lsutigers93

Anybody ever used an Aurora 4.0 in a RWD application, and/or with a manual transmission? Supercharged? Got a project idea rattling around in my head (dangerous, I know!) and wondering if anybody has been down this road before?

oldsmobiledave

Carroll Shelby did.

NHolds

young olds

isnt that just a northstar v8? sts-v are supercharged rwd vehicles

joe_padavano

Yes. The Aurora is simply a Northstar with a smaller bore. The RWD Northstar motors use completely different block castings than the FWD versions, particularly with respect to the water pump location. The FWD AuroraStar motors drive the water pump off the back (bellhousing end) of the LH exhaust cam. In a FWD transverse installation, this puts the water pump at the front LH corner of the engine compartment. When you turn the motor 90 deg for a RWD application, this puts the water pump in the same place as the brake booster. Most people either live with this (using REALLY long radiator hoses/pipes) or convert to an electric water pump. The RWD Northstar motors have the water pump in the front where God intended it to be.

The AuroraStar motor uses a bellhousing bolt pattern that is ALMOST the same as on the 60 degree metric motors. One bolt hole is in a different location and the starter is in the vee, under the intake.

Cadillac Hot Rod Fabricators specializes in Northstar engine swaps. Among other parts, they modify 700R4 transmissions and manual trans bellhousings from S10 trucks and F-body cars (that came with the 60 deg metric bolt pattern) to fit the Northstar. They also sell the correct flywheel and pilot bearing.

lsutigers93

Joe, that was exactly what I was looking for...googled and they did not come up...thanks a million, sir!

Scottwhite98

I really like the 4.0 Olds A-8. I'd certainly like to see it used outside of an Aurora engine bay. It has a better HP/displacement ratio and has more gasket material around the cylinders making it less likely to have a head gasket failure like the 4.6 are prone to. My Aurora just rolled 208,000 and is 18 years old with the factory head gaskets.

Octania

Nice, good info JP.

I have not heard of that before.

fleming442

Deleted

Olds64

Interestingly enough, I had been thinking about this recently as well. Here's what I've found out (via. Google).

You can get a transmission adapter here: http://transmissionadapters.com/cad_rwd_northstar.htm

If you're going to do this right make sure you stud the block:
http://www.northstarperformance.com/

Here is a supplier that has a wiring harness which allows you to implant a late model engine into an older car.
https://www.ronfrancis.com/

Even if you transplanted a 4.0L Aurora engine into an older Oldsmobile with a working wiring harness you would still need to "reflash" the PCM. This seems to be the most mysterious aspect of the conversion. You can get tuners from companies like DiabloSport, SCT and Edge. These tuners come with pre-packaged tunes. They also allow you to run a custom tune. I'm not sure where you would get the custom tune though.

svnt442

The reflash is to remove a security feature. Because the ECU is not in the car any more, it's not getting feedback from all of the devices that it's supposed to see so it goes into sort of a limp mode and will only run the engine for about 5 seconds before it shuts down.
You can restart the engine, but it will always shut off unless the security feature is removed.

Olds64

I did not know this. I've read that folks get sensors removed from the PCM program during the reflash.

joe_padavano

Just to be clear, they aren't selling adapters like the BOP-to-Chevy adapter plate:

That's the same as what CHRF has been selling for decades, as I posted above.

Ron Francis is one of a number of street rod harness vendors. Most of these are designed for more popular motors (LS, TPI, TBI, and 5.0 Ford). To be honest, you may be better off using the harness from the donor car that the engine came out of.

joe_padavano

Of course, any Aurora engine swap MUST have this intake, built by Kinsler for the Aurora and Cutlass IMSA cars (this is NOT from the IRL motor, it fits the production Aurora motors).

Olds64

You are correct Joe, it is a modified transmission, not an adapter plate. I guess if one were to do this swap they have multiple options.

As far as the Ron Francis wiring harness is concerned, I still recommend looking into getting one of theirs or one from a competitor. As you said the other option would be to modify the factory harness. I'm a professional electronics technician and this would be a daunting task for me. I read on other forums that hobbyists refer to this as putting the harness on a "diet." :LoL: