Caprice engine swap?

Non-repair car talk
kevm14
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Caprice engine swap?

Post by kevm14 »

The DMV requires you to surrender your license plates upon cancellation.
Doesn't cancelation also happen when I don't renew?
Adam
Posts: 2240
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:50 pm

Re: Caprice engine swap?

Post by Adam »

No, that's expiration.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Caprice engine swap?

Post by kevm14 »

Thought I'd test the new attachment feature with this picture. Bittersweet, eh?
20191110_152608.jpg
Bob
Posts: 2440
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:36 am

Re: Caprice engine swap?

Post by Bob »

Not sure this is the right thread for this, but here's an Impala SS with an engine swap. https://charlotte.craigslist.org/cto/d/ ... 80175.html
kevm14
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Caprice engine swap?

Post by kevm14 »

Factory installed eh?

https://www.hemmings.com/blog/article/jon-moss/
You, me, everybody we know, has had to pay our dues. Whether sweeping up the shop before we get to learn how to weld, or rebuilding 100 four-cylinders before we get to put together a nice, healthy V-8–we don’t jet to the top right away.

Neither did Jon Moss. After all, he worked on the Chevette for a while.

Of course, the difference between Moss and the rest of us is that he eventually headed up GM’s Specialty Vehicles Group, in charge of what the enthusiast magazines in the 1990s called GM’s “toy box” or “skunkworks.”

“We really got the performance back in GM’s production,” Moss said.
Performance back in GM's production? Oh, you mean after the 1980s? Yes....
By that time, he had already become a hero to many Chevrolet performance enthusiasts, largely for the 1994-1996 Impala SS and the one-year-only 1999 Tahoe police package, but also for numerous magazine articles that featured the one-off experimental vehicles he developed: a 502-powered Impala SS, a big-block fourth-generation Camaro, an LT4-powered six-speed S-series Blazer and an LS1-powered 1955 Chevrolet among them. Yet he considers the C5 Corvette his most successful project of that time.
I know it's not the same car, just making a point...not sure what the point is yet.

Also this article is worth a read.
“In about 1994, the engineers were struggling with the concept for the C5 because it was radically different from the previous Corvette,” Moss said. “The investment costs were quite extensive, and the decision makers needed more than theories of hydroforming and a rear-mounted transmission. So about five months before the concept approval, the engineers came to marketing and wanted to know what they could do to make this happen. Marketing funded the building of a real testable prototype, which they ran through Specialty Vehicles.

“I gathered about 100 designers, technicians and engineers, and we worked on that prototype 24/7 until it we had a running prototype 93 days later. We did all the build testing, presented it to senior management and got approval for the design, which went on to become the C5 and the state of the art for sports cars.”

Had Specialty Vehicles not built that prototype, Moss said, it’s likely the Corvette would have remained simply a redesigned version of the fourth-generation Corvette, rather than a radically different car altogether.

From that point until his retirement in 2004, Moss said he had a hand in many of GM’s recent successes–bringing back the SS as a high-performance upgrade, reimaging Cadillac as an upscale performance marque, removing the heavy cladding from Pontiac products and instigating all sorts of performance battles with O. John Coletti, his counterpart at Ford (see Hot Rod Hero, HMM#41, February 2007).


Too bad he's really only known to B-body circles (never heard him mentioned outside of that). Clearly he was an unsung hero. Almost seems like a behind-the-curtains predecessor to Bob Lutz.
Bob
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Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:36 am

Re: Caprice engine swap?

Post by Bob »

Have you ever considered a frame swap for the Caprice or is that cost prohibitive?

https://greenville.craigslist.org/cto/d ... 40331.html
kevm14
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Caprice engine swap?

Post by kevm14 »

It is somewhat surprising that I am not more ambitiously trying to save the Caprice. The time/labor is just really high...
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: General 96 Roadmaster thread

Post by kevm14 »

kevm14 wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 9:40 pm I will put my list of Caprice parts to harvest in this thread.

Here's a short list of things the Roadmaster could use:
- Idler arm and center link
- Rear axle (and rear discs?)
- Electric fans?
- SS wheels/tires

That's about it for things it could use that really jump to mind.

As for a more comprehensive list of things I should save because I might use them on the car at a later date:
- Front control arms, though the bushings are tired (again). The ball joints are still good.
- Front and rear springs
- Tie rods
- Steering box
- Steering shaft
- Front brakes (rotors, calipers, pads)
- Driveshaft
- Bulbs
- Windshield washer fluid tank
- Exhaust manifolds and cats? Maybe the intermediate pipes and mufflers and maybe the tail pipes. Over the axle are getting crusty again.
- Speakers
- Subwoofer and amp
- Battery
- Power lock solenoids
- Front window glass?
- Master cylinder and proportioning valve
- Front air dam stuff (assuming it is compatible with the bespoke front clip on the RMS)

Stuff to save and maybe sell because it is not compatible with the Roadmaster:
- Gauge cluster
- Stereo head unit
- Air intake (mainly the Cadillac top hat part which may be hard to find these days)
- Those giant battery cables...maybe try to repurpose them to the Roadmaster

I will grow this list if more things come up.
Need to pull remaining parts off Caprice to junk it. Here's a short list:
- My father in law wants the axle. Great.
- Probably same for the TBI
- Subwoofer and amp
- Head unit
- Speakers? Eh, not sure what I'd do with them.
- Battery
- Gauge cluster
- Air intake
- Battery cables
- Maybe some odds and ends like relays
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Caprice engine swap?

Post by kevm14 »

Finally began final disassembly.

Made this with the new video editing app in Win 10 on my new laptop. Seemed to work fine and was quite a bit more modern than LIve Movie Maker that I had been using on my desktop.

https://youtu.be/cHmBZBJrtOw

I was surprised that my father in law had driven the car to where it was when I got there. The gas tank had fallen down but he strapped it back up and drove it across the yard. It still runs well, 2-1/2 years later.

So far I grabbed:
- Battery (already charged)
- Pioneer head unit (I forgot to grab the remote!)
- Gauge cluster
- Subwoofer (the just the 12" woofer, the box was...ruined)
- Subwoofer amp
- Misc items like some funnels, random oil, vacuum lines, some connecting wire

To do:
- Finish pulling engine and trans
- Remove axle
- Remove ECM
- Take remaining items that I want like the battery cables, some relays and whatever other small stuff makes sense

The engine mount bolts are out and the trans mount bolt is out. All trans crossmember bolts are out. I actually don't know that I broke a single piece of hardware.
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