There are right ways to do things and wrong ways to do things. We get stuff drilled into our head every day about the easy ways to make horsepower, the right ways to choose an engine for your project, and the quickest way to get things done. But what about the hard way? What about the weird way? What about the path less traveled? Hell, we adore that stuff around here and that’s why when we saw this video our eyes bugged out like Elmer Fudd getting hit in the back of the head with a shovel.
You are going to get a peek at a 1979 Cadillac Eldorado that came from the factory with a naturally aspirated Olds 350 diesel engine. These were horrible failures and they did lots to set back diesel acceptance in America for many years. We’re not kidding, they really screwed it up for everyone. No power and no reliability means no love from anyone.
Enter our hero.
This dude took one of these engines, rebuilt it with all ARP stuff and good parts, bought a Chinese eBay turbocharger, plumbed it all up, worked on the fuel system to get the pump to work at maximum effort, and created an awesome and shockingly neat engine for his car. How much power does it make? According to the video it makes about 9psi of boost at full song and the factory fuel pump can be worked to support a max of about 200hp and this dude has it working as hard as it will go.
So it makes somewhere around 200 hp give or take. Fast? No but a massive improvement over the barge-like performance these cars had stock and most importantly this dude used his hands and his brain to make a cool thing that has the fitment of an OE project!
7 pounds of boost? I think we all know the answer to this problem.
I once drove a diesel Cadillac Deville to pick my boss up from the airport. I timed it zero to 55 coming out of a tollbooth. 23 seconds. Sounded like a coffee can full of gravel.