Full Build: "Overtaker" Caddy Hearse Wakes the Dead

today on detroit muscle i find another gem to surprise mark then we'll take this clapped out hurst for a spin down the eighth mile get it back in the shop so we can transform this hauler into a mauler adding some performance upgrades to make it scream down the track [Music] well it's time for us to kick off another build on this next project i had to do a little bit of some soil searching but that's okay the question is do we do ford mopar or even a gm what i have up my sleeve a few you guys may have a bit of some cold feet to ride in one i wanted something just to have some fun with it and i wanted it to have a big power plant because you know the old sand there's no replacement for displacement plus it needed to get noticed with the name detroit muscle picking what i like to call a top-shelf muscle car is usually a no-brainer kind of like a 69 charger who doesn't like one of those some people consider them the sexiest mopar ever with its smooth and flowing coke bottle lines a roof line that scream speed an aggressive grill with those hideaway headlights plus a handful of that iconic pistol grip shifter that's just begging for a person to run through the gears or maybe what you're looking for needs to be a little bit more refined a chevelle with plenty of power under the hood would definitely be a great choice it's got to have those cool racing stripes and a stance that lets everyone know that you mean business while wearing a classy bow tie but those are expensive what i'm digging on won't cost you your life savings will definitely get you some attention and normally people are dying to take a right [Music] a hearse and i wouldn't say it's for everybody there's a lot of people out there that's kind of creeped out by them because we all know what they have a purpose to do but is that like my old man used to say it ain't the dead ones you got to worry about it's the live ones and when we're done with this thing it's going to have plenty more life in it than it's got right now there's not a whole lot of aftermarket support for it but there are a few items that you can kind of put together kind of a secret recipe and make this thing really a powerhouse now the transmission in this thing is just a standard old 400 turbo and you can doctor on them things on the cheap as well to make it be a performer i know from where you're probably sitting this thing ain't a whole lot to look at but one thing i really like about it is love them or hate them you know exactly what this car is it's highly recognizable to say the least and yeah i know it's got a lot of size to it and with that it's a heavy car and you'll probably notice that as i drive this thing along each bump it goes over it almost kind of bulldozes it down it just kind of goes across it you'll see the car not shake much but the wheels will bounce around and how could you not like it i mean one it's a cadillac you know i know this car isn't much of a driving car it's far more of a riding type of car but you know that's okay too now with this thing it isn't going to win any races per se because of speed but it's aid up with cool factor it is definitely a cruiser i mean you just lay back ride in it there's plenty of room heck even if you wanted to lay down i know that overland thing is kind of a big deal you can camp out with a small family in this thing have room to play racquetball hide and go seek whatever you want say one thing you ain't gonna do a whole lot of though that's past the fuel station there's some buzzards flying around i don't know if they can sense this thing coming down the road or not sure we may have to shampoo the carpet at least pull it out stinks in here i know nothing died in it or nothing like that but it does stink kind of musky the windows are down i'm really curious of what mark's words are gonna be about this stay i don't know if he's gonna love it or hate it i know the first time i threw a curve ball at him with that crown victoria he wasn't all about it at all but after getting it finished well i guess you could say he enjoyed i know i sure did and either way if he don't i had enough fun for both of us but i'm sure he's gonna like it i didn't say love it i said like there is kind of this vibe that comes along with it a lot of people like these things you know one time of the year around halloween it's kind of a prop me myself i've owned a couple of these things and yeah i know they're not really nothing to brag about in the stock form but whenever we're all said and done with this thing um i would definitely definitely be proud to have it in my driveway just like size matters so does weight and this old big thing well to say it's heavy is an understatement so i'm probably going to have to put it on a pretty serious diet and try to chunk out some of this thing to lighten it up a bit i don't know exactly what this thing weighs but we're going to swing by and put this thing on a set of scales just to see what the number really is and i'm going to guess it's probably 7 7 500 pounds but we're going to put this thing up on the scales and i bet it's gonna weigh basically like two challengers probably three vegas probably two and a half mustangs it's gonna be heavy regardless got the light need to move on up go grab my ticket ah it's better than i thought 63 and 40. that ain't bad now go further that kind of makes me a little more excited well i guess that all depends on how slow it is on the drag strip i surprise mark with our new caddy and we'll see how fast three tons of fun can get down the drag strip [Music] [Music] i'm down here at us 43 drag way tommy told me he was going to meet me here he's got a big surprise for me i'm thinking it's a new project car and i'm hoping it's this one right here 61 falcon 2-door sedan actually had a car very similar to this same year same body it wasn't this nice though it was kind of a project and tommy knows i love fords and i love falcons and i wish i hadn't sold that one so i'm hoping this is his big surprise for me but there's only balls man check out what i got a killer deal on i'm laughing just because i don't know what else to do you gotta love it yeah i mean this is an excellent opportunity for you to make wise jokes something as beautiful as this thing i don't i just don't know what to say right now i'll think of some i i mean it should leave you speechless why didn't you why don't just think about that and answer me later okay why let's see what it'll do out there you wanna okay right now i'll put seat belts in pine boxes man i'm hoping people from the stance can hear cam in that dude by cam i mean this probably just needs to tune up and choke about half stopped up i'm for sure on one thing and that is this thing run down the track it's not going to be impressive at all sir what that means it gives us plenty of room for improvement you know i really thought this was a joke at first and even though he's serious it is it's still a joke now one thing's for sure i sure hope i impress mark i guess i should just embrace it cause there's no way you're gonna make this car fast i don't care what you do to it it's got to weigh 7 500 pounds oh the track's sticky his old girl's probably gonna make fun of herself uh-oh we're gonna roll up here don't choke i don't want to kill it here we go oh we red lighted uh i got to think of something funny to tell him when he gets back whew we are cooking oh we can get better than that it's shifted it's actually a little quicker than i thought it was going to be another thing's got a 500 in it it's got two about on that run they can put a commercial on it i'm glad there's nobody in that right lane either because i'm probably gonna need both lanes to turn this big son of a gun around now i know that wasn't all that impressive but you know this thing's got that big old quadrijet under the hood if you would take the air cleaner off cause i think it's choking it and it could be killing me i don't know if i can't tell if you're sick no i'm serious go ahead and get that over that's cheap power don't scratch your bank don't worry i'm gonna rev it up and scare you you want to leave it out here so it doesn't weigh you down yeah it probably we probably second or so right there oh i can tell it's better whoa man that quadrangle's falling [Music] that's still not impressive sounded better though wow that's quicker than i thought it was going to be and ran smooth i got high hopes for it you know i have to say it wasn't the fastest but just like a cadillac this whole thing is plenty smooth and stylish i don't know if that air cleaner was that restrictive or just weighed that much i think it was that restrictive because it sounded a lot different it was what would you run it's not in brazil we don't need i was gonna say well whatever it was i had can i just tell you what i was gonna say yeah yeah that number would be impressive if this was a quarter mile i have already said that all that too one last run [Applause] [Music] i didn't know the slower you went longer made you pit way out here they were that embarrassed no they just said park got here close to the daisies and i thought this is what they meant so we gonna come up with a project name or what uh we're gonna have to come up with something and it can be plenty of syllables and all that stuff i've been embracing it yeah it dude you should i mean this car is something to be dealt with so we got a better place but it's not a place how about dead weight ain't too bad wait too bad the overtaker people will will recognize that for sure buddy you got one an