Northstar engine swap

[ak1ra07]

Did a search but only came up with a few hits about the older Northstar engines.. any idea about the feasibility of the newer 4.4L supercharged variety out of a STS or XLR?

[dream36realms]

i seen one in a VWGolf so anything is possible,

[digitalsolo]

They have quite a few issues.   No successful swaps in an RX7 that I know of.

[cool]

Have you priced one of the newer 4.4s?  Just curious how much they are going for.

I dont know if they have made any improvements over the normal northstar design.  If not, I would stay away.  They are notorious for headgaskets, oil leaks and oil consumption.  Removal of the head bolts will require the installation of thread-serts in EVERY hole. 

[ak1ra07]

4000-5000 that I've found.


http://www.popularhotrodding.com/enginemasters/articles/cadillac/0504em_cady/viewall.html

[spacevomit]

I don't really know anything about Northstars, except that several people here say to stay the hell away. But going by this article, it seems very heavily revised. If it no longer suffers from the problems that make the older ones notorious, the specs of the engine are totally badass. It says these are hand-built at GM's new Performance Build Center.

Will it fit in the engine bay (is this an FB/SA, FC, or FD?)?

[ak1ra07]

Also, I'm not finding any with manual transmissions.. but at least its a RWD layout, so hopefully a T56 could mate with this?

[dream36realms]

Find out if there is any ls5 swaps in other vehicles that had this motor. I know that at least one model was fwd. then see what the did as far as the trNny. If they were able to use a ls5 on the stock tranny than you should fit a t56 behind it relatively easy. Fwih the ls5 is just a fwd ls1.


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[digitalsolo]

LS5 does not use a V8 bellhousing.    Can't say if the 4.4L N* does.   Someone put up a picture of the back of the block.   I'm still waiting to hear any reason this is a good idea.    You can build more power in an LS motor for less money, it'll fit under the hood, bolt to a T56, not cost $$$ for every part, not have an old POS roots blower on it, and not need timeserts unless you screw up.

[spacevomit]

So I've been trying to find out about those head bolt issues, because it seemed like something they would/should have solved. It also seems very likely that the RWD N* use a different bolt pattern on bell housing, since it's no longer transverse mounted, FWD and so on. Here's a tidbit I found from a forum post, I can't personally confirm any of this.

They did revise the standard Northstar head bolt design once in '00, and again late in the '03 run as they developed a RWD Northstar. The late '03 revision moved to LSx-style bolts which were longer with a coarser pitch. They also revised the block casting somewhere in the '00-'04 timeframe, as the porosity was a leading contributor to the bolt threads pulling out. Supposedly the RWD Northstars (and recent year DTS FWD N*) are essentially cured of the failings of the FWD version with respect to headgasket sealing.

It's also worth noting that the LC3 Northstar is a closed deck, vs. an open for the other, non-SC versions. Closed deck is inherently superior for block-to-head sealing.

Regardless, it doesn't really change the points that Blake just made about the LSx - even if these LC3s don't have those problems anymore, I wouldn't do it unless you understand that you'll mostly just gain complexity, size and expense over an LSx, but still want to do it anyway. Not only are the parts going to be more expensive, but there will be many more of them.