Final Northstar production in July

[Bruce Nunnally]

It used to be the brightest point in General Motors Co.'s powertrain firmament, but now the company's once-famous Northstar V8 is ending production after a 17-year run, a GM spokesman confirmed to Inside Line. The last Northstar will be made sometime near the end of July.

The 4.6-liter Northstar was huge news when GM launched the overhead-cam, all-aluminum V8 in 1992 for the '93 Cadillac Allante. It was the company's first overhead-cam V8 and brought to market a number of then-innovative features, including 100,000-mile sparkplugs and a "limp home" mode designed to keep the engine from melting itself even if all the coolant was lost.

Read More: http://blogs.insideline.com/straightline/2010/06/gms-northstar-v8-going-out-of-production-in-july.html

The DTS only comes with the Northstar, so no DTS for 2011 after all? Is the XTS arriving soon enough to come along next year? (Don't think so)

Are there enough NS's on the shelf to supply the entire year model run? Maybe.

[Texas Jim]

It used to be the brightest point in General Motors Co.'s powertrain firmament, but now the company's once-famous Northstar V8 is ending production after a 17-year run, a GM spokesman confirmed to Inside Line. The last Northstar will be made sometime near the end of July.

Read More: http://blogs.insidel...on-in-july.html

The DTS only comes with the Northstar, so no DTS for 2011 after all? Is the XTS arriving soon enough to come along next year? (Don't think so)

Are there enough NS's on the shelf to supply the entire year model run? Maybe.

I sure hope so.

I will be in the market for one about this time next year...

I have about talked myself out of getting the CTS "V".

The DTS Platinum is a lot more practical car for me and Darling Wife.

[KHE]

The DTS only comes with the Northstar, so no DTS for 2011 after all? Is the XTS arriving soon enough to come along next year? (Don't think so)

Are there enough NS's on the shelf to supply the entire year model run? Maybe.

I wouldn't think GM would stockpile an entire model year of engines - that is a lot of warehouse space, inventory cost, etc.

[Cadillac Jim]

There are several points in the article that struck me. The key is that "high power density V6" engines are the future. With a good enough 6-speed, the DI V6 can handle the DTS; what is not addressed in that simple picture is the profile of horsepower production over a normal day of usage of a DTS, what this horsepower profile looks like on a Northstar and what it looks like on a DI V6. The Northstar will hum along, rarely exceeding 3500 rpm over a day of normal driving, including some freeway driving. The V6 may need to cycle through high RPM in the lower gears a lot to replace the bottom-end torque of the V8. The result may be a lot lower fuel economy and higher noise, as well as inevitable intrusion into the driving experience. Thus I predict the DTS will come with the 5.25 liter LS1 or some such. The fact that the Escalade already has been using the LS6 for years makes this a safe bet. The main penalty will be an increase in weight by about 100 pounds in the nose of the DTS. Offset by changes in gearing, staying with a 4-gear transmission, and appropriate PCM tuning, and possibly adjustments in the suspension, they should be able to eke out an overall improvement in the DTS as an automobile. And, it opens up higher horsepower "sleeper" editions of the DTS by simple substitution of other LS engines; remember the dual-quad big-block Eldorados of yore? No? Well, then...

The LS series pushrod V8 is said in the article to have a design dating back to 1955. That is simply not true at all. The last vestiges of SBC design were left behind with the LT series, which already had reverse-flow cooling systems and other innovations, but problems such as the 23 degree valve angle, problems with the head bolt pattern designed when the engine was a 225 hp 4.3 liter, difficulties in adapting the thin-wall configuration to aluminum block, etc. were all left behind with the all-aluminum LS. Three-valve, four-valve, and OHC versions of the LS were built and tested alongside all other feasible configurations, and the simple 2-valve pushrod roller-tappet 18-degree aluminum head met all goals and was simpler, smaller, lighter and cheaper than any of the others. Yes, some of them might have been able to produce a marginally higher performance.

The fact that the UV8 is "almost" ready and is considered off-the-shelf doesn't mean that we will likely see it. Unless prototypes have been through testing, including lots of miles on the test track, endurance and abuse testing, etc., GM won't authorize production of the engine or its commercial sale in any quantity. Remember the GT40? Ford priced that car into the stratosphere, making it a curiosity, but if Ford had put it into cars sold in any quantity in the showrooms, Zora Arkus-Duntov had a new motor ready, *really* ready, in the wings: a 377 cid (4" bore by 3.75" stroke) SOHC V8, configured and ready to drop into an appropriately reconfigured Corvette. Remember this was 1966-1969, so this was the C2 Corvette with its untenable small wheel wells; the Mako Shark re-body of the C2, which became the C3, was probably part of the reserve package for the new engine.

Ford wisely decided to keep their world-beater as a mirage car, custom-built only for race teams; it's not nice to mess with Zora Arkus-Duntov.