overtaker project name no that works for me all i i tell you i'm just about speechless because i'm ready to dive into this thing yeah rip it apart and come back and play with it i i have to say this is the funnest car i've drove down the track okay it ain't the fastest it's the smoothest but well i can't wait to see what you're brewing up dude it's gonna be awesome see the shop you sure you don't wanna ride i got room for you two and she cranks right up look at this bumper key don't hate that to make it fast we'll need to shed some weight beginning with the drivetrain we start tearing into our caddy hearse i bet a few of you all are thinking i've done lost my mind dragging this big thing into the shop and that could be the case but i have to say normally if it's a big body i'm all about it now with this graveside delivery vehicle we have one plan one chore and that is make it perform and have a whole lot of fun doing it and if you look at it well we've got plenty of fun to have this thing doesn't cost you a whole lot to buy and up under the hood it's got a 500 cubic inch engine so making that much engine perform usually isn't all that difficult now with the design of this particular chassis it's pretty straightforward as well it's got disc brakes on the front coil spring suspension leaf springs in the back so doing some performance upgrades well isn't going to take a lot of work now what we are going to do is make this thing have about 500 horse 700 foot-pounds of torque take it back to the track and build one car that everybody is going to recognize when they see it to kick it off we're going to get busy up under the hood the power plant is gonna get several components like heads cam intake and carb to resurrect plenty of horsepower also the trans is gonna need a bit of some attention so a new converter and a shift kit is a must with the factory exhaust manifolds and tiny pipes it's easy to say they have a choke hold on us so we'll 86 them and install headers and fab up some side pipes that will rattle your bones those loud pipes are going to give the outside a bit of a sinister look but we're not stopping there we're going to doctor on the suspension to give our creepy hauler a bad attitude lose those classy caps and spray on a fresh coat of gloss black to the wheels and fit them with some slicks out back to have a death grip on the pavement we really want our hearse to move down the track and a good way to do that without breaking the bank is to lighten the load so the plan is to attack the interior and shed some dead weight like the couch that gm used for a front seat it's got to be heavy so swapping in some buckets should help out when we're all said and done overtaker is gonna be a ride that will grab the attention of your soul no matter your status or existence to get our engine out we're gonna have to drain the fluids then we can start disassembly of the engine bay making sure to get rid of that clunky radiator man that copper radiator is heavy geez away drop that one too man we get some power in this thing it's gonna raise my spirit for sure we're not using the factory exhaust so it can go man then we'll remove the drop shaft one thing that's kind of unique to a cadillac is it has a metal fan trail that's made into the core support of the car now with the performance mods that we're planning to make we're not going to be using that mechanical fan that this thing came with from the factory so i'm going to do a bit of trimming get this big hunk of metal out of the way [Music] and yeah that probably saved us at least eight grams one cool thing about taking this old ugly motor out of this ugly hearse you don't really have to be too bashful with it you can not really worried about bumping into stuff don't break nothing but all right and scratch something cause we gotta get that transmission off we'll need a firmer shift at the track so we'll upgrade the well we just snatched the engine and transmission out of our old hearse here and the first thing we're gonna get dirty with is gonna be our transmission now this is just a 400 turbo just like they put in pickup trucks and big block cars and so on and so forth and what we're going to do on this thing is make it shift a whole lot better than it did when it was in this old big black car because riding in a cadillac you know it's kind of a soft shifting thing whenever we were out making those hot laps in our hauler this thing performed just like it should nice and comfy but that's not what we're after we're going for a performance minded shift and with that we're going to be installing a b m shift improver kit now the kit isn't all that complicated it comes with some gaskets a mid plate and a couple of drill bits that we have to make the decision do we want to go down the rv and towing path or street and strip and i bet you guys already know the answer to that now before you go to install one of these on your ride you need to make sure that the transmission itself is in good condition now ours acted just fine but we're going to get that pan off to make sure there isn't a whole bunch of shavings and clutches down off in there so it's time to get greasy [Music] that's all of them i mounted that transmission on the stand like it is for a reason i wanted all the settlement in the pan to stay in the pan if you flip that transmission over well sometimes all that stuff falls back into the training now looking in our pan the fluid looks nice it's all red you don't want your fluid to be burnt or brown that kind of stuff and with it we also have some settlement in the bottom of here but that's normal it's time for us to snatch that valve body off [Music] if we would have found far more gunk we would be looking at a complete overhaul this modification will not only improve the performance but it also helps to extend our training's life by reducing clutch slippage if you're tearing into a transmission and it hasn't been doctored on there should be six check balls if you only find three somebody's already installed a street and strip kit the object here is not to remove all the transmission fluid but you just want to check all the gasket service to make sure it's clean we're in pretty good shape we'll slap our valve body in the vise so that we can compress this piston remove the e-clip take out that spring for our street and strip setup the next thing we're going to have to do is take this 3 16 bit that's supplied in the kit and enlarge the two holes here on our plate it's no big deal but it's going to wake up that transmission for sure since we're looking for a firm shift we're only going to be using three of the six check balls [Music] now i know doing something like this can be a bit intimidating but if you take your time and follow the instructions you'll be chirping tires in no time basically how these few modifications work it increases the fluid volume to the clutch packs and modifies the timing for less overlap between shifts well that's just one of the many modifications that we're going to be doing to this old cadillac back here now i know a few you guys probably aren't really into hearses but you will be eventually today on detroit muscle we dive into the heart of our hearse upgrading our 500 cubic inch engine with a new cam and better flowing induction we'll give our 500 caddy a facelift with new paint and accessories then head out to look for a rear end that can transfer all that power to the track [Music] hey y'all welcome to detroit muscle whenever it comes to sheer american horsepower one thing that probably doesn't cross your mind is a cadillac we've got one here in the shop and to call it tons of fun that's kind of an understatement now we've already pulled the engine out from under the hood and today our chore is taking that applying a recipe to make some serious heavy horsepower this is 500 cubic inches of detroit engineering i know it doesn't look like a whole lot right now and the power output isn't all that impressive either it makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 horse but after swapping out a couple of parts pulling some wrenches well this thing's gonna make right at one horsepower per cubic inch so that's 500 oh and the torque number is pretty impressive as well try 700 of them to achieve those numbers we'll start by disassembling the accessories on our engine we're going to be removing all the heavy old parts like the alternator followed by the clunky air compressor then we'll unbolt our power steering and fuel pumps a small portion of these pieces we will be reusing but several you can say are past their prime so they're headed to the scrap bin [Music] with all of our trinkets removed off of our power plant it's time for us to do a bit of some scraping and some spraying because i can't put this decrepit looking thing back into that fine specimen of cadillac we're removing over 44 years of crud that is built up on this old workhorse it takes a little bit of elbow grease and finesse but once we scrape the dirt and grime off [Music] we'll spray it down with a little degreaser time to spray we're using crc's heavy-duty pro-strength degreaser it's a water-based biodegradable foam that penetrates heavy oils and fluids we sprayed this thing down let it set for a few minutes and boy did it melt that grease away [Music] after a bit of this scrubbing and some loving we're pretty much ready to go ahead and tear this thing down looks pretty good [Music] but that thing's gonna be crazy heavy hope that old intake ain't so heavy i need a cherry picker could be i bet it's heavy a few of you guys may have heard the old