425 Cadillac into a Stroker 454
In reply to "Mr. P-Body", If I'm reading you correctly, it sounds as if you're trying talk me into "de-stroking" & "going" bigger in cubic inches. I'm actually wanting to increase the stroke, but not any more than what Cadillac did with
the stock 500 c.i. engines. More stroke=more torque. Then your next question was, why I want to use a smaller engine block if I had a 500 block. The 500 block was cracked in the area of the "driver's side" motor mount & down that
side of the block above the oil pan. But that wasn't the only thing wrong with that block, one of the pistons broke the two compression rings & one of those
gouged a rather deep grove into the cylinder wall & locked that piston up, (& the entire engine was "stuck" because of that. That's why the car it was in was in the junk yard. I bought that 500 just for the parts that I "salvaged" from it, as it was from a "U-Pull-It" yard & engines were "on sale" the week that I bought it.
As for the reason for the EGGE brand of parts, if something was wrong with them, why are the guys at MTS using them? Also, that company's been in business almost as long as there have been cars around. (allot longer than I have). I do (however) agree with you that their parts are a bit on the "historic" side as they don't make parts for engines newer than 1980. And, using pistons that were made for another engine than the one that I'm going to be putting them into will cause me to have to "mill the deck" quite a bit to get a good "quench" or a decent compression ratio out of it, is a bit on the
costly side, but I've already got "into" it & cannot afford to change "horses"
now that "the race has started". And, besides that, if I don't "go for it" & stop
now, I do have another complete (untouched) bone stock (1978) 425 sitting
in my back shed. But, I've been wanting to do a "Caddiolds" 454 for years. I planned it out & have been told by quite a few people that it can be done, just not really needed to be done. Also, I want to keep the "cubes" no bigger
than 454". After all, that's the "stock" size of the most common of the Big Block Chevy engines, & this is going into a Chevy car. I didn't want to use a Chevy 454 because those are heavier than a Caddy engine, must be revved higher to get to the same power as that of A well built Caddy, they aren't cheap to get anywhere, & I'd have to do allot of front suspension parts swapping & alignment work to accommodate a "Rat motor" 454 engine. The car that I have was originally a 307 sbc car. That engine doesn't run & would
cost allot to get it running as the rings are stuck to the pistons from many years of sitting in a barn. And the valve seals are all rotted out too. Most everyone who's ever "messed around" with the late '60's Chevy 307's know that those weren't anything worth working on when something went wrong with them. Like the mid '70's Chevy 305's, they work OK at best when nothing 's wrong with them, But once something goes "amiss" then it's "best" to replace them with something better. So, being that a Cadillac engine only weighs @ 40 lbs. more than a small block "Chebbie" & the 425 Caddy engine
is told to be @ 100 lbs. lighter than that even, well, that makes swapping one in where a 305,307 or 350 was, a "piece of cake", (other than the motor mounts & oil pan" other than those, it's practically a "drop in". In 1973 - 1987
Chevy & G.M.C. trucks, even easier. The only thing needed to do there is, move the motor mount plates that are bolted to the truck's frame @ 4" forward & maybe the right exhaust manifold will need a slight "trimming" to clear the frame. I know that because I did that with a 1979 Chevy one-ton
truck & the 425 Caddy engine that I'm rebuilding into the "Stroker 454".