Piston Slap: An LSX-FTW Bro-Ham?

TTAC commentator SavageATL writes:

I have a 1991 Cadillac Brougham, the old rear-wheel-drive model. The car was sitting for a long time, and it has a Chevy 305 with bad valve seals. Lesson: beware of low-low-mileage cars.

It smokes badly on startup after sitting and burns a good bit of oil — about one quart every 250 miles. I’ve driven it as-is for a while, but the day is coming when I’ll need to do something about it.

I was told that the heads would need to be replaced to the tune of about $800. I am thinking for that kind of money I can go ahead and swap out the 305 for an LS. I was quoted about $2,750 for a 5.3-liter junkyard LS swap and $3,750 for a 6.0-liter junkyard LS swap, start to finish.

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Piston Slap: Deffo Not Your Father's Oldsmobile! (Part II)

Paul writes:

Hello Sajeev,

This is my second time writing in about my Oldsmobile. I solved the cooling problem with a mechanical fan, however now I am having another problem. As you may recall I swapped in a ZZ4 GM Performance 350 CI motor, and now it will “diesel” for awhile after I shut it off. It only does this after it has had a chance to warm up. Do you have any ideas for fixing this?

Thanks,
Paul

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Piston Slap: Fix My Bro-Ham, Sanjeev!

Mark writes:

Hello Sanjeev,

I have a problem and hope you can help me. My Cadillac Brougham with the 307 V8 smells like gas under the hood. This is intermittent and the last time it was in the shop the mechanic found no leaks under the car or around the carb.

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  • Theflyersfan OK, I'm going to stretch the words "positive change" to the breaking point here, but there might be some positive change going on with the beaver grille here. This picture was at Car and Driver. You'll notice that the grille now dives into a larger lower air intake instead of really standing out in a sea of plastic. In darker colors like this blue, it somewhat conceals the absolute obscene amount of real estate this unneeded monstrosity of a failed styling attempt takes up. The Euro front plate might be hiding some sins as well. You be the judge.
  • Theflyersfan I know given the body style they'll sell dozens, but for those of us who grew up wanting a nice Prelude Si with 4WS but our student budgets said no way, it'd be interesting to see if Honda can persuade GenX-ers to open their wallets for one. Civic Type-R powertrain in a coupe body style? Mild hybrid if they have to? The holy grail will still be if Honda gives the ultimate middle finger towards all things EV and hybrid, hides a few engineers in the basement away from spy cameras and leaks, comes up with a limited run of 9,000 rpm engines and gives us the last gasp of the S2000 once again. A send off to remind us of when once they screamed before everything sounds like a whirring appliance.
  • Jeff Nice concept car. One can only dream.
  • Funky D The problem is not exclusively the cost of the vehicle. The problem is that there are too few use cases for BEVs that couldn't be done by a plug-in hybrid, with the latter having the ability to do long-range trips without requiring lengthy recharging and being better able to function in really cold climates.In our particular case, a plug-in hybrid would run in all electric mode for the vast majority of the miles we would drive on a regular basis. It would also charge faster and the battery replacement should be less expensive than its BEV counterpart.So the answer for me is a polite, but firm NO.
  • 3SpeedAutomatic 2012 Ford Escape V6 FWD at 147k miles:Just went thru a heavy maintenance cycle: full brake job with rotors and drums, replace top & bottom radiator hoses, radiator flush, transmission flush, replace valve cover gaskets (still leaks oil, but not as bad as before), & fan belt. Also, #4 fuel injector locked up. About $4.5k spread over 19 months. Sole means of transportation, so don't mind spending the money for reliability. Was going to replace prior to the above maintenance cycle, but COVID screwed up the market ( $4k markup over sticker including $400 for nitrogen in the tires), so bit the bullet. Now serious about replacing, but waiting for used and/or new car prices to fall a bit more. Have my eye on a particular SUV. Last I checked, had a $2.5k discount with great interest rate (better than my CU) for financing. Will keep on driving Escape as long as A/C works. 🚗🚗🚗