It's not sad all the time. Sometimes it's exciting for me when I come across an interesting Caddy for sale. I stumbled across this listing last night.
Click picture to enlarge
Source Dallas, Texas, Craigslist
If you're wondering about Northstar Performance Head Studs, this is what I've learned about them over the past few years.
They come in a Kit. It's Patented in the USA. Besides the Head Studs, The Kit contains the all important Alignment Fixture Plate or "X" Plate which will enable you to drill your stud holes out perfectly each time.
Over the past few years, coincidentally also down in Texas, a grifter named Tim Carroll who goes by a plethora of trade names such as Carroll Custom Cadillac, Carroll Diesel Pros & 4X4's, Pure Cadillac Service, LLC, PCS, LLC and probably more, has offered what Northstar Performance maintains to be "black market" head studs of their patented studs kit.
The Northstar Performance, Alignment Fixture Plate or "X" Plate, (I'm going to refer to it as the X Plate from here on out), is a substantial chunk of metal. It has to be machined for one thing and its weight adds to shipping costs.
What Tim Carroll has managed and still attempting to do is to convince many Do-it Yourself'ers and perhaps some mechanics to forego the X Plate and just order his head studs and "Freehand Drill" the stud holes out.
This way, Carroll can sell his studs cheaper, because he doesn't have the added expense of producing the X Plate and in my opinion, by leaving it out, he thinks he can conceivably stay out of patent infringement trouble with Northstar Performance.
One small problem, Free Handed Drilling out the block is not as simple as Carroll would have you believe. Especially if you've never done this before. It is very easy to crack the block. Think about it. Research it.
No one, except Carroll, knows where these "black market head studs" he's selling are made at. He will never release the name, telephone number or address of where these studs are made.
Another thing, Tim Carroll claims to be an engineer yet he will not tell you from what college or university he earned his engineering degree from. Nor does he list any membership(s) in any professional engineering societies.
He tells you that he has worked all over the world building skyscrapers but never provides the name of any company he's ever worked for.
He will never give you any information so that you can independently verify any of his claims.
Why do you think that is? Does that sound normal to you?
I know if you've arrived here because your Caddy is broken down and you need to get it back on the road as quickly as possible; you might not feel that you have extra hours to research all this.
Look I'm not advocating anyones' head studs, timeserts, norms, or other Northstar head gasket fix. I've been following all this very closly for the past three years now and I am trying to impart to you some of what I've learned from personal first hand experience with Tim Carroll.
Carrolls' workmanship is shoddy. No, it's down right fraudulent. How can you trust the quality of his head studs to be any different?
I also know many people who report a similar experience with him and they want to talk to you. No one who's gone through it, wants to see someone else get Tim Carroll'd.
