1997 Cadillac Seville Luxury Sedan (SLS)

Cadillac Northstar System

The Northstar is a world-class powertrain/chassis/braking/steering system developed by Cadillac. It all started with the Northstar engine, an all-aluminum 32-valve DOHC V8, installed in 1993 STS and Allante models; it eventually made its way into all front-wheel-drive Cadillacs by 1996.

The original design engine is one, in 1997, producing 275 hp @ 5600 rpm and 300 lb*ft @ 4000 rpm (the LD8). It's standard in Seville SLS, Eldorado, DeVille, and DeVille D'Elegance. A slightly more powerful engine (and with slightly less torque, the L37) came equipped in the STS, ETC, and DeVille Concours and made 300 hp @ 6000 rpm and 295 lb*ft at 4400 rpm.

Northstar V8 Torque Curves
(Image captured from gmpowertrain.com)

The actual field performance of these two engines is very similar. The L37 revs a little easier when running up to redline (and comes with a 3.71:1 transaxle) and the LD8 (with a 3.11:1 transaxle) has more low-end grunt when you're cruising down the boulevard. There is approximately a 5% difference in measured acceleration times between a 275 hp car and a 300 hp car. As you can see, the high-zoot engine actually makes less power and less torque through most of the operating range than its "less powerful" sibling.

The Northstar isn't just the 32-valve DOHC V8 engine, however. It includes an extremely refined, yet durable, automatic transaxle (the Hydramatic 4T80-E); a sophisticated Integrated Chassis Control System (ICCS); a 4-wheel disc braking system with Bosch ABS technology; and GM's award-winning Magnasteer variable-assist power steering system.

Click the image below to see a chart showing 0-60 and 1/4 mile times of 1993 and newer Cadillacs. Most data is taken from autosite.com, which lists published acceleration times from reputable automotive magazines (such as Car & Driver, Motor Trend, etc). This shows the variability that exists in the performance of any given vehicle. The only way to gather meaning from these numbers is to take an average as a baseline and work from there, since any given vehicle may be faster or slower than these published data.