It all started last year. My built up V6 was useing a good ammount of oil. When I took the engine apart I found a couple of cylinder walls scored. I decided instead of rebuilding the V6 I would do an engine swap. I was considering a 3800SC or a 3.4TDC swap but was having a hard time finding a good engine for a good price. One day while surfing ebay I came across a 91 Cadillac DeVille with the 4 . 9 V8. It was smashed in the rear but had only 90K miles on it. It was about an hour away from where I live too. I ended up buying the car for $560. It was owned by old people and always serviced at the Cadillac dealership. I have a stack of papers that came with the car of everything that had been done to it. Everything from the 8 new injectors that had been installed a month before the crash to oil changes ever 3K miles.
I went and picked the car up and started pulling the engine a week later. It took me 3 hours to get the 4 . 9 out of the Cadillac. I pulled the intake manafold, valve covers, water pump, timing cover and oil pan off of the engine. I did that for a couple of reasons. I wanted to inspect how the inside of the engine looked and I wanted to reseal everything. The engine looks brand new inside so I reassembled everything with new gaskets and a new waterpump. The next step was to bolt the transmission to the engine, lift it with the engine hoist, get it level on the cradle and build the mounts. If you look at Rockcrawl's website you'll know what my mounts look like. I pretty much followed what he had done. I ordered 2 poly trans mounts for a V8 chevy truck and used them for my engine mounts. I also got poly transmission mounts. Once I got the engine mounted to the crade I installed it into the car and started the wireing. Wireing was really easy on the engine. I had everything from the Cadillac's pcm, engines sensors and Fiero's harness labeled and pretty much connected everything together. I had rockcrawl reprogram my chip to get rid of the passkey crap, evap crap and transmission crap. He also moved my rev limiter up a bit (6000RPM) and removed my speed limiter.
After finishing all that I installed my MSD distributor cap, rotor, 8.5mm plug wires and rapid fire AC delco plugs. I connected the fuel lines, coolant lines, filled the cooling system and started it up. It ran good the first try, but wasnt exactly right. I had flipped a couple of my plug wires around so once I got that fixed it ran good. I then connected my flowmaster muffler to the outlet on the rear exhaust manafold and was ready to go. I drove the car for a couple of months. I was pretty happy with it. It has more torque and power down low than my V6 did but doesnt pull as good at higher RPM or speed. I figured with some help my 4 . 9 could be a lot better.
This winter I took the engine back apart for some work. I purchased an Allante intake manafold. It is a lot less restrictive than the stock 4 . 9 intake and looks better IMO. It has a larger throttle body and more even runners. I also removed my heads and took them into work to port them. I about doubbled the size of the intake and exhaust ports (gasket matched) and opened up the bowl area quite a bit. It was amazing how much extra metal was in them. This should add a good ammount of power and help the engine breathe at higher RPM.
Another restrictive part of this engine is the exhaust manafolds. I am currently making a set of equal lenght headders at work. These should add some power and assist in the higher RPM range.
On top of all that I have nitrous. :thumbleft: I'm going to use either a 75 or a 100 shot. My goals are to be a 13.5 without nitrous and in the 12's with nitrous. I'm not sure if I'll make it there but I should be close. I'm thinking maybe next winter I'll get a cam regrind done and add some boost. I'll have some track slips and dyno numbers after it's all together and running. I'll post them even if they arent as good as I want them to be. This is a pretty nice swap for what it is, but it defenatly isnt the fastest engine on earth. I'm happy with it and thats all that matters. :la:
mid process of porting exhaust ports. Top is stock bottom is ported.
Same as above description, but intake ports.
Upper Allante intake after polishing.
Nitrous:
Engine before install:
My rims after being painted(were white):
