Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
Can’t find your answer here? ASK A CADILLAC PROFESSIONAL
Q: What’s the difference between a 472″ and a 500″?
A: Generally, just the crankshaft and the pistons. The 500″ has a 4.304″ stroke, while the 472″ is 4.060″ stroke. The compression height (the distance between wristpin centerline and the piston top) is about .110″ higher on a 472″.
Q: What parts does Cad Company sell?
A: Just about every single piece and parts you’ll ever need. to hotrod, upgrade, overhaul, race, and tow with these great Lux Motors. That includes parts for all the motors from 1968 through 1979, 472″, 500″ and 425″ models. Currently, we don’t support the 4.1L, 4.5L, or Northstar.
Q: Why do some Cadillac parts cost more than Chevy Parts ?
A: Several reasons, actually…
1) Cadillac parts, like the specialty engine parts engineered, manufactured and sold by us, are made in small quantities, compared to belly-button (Chevy) parts.
2) “Main Trade” parts like rings, bearings, gaskets, etc., are relatively slow movers for the automotive warehouse industry. They have to wait so long to turn the parts over (i.e., sell them for a profit) that they mark up the prices to make up for it. Hey, we don’t like it either!
3) Quality costs. In many cases, the same quality part for many of the more ‘popular’ engines cost close to what the same part for a Cadillac costs. There simply isn’t very much cheap junk available for the Caddy, because those types of parts only save cost with high volume.
4) There isn’t much point in an after market part that isn’t an improvement over the original part, and everything on the Caddy is very high quality to begin with.
Q: I can get some of these parts elsewhere, sometimes for a few bucks less. Why should I buy from Cad Company?
A: In some cases, you have to watch out for tricky sales tactics like parts at a substantially lower priced described as comparable to our part, when they are are not. A good example is rocker assemblies. One of our competitors sold a lot of rocker assemblies (the same part from the same manufacturer as our Stage I rockers) claiming that they were the same as our Stage II rockers. Some parts are simply inferior – comparing the price of an engine kit that comes with the cheapest gaskets, bearings, and cast rings available, incomplete hardware kit, and OE spec oil pump, to the price of our premium engine kit, which comes with a complete hardware kit, Childs and Albert moly rings, Fel Pro gaskets, Clevite bearings, and a blueprinted oil pump, is not an apples to apples comparison. You also have to watch out for tech support issues – while everyone offers free tech support for products they sold, you’ll be hard pressed to find someone answering the phone at a wholesale mail order warehouse, who actually knows anything about Cadillacs. There are also specialty vendors who have been on the scene for a very short time, and don’t have the depth of knowledge and experience to help you sort out a problem long distance. Not all installations go as smoothly as expected, and being able to call and talk to an experienced Cadillac technician is priceless at that point. Courtney has been building performance big block Cadillacs since his days as a Cadillac Dealership tech when these engines were still being sold in new cars. Our other staff members all have years of experience doing the performance Caddy thing full time, as well. Last, but not least, Cad Company is directly responsible for more than half of all of the new products that come out each year, and indirectly involved in many more. Others may claim that they do so, but Cad company is, and always has been, the leader in new product development for the big Cad, and buying parts from us helps to support that product development.
Q: Why are you so protective of proprietary information about your parts ?
A: Because we make our living selling what you cannot get anywhere else. Our paychecks depend on the sale of Cad 500″ parts and services, and for some weird reason, we happen to like getting paid for what we do. Having helped at least four other copycats go into the Cad parts business with too much information, and technical data, we have become close-mouthed about our trade secrets, and don’t care to give away any more than we have in the past. It costs money to develop better parts and learn better ways to do things. Besides, if someone wants the satisfaction of figuring these things out for themselves, we wouldn’t want to deprive them of the joy of learning…
Q: When’s a good time to call if I want to place an order, but I have questions?
A: That’s a good question. Our regular phone hours are 8:00 am to 5:30 pm, Mountain Time. Depending on how many orders we are trying to get ready, and how much machine work we have waiting to be done, we are occasionally making too much noise, or if we are already on the line with another customer, you may get the voice mail. Our state of the art voice messaging system is armed and ready 24 hours a day, and we respond to phone messages and e-mail as quickly as possible.
