'll finally be able to reap the benefits of our hard work, we'll be taking our refined and rejuvenated grim sleeper to the track, that's right guys, this old Cadillac's first trip down the racetrack, well, it wasn't nothing special.

I realized that he was so slow that I would have been late for his own funeral andNow at that point we realized we were going to need some old school tricks to help improve its performance and reduce the E.T when we put this in the shop. I jumped right in with this big body, it comes with big cubic inches, 500 of them and with an engine this size it usually doesn't take much to make good power, so with some quick parts our engine and transmission look ready. To continue, we did not stop there. A great way to increase the feeling of flying by the seat of your pants is with shifting, so changing the rear axle was a must.

We found an unusual candidate that had all the goods in a 373 gear ratio position and disc brakes, after a little fabulous work we were ready to add some style and performance. We created some huge side tubes. We wanted these to make a statement like our hearse, so with the help of some Magnaflow stainless steel tubing I think they achieved that. We've crossed our shirts with our eyes and we're practically ready to shoot our cadillac. We just have a couple last things we need to do: put some fuel in it and Daniel, well, now he's got one last thing since then.

We are planning to spray this old Cadillac with a heavy dose of accelerator in a bottle, there are a couple of precautionary measures we need to address, the one we are going to delve into today is spark plugs, what is a spark plug? Well, it is a simple device that ignites the air-fuel mixture by delivering voltage from the ignition system to the combustion chamber. There are now many different types of spark plugs and one thing they all have in common is their function. They are not all the same. There are cold spark plugs. spark plugs and everything else and that's where the term heat range comes in so when you have an engine that burns some oil what you can do is increase the heat range to help minimize contamination or if you're like us and you're You're going to use a good dose of nitrous, that will affect your decision.

When using nitrous you will always want to use a colder plug and the better it works, the colder your choice should be. Now I'll show you. you know how to read these things now, let's see these here we have some new, some used and some dead this one is dead it's covered in carbon it's practically completely filed away but it tells a story that you just have to read now you know how to read it with this one, or do you have too much fuel or you are burning a little oil or the plug is too cold for your application now with this one it is almost completely white, well that is not what you want now either, the reason is this the porcelain is so white it could be a result of a couple of things: one, the air fuel mixture is too lean, two, the timing is off or three, the plug is too hot, now this is what you want, it looks like it's been washed with sweet tea, the amber The color tells you that your engine is tuned for maximum efficiency.

You should hear me come in and talk about maximum efficiency. Yes, that's you. You don't have them all plugged in yet. You're not done with that cheesecake yet because I'm working on it. a big chunk of like three of them oh well what about the gas that probably comes next? Oh, okay, I'm going to pop these plugs with some nitrous, let's test how far this cadillac will go on the dyno, okay, everyone's there. programmed and this came in on its own so now the big question is what's been done to it man we've basically done a main cam intake swap you know it's 500 cubic inches we didn't touch the bottom end of this factory thing.

I made about 200 horses, so we made more than that, we're over it. I like it, no, and with that you know it shouldn't be that difficult to generate significant power from there when I say a significant gain of 50 with nitrous well that's right we're going to spray it, yeah, yeah, so it's all good man, with this kind of cubic inch, it should be pretty easy to do I think, so I mean, everything seems to be where it's supposed to be, it's got some nice parts, you know, with the nitrous. kit, you have a new carburetor, you have a nice new intake manifold.

I guess the first thing we need to do is make sure everything is where it's supposed to be, so what I'd like to do is turn it on. I'll check the timing because I guess we want to do some naturally aspirated posts, yeah, yeah, absolutely, we'll see what it does, just the whole engine, so to speak, and then we'll spray it with, say, 7500 shots and then we'll step it up because I want to spread . as much as we can to make as much profit as possible because look at this dude it's a cadillac with long wheels we need all the help we can get I like the way you think so it's okay so the first thing is to get it.

Excited, make sure we have tax signal, let's check the time and move on to doing that next, okay, this is going to be exciting, we're not adjusting the time here, we're just checking where it is from our previous tune and yeah, we'll come back. in this department to adjust this to accommodate the amount of nitrous that will be thrown at it, okay I made 258 horsepower and 323 lb-ft, well I know we are climbing let's go ahead and hook up the nitrous so we can climb a big jump. right, I'm all for it, it's not a bad idea, for every 50 horsepower on nitrous you want to reduce one degree of timing, we're hitting this thing with 100 shots, that means we need to eliminate two degrees of timing, okay cousin.

