1983 lesabre 2 door

[Mammy]

pulled this car out of a field after it sat from 15 years surprisingly in good shape truthfully was gonna rip it apart to make a rat rod out of aother car i own but was strongly convinced by an old hot rodder to build it then rip it apart. 307 THM-200-4r Trans 54,000 miles. was told the only way to get some good HP outta this thing was to find a olds 350 build it mild and drop it in. New to "G-bodys" dont know what parts will transfer with this or if it is even consided a Gbody or whatever. so far ive swapped a the carb and put a Qjet on it( last one was seized), cut the rag top off, pretty much straight piped ( cat was completly plugged ) debadged and sanded , differant alternator. now i want to give it a tougher suspension, lets just say this car sails really nice down the road, do a motor swappe want to take off those HUGE bumpers and put a chin on the front. does anyone have experiance with this kinda buick. thanks

 

[King_V]

Well, it's a B-body, so there's that.

But then again, I've always had a soft-spot for the 2-door big-mobiles.

Pretty much you're starting with a bigger, heavier car, but just about any engine will fit, the frame is stronger, etc

I don't have a lot of experience with these cars. I like them, just very little practical experience.

 

[pencero]

Once you put an olds 350 / 403 or something like that those bumpers won't seem so 'huge' and 'heavy' any more. I dont understand why anyone would want to take those bumpers off for a street car and substitute flimsy fiberglass or plastic. Why spend hundreds of dollars removing the only thing protecting the other hundreds of dollars (more likely thousands of dollars..) you are going to spend on this engine swap (in the event of a crash) that just doesn't make any sense to me... I've seen a collision with a similar car as yours vs. a new plastic body chevy and the big body had just 1 small dent in it's chrome but the damage to the newer car was $2,500+ easily vs $0 to the big body... If you want performance you should upgrade your rack/pinion with higher gears like 3.08 to 3.73 and make sure the car has positraction and wait til after the engine is in place to decide if you really want to remove those bumpers. If you do end up taking them off you will have to reinforce the front end of the car or the steering would feel vague and ambiguous since the bumper is an important part holding the front end together on your model... These were cheap cars in their time and have a habit of 'meandering' all over the road anyway

 

[MC Sics]

These cars are legit.