You'll never believe what I got gave to me

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fishy68

fishy68

Tyr Fryr's Inc.
Joined
Jan 11, 2005
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Location
Central, IL (Hooterville)
A Cadillac Fleetwood Airport Limo with the 500 cube engine. Runs real good too. Only 58,000 miles on it. Bodies rusted out but heck the drivetrain is worth the effort to go get it. I know what your all thinking. What the heck would you want with that thing. Well me and a buddy are looking for a Nova or something cheap like that that we can stuff the Cad engine into and try to get on Pinks with it next time they come to St. Louis. We figured what the heck would we have to loose. Should be able to build it for $1000 or maybe even less cause my buddy allready has all kinds of GM stuff laying around that he never uses. He owns a scrap yard and has all kinds of tools of destruction so making it work should be a breeze just a little time consuming.

What do you guys think? Sound feasible or dumb??
 

They're a great engine, very smooth with good stock power but I think performance parts are quite pricey. Regardless I would definitely take the drive train out of it :-D
 
Hey Fishy, Billy's got a 76 Pontiac Astre (you know -- the Canadian Vega) roller here in the shop with your name on it. It's even got an 8 3/4 rear end.

:-D
 
Rob said:
They're a great engine, very smooth with good stock power but I think performance parts are quite pricey. Regardless I would definitely take the drive train out of it :-D
Click to expand...

Yeah your probably right. We're hoping to find some deals on e-bay but I don't know how lucky we'll be. At least we have a good ammount of time to find stuff.

grumpuscreature said:
Only thing I'd do different is start with a Chevette.
Click to expand...

LOL. You must have looked at the link 360Scamp posted. That would be the ticket though, lightweight. If there were actually any chevettes left running around that is. I don't think I've seen over one in the past 10 yrs around here.

CudaChick1968 said:
Hey Fishy, Billy's got a 76 Pontiac Astre (you know -- the Canadian Vega) roller here in the shop with your name on it. It's even got an 8 3/4 rear end.

:-D
Click to expand...

Thanks Leanna but my buddy allready has a line on a rust free 75 Nova for $100 and I have a 9" that should fit in it just fine. Neither of us have much money to spend so were having to go as cheap as possible. Plus if we loose it we won't have lost much.

360scamp said:
http://hooptyrides.blogspot.com/2004/09/greatest-do-it-yourself-article-ever.html

DO IT!!!! :snakeman::snakeman::snakeman:
Click to expand...

Cool link
 
500 has cubes and torque but low on HP without lots of work.

Mine has about 200 HP but moves the land barge quite well

They can make killer engines with some work

Tracy,

What year caddy? I need the, left headlight bezel(low beam I think), hood safety latch and rear bumper extensions (most rotted of though) if a 74

Oh, the front bumper too

I'll call you
 
Man, that makes me smile, thanks. If you do it we will require step by step pics of the whole process including you winning on Pinks. This is not negotiable. Who knows, maybe some of the guys on the board are closet Chevy/GM gurus and have some old parts kicking around.:-D
 
Can't find a chevette? I got 3 letters for you CRX stock hubcaps screwed to the wheels, try to keep the motor under the stock hood, move the seat back so your not sitting on the rear of the motor, narrowed 9 inch because they are cheap, no body work with stock paint and a pair of cutouts in the exhaust. Scare the crap out of everybody including yourself.
If they can cram a blown 454 in a 46 Crosley you can drop a 500 in a CRX.
 
WildCat said:
500 has cubes and torque but low on HP without lots of work.

Mine has about 200 HP but moves the land barge quite well

They can make killer engines with some work

Tracy,

What year caddy? I need the, left headlight bezel(low beam I think), hood safety latch and rear bumper extensions (most rotted of though) if a 74

Oh, the front bumper too

I'll call you
Click to expand...

Yeah I know what you mean about big torque and low hp. I looked it up and see that it's only rated at 170 hp (YUK) but a whopping 550 lbs. ft of torque. YEAH!! But I figure if we stick a good cam in it, aluminum intake with a 800-850 carb, and headers it should get it close to the 350 hp mark and still have well over 500 lbs. ft. of torque. I think if we gut the Nova it should be light enough to run 12.0's or better.

The Caddy's a 76. Would that do you any good? I haven't picked it up yet so I'm not sure how good the stuff is yet. He did tell me it was pretty rusty.

Sparky said:
Man, that makes me smile, thanks. If you do it we will require step by step pics of the whole process including you winning on Pinks. This is not negotiable. Who knows, maybe some of the guys on the board are closet Chevy/GM gurus and have some old parts kicking around.:-D
Click to expand...

Well i'm not going to promise pics all the way through but we will take some and I'll post them. I wouldn't doubt we have some GM guys here too. I had a bunch of them when I was young cause they were cheap and I was poor so I have a fair ammount of exp with them too. Not much on Caddy's though but and engine is an engine. Their just layed out different.

360scamp said:
Can't find a chevette? I got 3 letters for you CRX stock hubcaps screwed to the wheels, try to keep the motor under the stock hood, move the seat back so your not sitting on the rear of the motor, narrowed 9 inch because they are cheap, no body work with stock paint and a pair of cutouts in the exhaust. Scare the crap out of everybody including yourself.
If they can cram a blown 454 in a 46 Crosley you can drop a 500 in a CRX.
Click to expand...

That'd sure be nice and a ton of fun I'm sure but like I said earlier my buddy can get a real solid 75 Nova for $100 so I think that's the way we'll go. Gutted out I don't think it'll be too heavy. Maybe in the 2700-2800 lb range. Not as good as a CRX or Chevette but still decent and CHEAP!! That's the main factor in this project.
 
There was a guy that actually thought our local track (gateway) Was going to let him run a 1100 motorcycle powered go cart down the track lmao.
 
I've seen these do the 1/4 mile with a 350 in them, moved right a long!

1974_honda_civic.jpg
 
I don't quite recall what the front end looks like in a Nova, but if you wind up needing a rear sump pan and pickup, hit the junkyards for pieces from an Eldorado. My memory isn't too good, but I think the 425, 472 and 500 share a common oil pan configuration. It's a mild pain to get out of the front-wheel-drive beast, but way cheaper than an aftermarket pan. I dumped a 500 in a 1973 Pontiac Grand Prix many years ago, and it was really hard on tires. :angel7:

Another nice thing is that the bellhousing pattern is common to Buick, Olds, Pontiac and Cadillac. Options are nice.
 
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