Don't forget that boogie button, hit the bleed, man, that didn't sound too bad, it sounded good, I'd consider it a success, oh yeah, now it got 326.99 power at the wheel and the torque is at 402.81, man, That's amazing, yeah, yeah. that's amazing that's with a small one so we can go up from here oh no no you have to go up from here if now you know everything works now you have to go up I'm going to get 50 more and put nothing on it uh nothing it squirts out, I took it like a champ, you can tell when that nitrous came in, you know, that smooth ramp and it was cool, yeah I noticed it too, not even looking or listening to the engine, but with your smile. it worked, oh my gosh, there's a long clear area there, you're all dizzy, that's what it is, I just want to put bigger pickups in there, okay, make it happen, putting the new jets in just takes a little bit of torque here on the front and back of the plate is an easy task and don't forget to adjust your timing for that bigger hit, okay, I have the pickups a little bigger, you have to go in and try it, let's see what happens, keep going up, yeah. 341 and 438 well I'll call it a win, I wouldn't say it's like a win on the track, but it's definitely a win and for what we've done, it's a cool factory, this is a success here now, guys, uh, it you have.

It's happening, I'm very, uh, I'm very impressed, everything is still running now, you know, they had a speed of over 110 miles per hour on the wheel, right there, that's dragging, yeah, this engine, this particular engine, I'm sure I've never seen one. kind of rpm like that in its entire life, you know, let alone make that kind of power if this thing was actually, you know, rated at 190 or whatever, yeah, yeah, and now you're making it. know 340 at all times, yeah, yeah, so I've doubled it essentially no, that's huge, yeah, that's 100 per win, okay, the next step is which race track, and you know, if we like Absolutely disintegrate this thing, you might have to cut your teeth on some cattle, well, you know, I might or might not have worked on one of these before, so if anything needs to be done, I think we can help you, as well So we'll let this cool down, take it off the dyno and move on.

Put the hood on it and see if we can ride around and terrorize the neighborhood. I think they are fine. Good job guys. Thanks, Pat. If we can't disturb the piece, maybe we can dig up some peepers. on the track, how does this behemoth do in the next 8th mile at Detroit Muscle, you know, Daniel, I'm very proud of how this hearse turned out and I'm excited to see all of our hard work and improvements pay off, right? you are safe? listening to myself I'm pretty quiet today it's like I'm talking to a previous passenger wake up sleeping beauty I'm awake I'm awake how was the trip?

Well, it's not designed for comfort now last time. I'll let you convince me to come back down here man, well we're back here on the racetrack trying to redeem ourselves, but either way I think we still made it. We've changed the personality drastically on this oh hearse and what's more. You've doubled the power output, you want to flip for who drives first, yeah, wait, ooh, I found a quarterback back here, get out of the way, hey, I thought it was flipping, yeah, you lost, we're lucky to have him. Etheridge Motorsports Park just down the road from us has everything you want, fast cars, cool pits and that heady rubber burning aroma Now before we head to the track let's talk about our goals with this, we wanted it to turn heads and, as we're cruising through the pits, I think we got exactly the reaction we were looking for, it's pretty cool, I like it, I mean I've never seen a hurst like it yet, I like what I call the light tubes on the side of the car running under the side, I love that we were even able to catch the attention of a veteran racer who has spent much of his life on a racetrack, has an impressive slam with what some would call an unfortunate number. the windshield 1313 i was born on the 13th on friday the 13th and 13 is my lucky number it's a 55 chevrolet it's fiberglass it has a shafrock 565 engine with 1040 horsepower and it runs like a 560 we know this doesn't It'll be so fast This old hearse won't run anywhere near that, but we brought this thing here to stretch its legs on the pavement.

This is ridiculous, I'm not kidding, my face hurts a little, yes, it's from the G-force release itself, no. No, not exactly, it's more the smiles I got from driving this big, dumb car, that's awesome, but man, I will say I didn't use the nitrous. I thought you know you have to crawl to walk and you're taller than me. You should be able to take a longer stride, so maybe we'll cover the ground a little better, but yeah, do whatever you want. I'm planning to thank you a lot. Keep going big guy, just keep it going, you don't have to. wait a second, yeah, but if you have a helmet for your smile, you can try it on because this thing is epic, it's incredible, it's like one of those Austin Power laps, it's a long wheelbase Cadillac, so what do you think about it?

How are you? That sports fan guy, I tell you, you look a lot better than me. Had the boogie button on yeah yeah that night definitely helped now with this old car guys we're not the fastest by any means we set the bar. pretty high, but you know sometimes you have to set goals and try to achieve them, so I have to say I think we surpassed it, yes, you know that, please, right? What does that mean? We are now world record holders. i have the fastest 1976 cadillac hertz in the world in black paint with two tubes on the sides and 150 shots powered by 500 cadillac yes, I think you're right, come on, let's go get a cheeseburger, yes, if you want to take a look a This build visit powernation tv.com and check out the build page to say goodbye.