saying cheaper way to go faster is to unload the truck that means simply get lighter now with this old big cadillac this thing weighs north of 600 pounds fully dressed now we're gonna try to lighten this thing up some now with our intake it's made out of cast iron so it's got to go they make an aluminum one that's going to flow a lot better and so that's what we're after now there are going to be a few other things we're going to get rid of but first let's get this intake off and i ain't looking forward to this ain't too bad ain't too good though [Music] jeez i'm just kind of curious let's see what this thing [Music] damn almost 50 pounds yeah that other one's gonna be a lot lighter than that now let's get this valley pan off and let's hope we don't find any treasures that's not too bad that's actually pretty clean there's a little crud right here around the hot spots of the head other than that where's old motor ain't bad at all got him [Music] somewhere loose whenever you're pulling out push rods that's usually pretty easy but whenever you go to snatch out those lifters well them things can be a pain sometimes and here's why if you'll notice there's some crud built up here on the bottom side of that lifter whenever you try to pull that back through all that gunk binds up inside that board surface that's what keeps you from pulling it out a quick trick to getting these out is to spray a little solvent or lubricant onto the lifter to help dissolve that crud finally now we can take them heads off now normally we would be taking those exhaust manifolds but we're really not in the market for boat anchors so we're just leaving them on there ben where are you back now with your knees days aways come on 75 pounds worth yep that's heavy now mark gives me a hard time about being such a fan of big bodies like this big belemeth of a car behind me and the reason i really enjoy them is cause normally they come with big cubic inch up under the hood and this is a perfect example i've got a piston out of a small block chevy it's a 350 flat top check this thing out inside the bore of this thing this thing is almost 3 8 of an inch smaller than the hole in this engine now that's why someone coined the phrase there's no replacement for displacement [Music] we're planning to swap out our bump stick on our caddy so a bit more tear down is in order we got to get this timing cover off the distributor out of the way [Music] oh can't forget all these ooey gooey innards camshafts out i got a little bit more cleaning to do but i can tell you we're just about ready to exercise the demons with the engine stripped down now it's time to install our upgrades making this caddy 500 a torque monster well we're about elbow deep into adding some motivation back into our cadillac we've got the intake and heads removed cam and lifters and it's all cleaned up so it's time for some new parts now one key component to making a cadillac breathe fire is all in the heads i've got a friend of mine here it's john walker he's what i call a cadillac connoisseur and he brought along a table full of goodies what's up with those heads a set of 425 heads that we baked and blasted cleaned them all up they're five access cnc ported and we opened them up for larger valves on the combustion chamber side you can see where we've opened up the seat to accept 110 000 larger valve and then we opened up the ports from the factory cadillac heads are known to be restrictive in performance application these were cnc ported for both port volume and airflow and we both know that means power is there anything special about the valves these valves were originally for a 455 pontiac and work great for a cadillac now i also looked at these rocker arm assemblies these things are pretty impressive especially compared to that junk that we pulled out of that thing they're a full-length shaft system made for us by harlem sharp they come in a 1 7 ratio both adjustable and non-adjustable and those are snazzy and i can't wait to get all these goodies bolting onto that 500 over there and out playing around in my hearse you have any suggestions for us hit the nitrous button and hold on firmly firmly all right i'll take that into consideration i got to get to work let me let you out buddy well those cylinder heads are definitely going to improve the performance on our cadillac and you know there's not that many parts available on the market for these things but thankfully there are a few including this camshaft and timing set that we got from summit racing this thing's got more lift more duration it's going to really complement those heads nicely [Music] we'll add a little assembly lube to our cam then slide it in lift on this cam is 520 thousandths on the intake and 504 on the exhaust the duration at 50 000 lift is 234 degrees on the intake side and 249 degrees on the exhaust side now we're ready to install our timing chain assembly and we'll torque it to spec [Music] now it's time for our oil pump and filter housing [Music] it's actually a really nice design and we'll want to torque these as well our tommy cover gasket is next and we're going to use a little rtv on both sides of our gasket to make sure it doesn't leak [Music] then we can add our cover and install the water pump gasket followed by the water pump [Music] we got the water pump along with the gasket set from rockauto.com now all that's left is to torque it down [Music] with the new seal in our timing cover it's time to install the crank hub this is an uncommon design where the harmonic balancer bolts to the hub which is a press fit [Music] now we can roll the 500 caddy over so we can install the oil pan but first we want to clean up the surface and then we can install it with a new gasket and bolt it down [Music] now we're torquing these bolts for the oil pan working our way from the inside out and the reason we're doing that is because we want to make sure they're all tightened the same that way it's going to keep it from leaking over time [Music] well we've got ourselves a short block now we just need a pair of cylinder heads and maybe even a fresh coat of paint this thing will be like brand new we finish upgrading our caddy 500 and show you a tip on how to correctly measure your push rod well we're making some pretty good progress we've got the bottom end of our caddy all assembled i'm gonna slap our gasket in place and then i get the joy of picking up this giant piece of iron you got it yeah i got most of it well i got the easy job and that's prepping these arp head studs these things are great because they come as a kit directly fit for our cadillac and then also these things are going to hold more than we could possibly throw with this thing i mean we are going to be spraying it and this is one of the precautions you take and it's an easy one to do you excited so excited [Music] you know the torque sequence no you know a torque spec i get it i bet we gonna need a cheater pipe all right got it dialed in for you for the first round all right we're gonna torque these down at three different settings using the same sequence ending at 110. with those all torqued down now it's time to spray on a splash of color excuse me excuse me what do you guys think about that electric green paint i wanted that cadillac to get attention even with the hood up now the next thing that we need to do is measure for push rod length and this is a high performance application but even with a stock rebuild it's a good idea because what happens sometimes is the heads can be milled or the block can be decked and that messes with the length of the push rod the first thing that you need to do to get started is bring the lifter that you're going to start adjusting with well on base circle we're going to start with these two because they're easy to see this is the intake lifter so to get it where we need it we're going to rotate the motor over until the exhaust lifter just starts to come up now we need to drop on our rocker shaft assembly and check out the contact point of our roller tip to the top of the valve ideal operating contact is in the center 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 torque these down for an accurate reading now i want to check out the tip and see exactly where it's at and then we'll use this little marker tell me the store i'm gonna scribble a little this stuff on there and tap the roller on it that line indicates our contact point it's on the upper third just like we need now to do a task like this it's handy to have the right stuff kind of like these push rod measuring tools that we got from summit racing now we're going to be needing this big old long one for this big old cadillac but they have them in different lengths for different applications and how it works you basically just unscrew one end of it and that makes it longer let's slap this thing in see where we're at you want to make sure this push rod is seated on both ends and you just keep unscrewing it until you just feel some pressure you don't want to keep cranking on it and depress the plunger inside that lifter what's this now i need to pull off this rocker assembly to get that rod out then we can measure it [Music] to get our exact length i like to use a set of calipers you just slide those in there clamp her down and that gives us the length of this pushrod this number is at zero lash and since we don't have any adjustable rockers on this one we're going to have to add 50 thousandths to give us some preload the next thing we need to do is slap on that intake and we're getting dangerously close to having this thing ready to