CHEVYPOWER96

HELLO to all,im thinking of buying a 1996 cadillac fleetwood brougham that gots the factory lt-1 in it,are these motors good for daily?im use to the carbed chevy motors, it does have around 160 thousand miles on it,whats the pros/cons of these 96 lt1s?if i did get it what would you all recomend to change/fix/ major tune up on the motor back to stock running form? sorry to sound retarded but better safe then sorry,thanks fellas in advance.

englundjd

that car would be a great daily driver... id check it over and probably change all the fluids and oils in the car and give it a tune up and call it good

CHEVYPOWER96

thanks englundjd,i was thinking about that to myself,as far as opi spark and spark plugs should i just go with all ac delco parts? would a msd poi spark be over kill??

Prorac1

iTrader: (4)

I daily drive my 97 SS with an LT1 and bolt ons. I love it. And my wife drives the heck out of it also. I would buy an ac delco opti, and NGK plugs. JMHO. Eric L

ZFreie

Bought my car with 145k and now has almost 170k, I DD every day for almost 3 years and the thing has never broken down.

96capricemgr

iTrader: (1)

LT1 no "-" the LT-1 was a 70s motor.

That car should be fine, mileage is NOT a problem for engines these days. It was overly rich and slow to warm up carbs choke settings that wore out engines more than miles, non-issue with port injection and heated O2 sensors.

Just as a word of warning, the MSD opti seems MORE troublesome than stock, so ask like you did here before assuming aftermarket parts are good.

CHEVYPOWER96

so ac delco opti and ngk sparks check, what about spark plug wires??

CHEVYPOWER96

yes capricemgr thats why came on here to ask questions, heard alot of people saying they wished they never bought a car with a lt1 and so on and other people swearing on parts for these motors to other to disagree on so was kind of confused.

CHEVYPOWER96

would it be a good idea to change air filters like the k&n style for better air flow or is that over kill??

96capricemgr

iTrader: (1)

I would keep the stock panel filter and modify the airbox. Is visual inspection a concern? There are some very cheap upgrades you can do with a hole saw and some PVC pipe that add as much power as the K&N full kit but wont pass visual inspection.
The LT1 suffers a LOT of missinformation, the waterpump and distributor are different from the ones that came before so are often blindly pronounced bad. I have put well over 255K miles on my LT1 vehicles that were all bought used and never had an opti failure, waterpump failures I think I had two start to leak slightly.

A big part of why the opti gets bashed is since it is a bit pricy for a cap and rotor and a hassle to get to people like to neglect it and then when it dies sometime after 100K they blame the opti, but nobody would ever as an HEI cap and rotor to last that long.

I bought my 96 Caprice in early 2000 as a 20K mile plus per year daily driver, I even put a cam, gears and high stall in it when I was putting that kind of mileage on. Eventually a deer totaled it and I got a wagon for while I was fixing it which let me mod the 96 more. That all snowballed into a car that is still OK for family duty and a 150mile each way trip to the track but at this point I have been warned about going any faster or I need a rollbar. I drove nothing but that car and wagons up till a little over a year ago when I got a crewcab truck for a new daily. So it was 10.5 years that I daily drove LT1s and modified them putting something well over 250K miles on them myself and I found them to be nothing but reliable. The one Roadmaster wagon(same car really) I only stopped driving at 227K miles because I hit a deer with it. I have one in the yard right now with over 290K miles.

Far as plug wires I would seriously consider stock and just be careful routing them. It is a hassle but do it right, do it once.

CHEVYPOWER96

you are very helpfull 96!!! the airbox modifying sounds interesting,any write up on it??

SoxXpupPeT

iTrader: (34)

Nothing wrong with DDing an LT1. My dad dailys his 95' 9C1 Caprice with 250k miles. Just be sure to put 93 in that sucker and give a full tune up! If my camaro didnt give me so many issues i would of kept dailying her

CHEVYPOWER96

so 93 nothing less correct

goldylocks

iTrader: (4)

Well you can use lower octane fuel, and the computer will just retard the spark and itll run fine, I've run 87 before and it ran fine, it just looses power and usually efficiency to the point where its more cost effective to run the highest octane fuel available (91 for me)

bowtienut

iTrader: (1)

87 octane is all it needs for daily driving as long as it's in a good state of tune, which it sounds like you will make sure of.
If you're going to run it hard and get it hot, then a step up in octane will be of benefit.

CHEVYPOWER96

thanks guys,so oils i heard if you use synthetic and the cars hasent been using that kind it will expand gaskets and will find spots it will leak threw since its a thin oil???? what do you guys recommend?

94Z28rag

iTrader: (10)

Does it have good oil pressure? What's in there now?

CHEVYPOWER96

really dont know the oil pressure and dont know whats in there either,this is a car i mite buy this comming weekend,and im almost sure im buying it,they only want $1000 so you cant beat that at all,that gives me room to do a major tune up and little things here and there

CHEVYPOWER96

Any one else?

trilkb

iTrader: (4)

I used to daily drive a 1994 camaro z28 6 speed hardtop. Befor I knew anything about engines it developed a intake manifold leak at the rear (easy f-ing fix now that I know) and I sold it for 1000$.

Its a little different then a cadillac fleetwood. I never had any BIG opti issues out of it. I drove it 1200 miles straight one day, only getting shut off to eat and go to the bathroom. I also managed 30mpg on that trip and it saw cruise control at 80-85mph a few times.

I hit some nasty standing water, enough to cover the hood, the opti choked then, but it always cleared up after a day of sitting and drying out.

Im not sure how good the cadillac fleetwood is, my only concearn would be MPG, 4$ at the pump, why not get a civic or accord? Its true that some lt1's get 25-30mpg, But it also true that noone in a fleetwood gets 25-30mpg lol.