The Cadillac Northstar V8 - A History

[Rule62]

Saw this on one of my Facebook groups and downloaded the Kindle Edition for a whopping $3.99.

It’s a great read and covers a lot of interesting XLR development facts, particularly in V Series form.

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[XLRATING]

Thanks for sharing that! I’ve been looking for something on V’s ever since we got the XLR book (which stops before V’s came into existence), never found anything. This would help fill the gap some.

 

[XLRATING]

Got the book today, flipped through it, & found that it described the XLR as “a successful interpretation of the Evoq concept.” Nice to read in a book just published in 2017, when the XLR wasn’t even mentioned in “100 Years of Cadillac” (& Cadillac seems to have generally disowned its former halo car).

 

[05 GRAND DADDY]

Got the book today, flipped through it, & found that it described the XLR as “a successful interpretation of the Evoq concept.” Nice to read in a book just published in 2017, when the XLR wasn’t even mentioned in “100 Years of Cadillac” (& Cadillac seems to have generally disowned its former halo car).

This brings up a question that has crossed my path a few times and I didn’t know the correct answer. Does the V-8 NorthStar Motor in the base model of the XLR have the same NorthStar motor that’s in a lot of other Cadillac models, and I understand it was even in some other brand vehicles other than Cadillac, or was it modified for more performance for the base XLR model?

 

[XLRATING]

This brings up a question that has crossed my path a few times and I didn’t know the correct answer. Does the V-8 NorthStar Motor in the base model of the XLR have the same NorthStar motor that’s in a lot of other Cadillac models, and I understand it was even in some other brand vehicles other than Cadillac, or was it modified for more performance for the base XLR model?

There were changes made for RWD application of the Northstar - the book gives the details - because it started out as a FWD engine in the DTS, etc. The book discusses specific differences between the base Northstar in the XLR vs. the SRX, as changes were needed to fit it in the smaller space available in the XLR. From skimming, the mods needed for this had to do with engine angles, oil pan and other items relating to getting oil to the engine. Oddly, there’s no real discussion of the Northstar in the RWD STS & what, if any, mods were needed for that.

I’m sure you realize the XLR-V engine is entirely different from the STS-V engine because of having to cram an even bigger engine in the XLR space. So the STS-V is 469 hp while the XLR-V is 443 hp. Mike got to drive both of them early on at a track event and said the STS-V was an absolute rocket, while the XLR-V had problems with overheating at that event because its layout didn’t allow for enough cooling.

SO, based on my pure book knowledge, it looks like the engine by itself is the same between the base XLR & other 2004+ Northstar RWD models. I’m sure others on here with real world experience & knowledge can give a more concrete answer.

 

[Joeinbcs]

I ordered this book and read it in pretty much one go...very interesting.
A lot of the historical info in the first few chapters will be familiar to Cadillac guys (and girls).
The most interesting thing to me was the fact that the Northstar's grandaddy was the Corvette LT5, developed jointly with Lotus in England, for the C4 ZR1.
Corvette horsepower and performance began a long and precipitous decline in the early '70's, reaching its nadir in the early '80's. Crossfire technology helped a little, but Corvette's were pretty anemic until GM was faced a direct challenge in the form of the Honda (Acura) NSX. So, the ZR1 was a Honda-Killer. I thought I knew a fair amount about Corvette history, having owned several, but I had never learned this bit.
Those of us old enough to remember will surely recall the 375 Horsepower ZR1 as a sensation (seems laughable today with the 755 HP C7 ZR1).
Its a good read, but some of the stats are not correct.