drop in our caddy before we drop on our intake we'll add a little bit of rtv and a new gasket to make sure everything seals properly we're going to top off this cadillac with this aluminum intake that we got from summit racing now it's going to really add quite a bit of power to it because it's less restrictive than that factory unit plus it's a whole lot lighter that original one was almost 50 this one is less than 20. [Music] i know we can't bolt these in yet but i want to see how it looks look at that the baby one yeah yeah just 850. can't wait to see that in the car one man's junk is another man's treasure we head out to an all fort salvage yard to look for some parts for our cadillac well we've been making some really good progress on our hearse and i'm out here today kind of scrounging around trying to work on our next upgrade it's easy to say that with that caddy well it's an obscure car and the aftermarket support is kind of minimal and what i'm wanting to do is kind of fix up the rear end now with that hearse it's got airplane gears under it and i want something with a little bit more grit to it something you know it's going to peel back the pavement so hopefully i can find something out here and all these old carcasses what got me to thinking about digging around in a ford salvage yard is one of these the 8.8 rear axle they come in everything under the sun from mustangs to pickup trucks to even suvs and they have a lot going for them and that's pretty much why it makes them so popular with the hot rodders one is since they're plentiful that means they're cheap also the gear ratios in them is a vast array from low to even airplane gears and also these things come from the factory oftentimes with a pause unit now this thing isn't going to work for our application because it's a little bit narrow and it's probably too small but luckily for us this thing does have a big brother so what i'm looking for is the 975 and what that refers to is the diameter of the ring gear and it comes in the large suvs and the pickup trucks now their gear ratios are the 355 the 373 and the 411. for our application this 373 will be sweeter than honey this rear axle's got a lot going for it it's got that ratio that we're looking for it's got the pause unit and this thing's got factory rear disc brakes so let's tally that up all right all right and all right let's get this thing out from under there [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] plenty here you know no kidding [Music] well i got me a rusty gem i'm gonna have to do some modifying but that's just a stone for a stepper today on detroit muscle our caddy hearse gets an exhaust that will wake the dead plus we add cooling and fuel systems to keep our 500 caddy engine running right then top it all off with some boost juice to take overtaker to horsepower heaven [Music] i do believe that green paint is a little brighter than the cap yeah i mean it doesn't match the car at all but that's what makes it cool it looks like a crate engine and it's not this is the same boat anchor that tommy pulled out of this thing a while back and then we upgraded it ported heads cam intake and that's gonna add quite a bit of power but that's not gonna double the power like we wanna do we're actually going for over 500 horse with this thing now to ensure that big number well we're going to be spraying this thing with about 150 maybe a 200 shot maybe 300 well either way to get this thing to make 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 isn't going to be just some old twin stick sticking out the back with your paw paw tips it's going to be a little bit different it's going to add some style and possibly even allow us to burp some fire well you think it'd be kind of 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-lengths so they're going to lend themselves to what tommy has planned for the rest of the exhaust system but other than that they've got a lot of other benefits they're going to free up power over those factory exhaust manifolds they're lighter weight and they've got inch and seven eighths primaries three inch collectors and a nice ceramic coating we've got plenty of room to get these things on here we just need to get them bolted on and we can move on to the rest of that system it's not uncommon to fight with a set of headers during install but working with big bodies they fall right into [Music] place now it's easy to say that our old cadillac curse makes quite a statement i want to do the same thing with our exhaust so today i'm going to be fabbing up some side pipe mufflers now we picked up all this stuff from magnaflow and they offer several components you know in their builder series the first thing that we need to do to get started is do a bit of measuring on the car [Music] here we're trying to get this thing as close as possible to the front side of the rocker near the wheel with a couple of bends and some tack welds we hit the sweet spot [Music] well i got my lead pipe on my exhaust basically where i want it now the next thing i need to do is throw up that big old pipe and then the inlet tube to it to see exactly where we're at probably gonna have to do some trimming it's no big deal [Music] our main tube is four inches and our inner is three yeah we're gonna have to cut that off i like the height right there though that transition doesn't bother me i need to do some marking [Music] the tube coming off our header is two and a half inches so i fabbed up an adapter to connect it to our 90. now back here on the rear it's a little bit more of aesthetics than 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 that you point it now normally people mount a tip kind of at a horizontal or they kick them down a bit and y'all probably seen that kick up some dust now what i'm going to do is i'm actually going to turn it up and then cut it out in kind of a c-shape and that'll give it a bit more of a monster feel to it and after i draw that out we're going to remove this thing get over to the table and then we can build the innards [Music] now this next step is going to convert our side pipe in a bit more of a muffler direction and what we're going to be doing is adding these baffles that we got now what i need is 87 and 5 8 from this tab to that little mark right there so we're gonna have to weld a couple of these tubes together that's no big deal [Music] all right that worked that's good enough we'll slide on these stamped rings that will help locate and support our baffle tube [Music] once it's all tacked up we can slide our baffle inside our exhaust tube and tap her in body saw makes light work of carving up our custom tip and we'll smooth out the edges small amount of massaging and burning in some wire and we're almost to the finish line [Music] now we just need to fab up some hangers to keep these side pipes in place don't have to get too elaborate here we're just using some flat stock with a few cuts drill a hole an isolator a little bit of welding bolt it in [Music] wow that wasn't what i expected but i like it it's pretty impressive isn't it that is the biggest muffler i think i've ever seen well the wheelbase had a whole lot to do with that it's gonna be loud oh brother it's probably gonna be plenty loud we ditched the mechanical fan for an electric one to save horsepower and keep our engine running cool we're plugging away on our cadillac hearst that we're calling overtaker and we're trying to make this thing scream down the drag strip now when you're talking about making a car quicker there's a couple of things you can do say low hanging fruit to do that one would be shed weight and the other is going to be to free up horsepower and we're doing both here under the hood on our caddy one thing we've done is completely eliminated the ac compressor that's the original one it was big and heavy that along with the condenser it's about 40 pounds that we saved and when you're talking about shedding weight a pound or two here and there is good 40 well that's pretty significant another thing we've done is eliminated that manual fan this is a 500 cubic inch engine from the factory big heavy car there's a lot of strain on that cooling system so that required a big fan that had a lot of drag to it and that sucked power from the engine maybe 10 or 15 horsepower so we got rid of that the next thing we're going to do is fill this big void here and that's going to be yet another way for us to save some weight well you probably could have guessed we were doing an aluminum radiator swap but why is this such a popular upgrade well when you take a look at this factory radiator that came out of our cadillac there's a lot to be desired here this is a copper and brass style it's got copper tubes and fins with brass tanks it is leaking but that's not the only drawback to this these are super heavy and they're 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 this but other than that you've got aftermarket radiators that are readily available as a matter of fact we got this aluminum one from rockauto.com it's a lot lighter and it's even thinner when you talk about the design radiators have increased in efficiency over the years this is a single core at an inch and a quarter thick just as efficient as that original radiator which is a three core at two inches thick now we'll talk about weight savings the original one was almost 30 pounds the new aluminum 10 pounds so we've got almost a 20 pound savings [Music] well because we eliminated that mechanical fan we had to replace it with some electric ones now there's not a lot of aftermarket support for these old caddies so we had to go with something universal we got this kit from frostbite just need to get it mounted to the radiator get it wired up [Music] we're gonna hold this in place with a panel clamp and we're just gonna mount it using some regular tech screws and washers all right time for some hoses when we were on rockauto.com ordering that radiator we got these oem replacement hoses as well [Music] you just need to add some water and a cap and that's good to go 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 just be that this is a hearse or all cadillac's 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 after we install the fuel system and that's next we'll tuck our tank in overtaker adding an upgraded fuel system well i guess you could say we're about six feet deep with our makeover on our old cadillac the next thing we're gonna dig into is the fuel system we did a little bit of some detective work and we realized that the factory tank that was up under this car had some corrosion in it so the next thing we're going to have to do is swap in a fuel cell that's the best solution we've got so you're going to just like throw it in there and mount it with those little what do you call those anchors yeah it would be a killer idea but we need you know to be a bit more safe okay so where do we need to start what's well i know after looking under the car there's a big gnarly brace that runs across the back side here so we're gonna have to move forward cut a big square hole and i want to recess the tank so it's nice and flush kind of looks like it belongs i like it what do you want me to do get out of the way i'm going to get the turn no problem need a screwdriver [Music] don't really know what to call these things but we'll start by taking out the casket clamp plates and rollers [Music] that brace i mentioned earlier is 19 inches from the bumper in toward the car so that's why i made my mark i'm going to have to measure from left to right to find center and then i'm going to cut me a hole that's 18 and a quarter by 16 and three quarter think [Music] now if everything's square these two lines gonna match up close now we can cut it [Music] [Music] well that's the first hole through the top floor now we got to make another cut on the second floor it's no big deal we'll use a plumb bob on all four corners draw a couple lines make a couple cuts [Music] [Music] not really supposed to climb in the back of a hearse but once this is for you know good times [Applause] [Music] now if everything goes right this little tank here should fall right into place oh yeah now i still got a few things to do i need to remove these bolts so that i can anchor it to the floor i need to make a plate to cover up from where the rollers were and also i got to execute my plumbing now with this tank the cap doesn't breathe and this port here is how this thing is going to let the air in and out so i'm going to run this outside of the car that way whenever you're sitting in here you won't be smelling fuel well tommy's getting the fuel cell mounted i'm tackling the rest of the fuel system including the carburetor here it's an 850 cfm holley street hp with mechanical secondaries and it's going to be plenty for what our cadillac 500 will need now i didn't mount it permanently yet because we've got some spikes we're going to sprinkle on there a little bit later as for the rest of the fuel system we're using what's here on the table it's pretty straightforward we've got a pickup we've got a fuel pump and regulator assembly post filter and all the hose to get it connected i'm going to take these to the back get them installed we'll see how this turned out what do you think wow even you can do things when you apply yourself i like it yeah it doesn't look too bad yeah no i'm i'm all for it you know i got to thinking about you were going to gut all of this out of here to say wait what happened with that you talked me into it smart man let me get out of your way i'm gonna grab me a snack you gotta change [Music] for our pickup we're using holly's hydra mat this stuff helps prevent pump starvation during fuel slosh and also acts as a 100 micron pre-filter for your pump [Music] all right now we just need to get this thing in the air and get that pump mounted [Music] all right when you're mounting a fuel pump like the one we're going with you want to make sure of a few things one you want to make sure it's close to the tank because these pumps like to push and not pull on that note you want to make sure also that it's not mounted above the tank because then it's going to have to draw the fuel out and it doesn't like doing that another thing you want to make sure you're away from any moving parts like suspension we're plenty clear from our leaf spring here and then also the exhaust which with our new side pipes we don't have to worry about back here so we found the perfect spot here got the bracket in place i just need to mount the pump to it get it plumbed up we're using this quick fuel technologies 175 and it's a pump and regulator combo and it'll support 175 gallons per hour well with the pump mounted it's time to move on to the hoses and what we decided to go with is this earl super stock it's a little different than what you normally see us use this is actually a push on hose that makes installation nice and easy and it'll handle up to 250 psi [Music] and it's that quick and simple all i need to do is get these hoses made get the fuel lines running to the front of the car we'll have ourselves a fuel system we have one more surprise to give overtaker a lethal injection well exhaust system is complete cooling system that's done too in the fuel system we just have one more termination to make but we're not going to do that just yet because we've got something special up our sleeves this next upgrade that we're going to be doing is basically bolting on 150 horse plus or minus maybe like 300 horse i'm hoping uh what we're 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 kind of my favorite and it's mainly because it looks so cool blowers huffers or whatever you want to call them have the goods plus these big hunks of aluminum make power doesn't really matter if they're on an old school big block or late model muscle oh and they make some impressive 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 turbo turbo chargers are a great way to add plenty of cool factor to just about any hot rod or muscle car you'll find them as singles or twins and since they're driven off the exhaust you can mount them just about anywhere you know these things mean business since they have to have their own horsepower relief valve both of those have their benefits but they can be pricey and kind of complicated to install for us working on that obscure cadillac we knew it'd be difficult finding an application for a 500 cadillac plus we wanted our dollars to make sense so our plan of attack is to be spraying this thing with some nitrous it doesn't take but a couple hours to install plus it's economical don't forget that a lure of power at the push of a button come here baby oh yeah on a wet nitrous system the nitrous or n2o and fuel are injected into the engine by way of solenoids and regulated by orifices or jets the precise amount of fuel and nitrous enter the combustion chamber causing a more dense air fuel mixture that mixture gets ignited creating greater cylinder pressure and ultimately more horsepower this particular kit we're using is called a plate system that we got from nos it sandwiches between your carburetor and your intake manifold with the plate in place the carburetor can sit on top of it and get bolted down well here's why we didn't terminate the fuel feed earlier we've got a tee into the fuel line because one line has to go to the fuel solenoid of the nitrous system and the other line has to feed the carburetor once we figure out the best routing we just need to get these lines cut installed and clamp down tight well that's it for the fuel feed now we just need to get some switches installed get it wired up and run the nitrous feed which you really don't want to do until tommy figures out where he's going to mount the bottle to mount a nitrous bottle it's really basic it comes with some brackets you got to make a couple of holes and you want to make sure that you mount it onto a solid foundation we're going to put ours here on the floor now we could try to hide this thing a little bit but what's the point in that look at this car [Music] so [Music] you know mark i wonder how many people in this world has put a nitrous set up on a hearse um probably very few probably wouldn't hurt if there were a few more out there [Music] i got my end finished up about you yeah i got it connected now i've got this purge solenoid all plumbed up with the little rabbit ears there so don't mind that we'll fix it up later when we get the hood on it and come up with something fancy all right so i guess all that's left now is just to push the button go ahead make sure it ain't gonna leak there you go dude that looks pretty cool on his hand oh that was awesome now we only got brakes suspension wheels and tires maybe a couple other things and we'll be out breathing fire and disturbing the peace in this old thing i can't wait well for more information on what you saw on the show today be sure to go to powernationtv.com call that mission accomplished yeah we should go celebrate you buying the first round no i'll let you today on detroit muscle we get down and dirty with a junkyard axle and plop it under the rear of our drag strip caddy plus we'll give the interior a grim upgrade but what we find lying under the seat will give you chills now on detroit muscle [Music] hey everybody welcome to detroit muscle we're 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 are not supposed to do and that is go quick down the drag strip now we're kind of stuck in purgatory now like kind of halfway we've added a ton of power under the hood a shot of nitrous and we upgraded the transmission with a shift kit and sprinkled on a couple of other goodies like side pipes and a fuel cell but what we haven't touched is the brakes suspension and rear axle you can tell that all these are engineered for the rider not the driver so we're going to cure all those illnesses today and get started back here with the rear axle up under our hearse it has some good going for it but not a whole lot first off it does have a factory pause in it and i would imagine it's in there because of this scenario can you imagine this old car and kind of a off the beaten path on a soft grassy spot absolutely so having that pause would be an added benefit now with our gear ratio that's in this thing it's what i call airplane gears it's real long legged if we were going to stretch it out on the interstate it'd be perfectly fine but since we're going to take this thing down the drag strip well some deeper gears are in order there's not really any aftermarket support so we can't swap those out next thing is the brakes this thing's got drums and shoes we're looking for something a little bit more efficient and you know swapping over to a disc setup can be pricey and labor intensive so this has gotta go well i like to give tommy a hard time and tell him if you want to fix up a gm put some forward parts in it well we're doing that again today but instead of a nine inch rear we're actually doing a 9.75 rear out of a first gen expedition i know what you're thinking why a truck rear 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 already in here from the factory and massive 13-inch disc brakes out back that will blow those drum brakes away there are some drawbacks though it's got several mounts that we're going to have to cut off this was a four link with a panhard rod and it's got purchase here for coil springs we're probably going to have to cut most of this out of the way but for a 200 investment i'll do a little torching and welding [Music] we're using our oxy acetylene torch to do the heavy cutting this is a tool we don't use that often in the shop but it's definitely something handy to have around [Music] with the brackets cut out of the way we'll grind down the leftovers with our four and a half inch disk [Music] the goal here is to get the majority of the metal removed then we can follow that up with the flapper wheel to smooth it out looks like you're making some pretty good progress there bud yeah no thanks to you well i appreciate all your contributions and since you're all gusseted up i need you to whack him pads off [Music] after getting this thing skinned back it's ready to find its new home [Music] recycling our old bracket and some hardware makes locating this thing a walk in the park from the factory our old cadillac came with these little rubber bumpers that were here on the top and bottom side of the leaf spring they were designed to dampen and control vibrations for better ride quality but with the purpose that we're going with this old big hearse that's not necessarily good because that would cause some deflection so them things are hitting the trash can with that said we've got the axle sitting pretty much where it's going to live but we still got to dial in the exact location we've got to measure it side to side make sure it's centered in the car and then also set the pinion angle but we can't do that second one yet because we want to make sure that the car's sitting on the ground the suspension completely compressed and sitting at ride height not going to be able to do that for a while so we might as well move on to getting the rest of our suspension and brakes installed up next a suspension setup that will shockingly improve grip on the drag strip our big block caddy is going to make a significant torque number and with us taking this thing down the track we want it to have the best passing review as possible so what that means is we need all the traction that we can get now normally when people think about traction they think about the back side of the car with a massive slick when in all reality up front is a truckload of it what i'm referring to is weight if we can get some of what's up here to shift back there whenever we smash on a skinny pedal without a do us some good the way we're planning to do it is relatively economical and that is with some drag racing shocks but one slight snag is they don't make a direct application for a 76 hearse can you believe it no there's really no need in it we're gonna get that old one out and we're gonna make something happen a little bit of seafoam deep creep will help penetrate that rusty shock hardware and tommy's favorite tool coupled with a ratcheting wrench and the hard part's done and underneath the lower mount comes out with a single bolt [Music] those old front shocks come out a whole lot easier than i was anticipating and for any of you guys have had to wrestle them things out you know what i mean now up front we're going to be running a set of the 90 10 lakewood industry shocks these will give us the maximum amount of lift whenever we smash on that gas pedal to plant that back side of the hearse now out back we're going to be using a set of their 50 50s and this is what those numbers mean a 90 10 shock extends rather quickly while the compression stroke is much slower a 50 50 compresses and extends at a similar rate with both actions so when we leave the starting line we want the car to lift in the front while the rear compresses a bit to load the rear suspension then while moving down the track the front will slowly start to come back down and this allows the car to maintain traction as we make our pass without this action the tires won't bite as hard and we could simply just smoke them coming off the line let's get started on the front now looking at these things side by side they're basically the same except for this end so we're going to press this sleeve out try to get it in there and then we can move forward the arbor press sure does make this task a whole lot 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 that it had the proper od and id but since these old shocks are junk it just makes sense to reuse them [Music] that got it [Music] now this upgrade has been straightforward and now we just need to cinch everything down on this upper mount the rule of thumb is you want to tighten this nut until that lower grommet is squished out enough that it's the same diameter as that washer [Music] to get these rear shocks up under the cadillac i'm gonna have to do some modifying what i've hit is it's about two inches shorter than that factory one as far as the compression length it's really close it's only about a quarter inch or so off that's not worth fooling with so i'm gonna have to come up with that extra two inches somewhere let's do a little measuring to see where we're at we're at 19 inches this isn't going to work the suspension is loaded meaning it's compressed and our new shock is 18 and three quarter fully extended so that means we would have no out travel or down travel so we got to determine whether we want to move this one up or that one down and that one there is going to be the one we're going to cut on in situations like this we could make a new shock mount but since the factory tab is welded onto the frame it's just as easy for us to cut them off and move them down and since we're going to be putting this thing under a lot of stress we made a couple of little gussets and all that's left is to burn them in the rest is pretty straightforward just like this old caddy is going to be when it hits the drag strip [Music] coming up how bad are the brakes on this old caddy well let's just say we found a replacement that's plug and play well we're making great headway on our cadillac hearse we got drag shocks in it on all four corners got a rear end installed we haven't said the pinion angle yet but like i mentioned earlier we're going to wait till the car's on the ground to do that but as for the brakes they need some attention as you can see these rotors are very rusty this isn't just surface rust they're pretty heavily pitted this thing sat in a junkyard for who knows how long several years probably we may be able to get those resurfaced but it's really not worth it just want to replace them and besides we want to do an upgrade that's for the pads well they're not in great shape either the friction material is worn almost all the way down and the backing plates are rusty so we decided to go to ebc brakes for one of their pad and rotor kits this is their stage 5 super street kit which includes dimpled and slotted rotors that are corrosion protected with a geomet coating as for the pads well these are the yellow stuff you've seen us use these before this is a full race pad that's also capable of street use it's got great bite from cold so it's ideal for your daily driver that you take to the track from time to time if we're spending money to upgrade our rear this is a great place to do it [Music] let's see what we got here all right let's get these pads off of here they're actually not as worn as i thought they were probably 50 but they are pretty rusty uh this slide is loose let's check the other one uh that one's frozen but we may be able to free it up but we need to check the piston and get it compressed now the piston is frozen in the caliper this is very common especially on junkyard rears we could probably rebuild the caliper but we've got a better solution so this is a duralast remanufactured caliper that we got from autozone it's made to meet or exceed oe specifications this thing's completely rebuilt all new parts already lubed up ready to go on the vehicle and we even upgraded the hose as well because our hoses were already trashed which is again typical with junkyard rear end so this is what we're going to use to fix up our brakes we're going to have a brand new brake system here in the rear of our caddy [Music] we'll slide our new rotor on then we can remove the old clips and replace them with the new ones that came with our calipers slather on a little disc brake loop and install the new caliper [Music] another cool thing about these duralast calipers is not only do they have new brake caliper bolts but they also have a new banjo bolt pre-installed with the copper gaskets so all you need to do is install your hose and tighten it down you're good to go [Music] well since we switched to disc brakes we're gonna have to redo our lines back here i'm gonna go ahead and mount this hose on the frame make some new hard lines and once i get that terminated this will be ready for some wheels and tires one thing that you may run into if you're doing an odd duck conversion like we are on that cadillac as far as the rear is finding a set of wheels that's going to match front and rear and the attitude of your ride luckily for us we found this jewel this is a stock wheel that would come on an f-150 but it would be the spare this is ford's attempt to save some cash now like i mentioned we wanted the front and rear to match summit had exactly what we needed this is a us wheel that they offer that's their rat rod series and with a splash of color on these maybe some pin stripes and even some chrome lug nuts and church it up a bit now i just need a clean scuff and we'll be ready to paint [Music] we're going to spray these down with some wax and grease remover because of the potential contamination that may be on them then a little hand jiving with a red pad we'll prep the surface for our paint and one more wipe down and she's ready to go [Music] i'm going to spray on two coats of summit racing's jet black base coat and then two coats of clear i want those wheels to be as shiny as 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 to mix this thoroughly [Music] and now it's ready for trigger time painting wheels can be a little complicated 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 this flash off we're ready to start our second coat of black once that's dried it's time to spray on our shiny [Music] now we've got to let our goodies in the booth dry for a little while so that we can handle them and while they're doing their thing i'm going to tell you about the rear tires that we're going to be running up under our cadillac i went to summit racing and picked up a set of m h race master dlt approved tires these are a 275 50 that are 10 and a half inches wide they're going to fill up that steel wheel we're going to be running and it's going to look pretty killer when we're all said and done [Music] now the next thing i'm going to do with this tire machine is add my pinstripe it's time to do some painting now i know most people don't use them for this but it's rotating deck is going to help [Music] that's a nice looking piece now we just got to get it up on the car [Applause] [Music] up next we dig out the seat in our cadillac hearse to make room for some racing buckets but what we found along the way was an eerie surprise well this journey of us resurrecting this old cadillac hearse has been quite a unique situation and i have to say i'm so glad that we're getting dangerously close to the end of it primarily because i'm running out of clever and creepy sands to describe this thing it's kind of killing me [Laughter] well the one thing we haven't touched would have to be the living room here and it leaves a lot to be desired although it is pretty comfy and retro looking we need to upgrade the dash a little bit maybe with some gauges so we can keep an eye on that engine and then also our seat here it is cushy and it looks cool but it's not going to provide the support we need especially driving down the drag strip so this thing has to go and get this couch out of here and maybe i'll find some treasures between the cushions [Music] well i already found some treasure and it wasn't coins between the cushions it's a part of a latex exam glove box and it's definitely got some age to it can't wait to see what else we find under there [Music] well i didn't find any coins between the cushions like i thought i would but there's plenty of treasure to be had here under the seat now earlier i found that box that was for latex gloves so check this out an actual latex glove that's been under here for i don't know how long and i don't even like touching this with my gloves on so and then you've got a flathead screwdriver a pair of pliers don't know what that's for and then there's several flowers in here you can pretty much guess what these were for anyway i'm going to leave this mess for tommy to clean up he's the one that loves this car so much i am rather fond of this old thing so i had to show the interior some loving we went to summit racing and got a pair of their universal sport seats they have black cloth on them and that's going to look as snazzy as a brand new tuxedo inside of there but before we go to fabricating i got to do some house cleaning [Music] i found some goodies as well you guys check this out this is from an old funeral home from greenville tennessee and it appears to be some aspirin and some smelling salts now to get our seat mounted requires a few pieces of metal the manufacturing process is simple some flat bar some tubing and some metal gluing [Music] i had to fab up these little feet that i'm gonna bolt to the bottom of our seat tracks once i get them tight this thing's ready to go in the car [Music] with our seat snugged up we'll complement our interior with an impressive attack and move on to the steering wheel [Music] you know sometimes people can feel like they're chained to bad decisions but when they're chrome plated it makes them all right this buttons up our caddy hearse the next time you see this rolling coffin it'll be speeding down the drag strip with deadly speed you can follow along and catch our day at the track at powernationtv.com today on detroit muscle our slow and hefty hearse gets a chance at redemption this cadillac cuts out on the dyno and it's a hoot at the track now on detroit [Music] hey guys welcome to detroit muscle today is going to be a pretty good day for us because we finally get to reap the benefits of our hard work we're going to be taking our refined and rejuvenated grim sleeper out to the track that's right guys this old cadillac's first trip down the racetrack well it wasn't nothing to write home about it was so slow it would have been late to its own funeral and now at that moment we realized it was going to take a few old-school tricks to help boost its performance and lower the e.t when we drug this into the shop we jumped right on it with this big body comes big cubic inches 500 of them and with an engine of this size it normally doesn't take much to make some good power so with a few go fast parts our engine and trans look at that it's ready to go we didn't stop there a great way to increase the sensation of flying by the seat of your pants is with gearing so a rear axle swap was a must we found an unusual candidate that had all the goods a posi a 373 gear ratio and disc brakes after a little fab work we were ready to go to add some style and performance we fashioned up some huge side pipes we wanted these to make a statement just like our hearse so with the help of some magnaflow stainless tubing i believe they did we've crossed our tees dotted of our eyes and we're pretty much ready to fire off our cadillac we just have a couple last things we need to do got to dump some fuel in it and daniel well he's got one last thing now since we're planning on spraying this old cadillac with a hefty dose of throttle in a bottle there's a couple of precautionary measures that we need to address the one we're going to dive into today is spark plugs what is a spark plug well it's a simple device that ignites air and fuel mixture by delivering voltage from the ignition system to the combustion chamber now there are many different types of spark plugs and one thing they all have in common is their function these aren't all created equal there's hop plugs cold plugs and everything in between and that's where the term heat range comes into play so when you have an engine that's burning some oil what you can do is go up in heat range to help minimize fouling or if you're like us and you're going to be running a healthy dose of nitrous well that's going to impact your decision when you're running nitrous you always want to run a colder plug and the more nicer you run the colder your choice needs to be now i'm going to show you how to read these things now let's look at these here we've got some new ones some used ones and some dead ones this one this one's dead it's covered in carbon it's pretty much filed completely out but it's telling a story you just have to know how to read it now with this one you either have too much fuel or you're burning some oil or the plug's just too cold for your application now with this one it's almost completely white well that's not what you want either now the reason this porcelain is so white could be result of a couple of things either one the air fuel mixture is too lean two the timing's way off or three the plug's just too hot now this is what you want it looks like it's been washed in sweet tea the amber color tells you that your engine is tuned for maximum efficiency you must heard me come in and talk about maximum efficiency yeah that's you all over you ain't got all them plugged in yet not done with that cheesecake yet because i'm working on is a big piece of like three of them oh okay what about the gas that probably comes later oh okay i'm gonna gap these plugs coming up with a little nitrous we test how far this cadillac will go on the dyno [Music] all right you're all programmed in and this came in under its own power so now the big question what's been done to it man we've done basically a head cam intake swap you know it's 500 cubic inch we didn't touch the bottom end this thing from the factory made about 200 horse so we make more than that we've knocked it out of the park i like it no and with that you know it shouldn't be all that hard to make some significant power from there when i say significant 50 gain with nitrous well that's right we're going to spray it yeah yeah so it's all good man with this type of cubic inch it should be pretty easy to do i think so i mean everything is looks like it's where it's supposed to be it's got some nice parts on it you know with the nitrous kit on it you got a new carb you got a nice new uh intake manifold i guess the first thing we got to do is make sure everything is where it's supposed to be so what i'd like to do is get it fired up we'll check timing because i assume we want to make some naturally aspirated poles yeah yeah absolutely we'll just see what it makes just all motor if you will and then spray it with say 7 500 shot and then step it up because i want to spread as much as we can to get the biggest gain we can because look at this dude man it's a long wheel based cadillac we need all the help we can get i like the way you think so all right so uh first thing is get to get it fired up make sure we have tax signal let's check timing and go from do that next all right this will be exciting [Music] we're not adjusting the timing here we're just verifying where it's at from our previous tune and yeah we'll be back in this department to adjust this to accommodate the amount of nitrous will be thrown at it [Music] all right made a 258 horse and 323 pound feet well i know we're climbing let's go ahead and hook the nitrous up so we can climb a big jump all right i'm all for it not a bad idea [Music] for every 50 horse to nitrous you want to pull a degree of timing out we're hitting this thing with 100 shots so that means we need to knock out two degrees of timing [Music] all right cousin don't forget that boogie button give her the purge man [Music] [Music] that didn't sound too bad it sounded good i would consider that a success oh yeah it made uh 326.99 for power at the wheel now and torqua is at 402.81 man that's awesome yeah yeah that is awesome that's with a little one though so we can go up from here oh no no you have to go up from here if it now you know that it all works now you got to go up i'm going to get 50 more and put in it nothing uh nothing comes squirting out took it like a champ you can tell when that nitrous came in you know that that soft ramp and was pretty cool yeah i could tell too not even looking at or hearing the engine but with your smile it worked oh my goodness there's a long area clear on there you're all giddy that's what it is i just want to put them bigger pills in there all right make her happen dropping in the new jets just takes a little wrenching here on the front and rear of the plate it's an easy task and don't forget to tweak your timing for that bigger hit [Music] all right i got the little bit bigger pills in it you gotta get in there and try it out let's see what's up [Music] it keeps going up yeah [Music] 341 and 438 well i'm gonna call it a win i wouldn't say it's like a win at the track but it's definitely a win and for what we've done it's cool factory this is success right here now you guys uh you got it going on i'm very uh i'm very impressed everything's still going now you know y'all you had like over 110 mile an hour wheel speed right there that's hauling yes this engine this particular engine i'm sure has never seen any sort of rpm like that in its entire life you know and let alone making that kind of power if this thing was actually you know was rated for 190 or whatever yeah yeah and now you're making you know 340s at the entire yeah yeah so we've doubled it essentially no that's huge that's yeah that is 100 a win all right the next step is to what racetrack racetrack and you know if we absolutely like disintegrate this thing you might have to cut your teeth on some cattle well you know i might or may not have worked on one of these before so uh if if something needs to be done to it i think we can help you out so we're gonna let this thing cool down get it off the dyno and go ahead we're gonna put the hood on it and see if we can't ride around and terrorize the neighborhood i think i think you're all right nice job guys nice thank you pat if we can't disturb the piece perhaps we can dig up some creeper peepers at the track how this behemoth does on the eighth mile next on detroit muscle you know daniel i'm pretty proud of the way this hearse turned out and i'm excited to see how all of our hard work and upgrades pay off [Music] are you even listening to me i'm being pretty quiet today it's kind of like i'm talking to a previous passenger wake up sleeping beauty i'm up i'm up how was the ride well it ain't built for comfort now the last time i'm letting you talk me into riding back there down here man well we're back here at the drag strip trying to redeem ourselves but either way i think we still succeeded we've changed the personality drastically on this oh hearse plus we've doubled the power output you want to flip for who gets to drive first yeah absolutely hang on ooh i found a quarterback here in the back get out of the way what hey i thought was flipping for it yeah you lost [Music] we're lucky to have etheridge motorsports park right down the road from us it's got everything you want fast cars cool pits and that intoxicating aroma burning rubber now before we head down the track let's talk about our goals with this thing we wanted it to be a head turner and as we're cruising it around through the pits i believe we got exactly the reaction we were looking for it's pretty neat i like it i mean i ain't never seen a hurst like yet i like the what i call the light pipes on the side of the car running underneath the side of it i love that we were even able to grab the attention of a veteran racer who has spent a lot of his life on a race track he's got a stunning door slammer with what some would call an unlucky number on the windshield 1313 i was born on the 13th on friday the 13th and the 13th is my lucky number it's a 55 chevrolet it's fiberglass it's got a shafrock 565 engine with 1040 horsepower and it runs like 560s we know this thing won't be that fast this old hearse won't run anywhere near that but we did bring this thing here to stretch its legs out on the pavement [Applause] this is ridiculous i ain't kidding my face is kind of hurting yeah is that from the g-force's own launch no no not exactly it's more of the smiles that i got from driving this big goofy car that's awesome but man i will say i didn't run the nitrous i figured you know you got to crawl for you walk and you're taller than me so you should be able to have a longer stride so maybe we'll cover the ground a little better but uh yeah have your way with it i'm planning to thank you very much you go right ahead big guy just keep it in drive no needing a holding it second yeah but if you have a helmet for your smile you might try that on because this thing is epic that's awesome that's kind of like one of them austin power turns it's a long wheelbase cadillac [Applause] [Music] [Music] so what do you think about it how about that sports fan dude i tell you you look a lot better than i did out there i had the boogie button on that yeah yeah that night just definitely helped now with this old car guys we aren't the fastest by any means we set the bar pretty high but you know sometimes you got to set goals and try to achieve them so man i have to say i think we knocked it out apart yeah you know this please don't you what's that it means that we are now world record holders we have the world's fastest 1976 cadillac hertz in black paint with twice pipes down the sides and 150 shot powered by 500 cadillac yeah i think you're right let's go let's go get a cheeseburger man yeah if you'd like to take a look back at this build hit up powernation tv.com and check out the build page for overtaker bye

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 834,871

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, powerblock, hearse, cadillac, cadillac hearse, drag strip, drag racing, racing, side pipes, horsepower, full build, caddy hearse, detroit muscle, powernation full build, hearse car, drag strip racing, power nation caddy hearse, full build overtaker, full build power nation, powernation tv

Id: 1J2wRkjvC-A

Length: 102min 3sec (6123 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 23 2021