Can anyone give me any reason to keep a hot air turbo engine over a LS?

[lilbowtie]

We're all in the present; none of us can see the future. And we're all going down our own paths to our own goals.
So there's only one question you've gotta ask yourself:
"Do you care?"

The hot air GN may or may not be woth "more" money one day. But do you care?
The LS engine is far more optimized and makes more power to go fast. But do you care?
The hot air V6 is unique and it's a Buick engine. But do you care?
Buick purists may hate you for unbolting that incredibly niche part of history. But do you care?
Etc.

Do you care about speed, do you care about being interesting, or do you just care about having something that feels nice?
It's best to give yourself your own reasons for doing things.

Your starting to think with your pocket book instead of your desires. I've got an 84 turbo GT mustang convertible one of I believe 714 built and one of one on color that I have hung on to thinking it will be worth $$ - wrong. The same will be with 85 GN, they are not desirable. The car will probably be worth more as a well done LS

 

[pagrunt]

Lets got a different route as we try to sped your money, keep the Buick guys happy & do a intercooled turbo Buick V8, a nice efi, put a stick behind it & tell every one F U cause you'll be running rear Buick power. Be really out there do it to an old strait 8 that weighs as much as the car.

As already said, your car build it how you want.

I'm going to be doing a Predator swap soon!!!


I'm joking, maybe.....but it's worth the watch

Now there is hope for the Prius to be come a true racer.

 

[Silent viewer]

I can think of one really good reason to go LS right now. last night I was letting the GN idle and I drove it around the block, It sounded ok-ish. My boss was just loading up his sons cammed 5.3 S10 for world of wheels and the whole building that we are in heard it start up inside and was getting excited and had to walk out to see it...... Half of building engines to me, is what they sound like and the 3.8 leaves allot to be desired.

3 months ago I drove 19 hours round trip to Chicago with a enclosed trailer to buy a turbo regal, 20k cash in hand, the car did not have as nice of a body as I had been told so I drove away with a empty trailer. When we got back in the truck the woman asked why it was so quite? She said she was expecting it to fire up and be loud like all of the other car and boat engines I have built but instead it sounded like her mini van. That comment by itself took my off of trying to buy a 86/87 TR and went back to searching for a project.

 

[Clone TIE Pilot]

Another issue is legality. The stock hot air is legal for your car, a intercool conversion is also legal, the expensive Erod LS crate kit is also legal, a used normal production LS isn't legal as some of its emission parts won't work in old cars while the law says you must swap everything over. Furthermore, it is also illegal to retune the stock LS PCM as it is considered tampering, as well as carbing it. Not sure about aftermarket efi systems but the self tuning ones can take several months, and sometimes never learn right. No replacement for a good human tuner. You probably need to look into the emission laws and the levels of enforcement in your area. Then there is a risk of future crackdowns like what happened in CO.

 

[Silent viewer]

Anything goes where I am from. There is no emission testing or checks in my area. If that was the case, There is not a single car guy I know that would pass lol.

 

[B's 87mcss]

Just my 2 cents worth,
1. your toy box indicates you are a strong supporter of the car hobby and the vendors/manufacturers who build and supply the parts for us all
2. Good on you for saving a sought after car from the eventual wreckers grave
3. It's your business what you do with your car, make it a show car, daily driver, whatever makes you feel good and have some fun, as we only get to go around once.
4. We all have our opinion based on OUR thoughts of what you should do, but in the end, tell the ones who don't like what you eventually do to kiss your star spangled butt because you LOVE what YOU did to YOUR car.
Seeing that I am a Canadian, I must say I am sorry if I offended any one with MY opinion (because if I did they can kiss my tatted Maple leaf butt too). Man I need a coffee, Hey, Have a great day y'all!)

 

[dfast1]

swap it!

 

[Pronto-]

LIke I said on TB go for it. The hot air will never be worth what 86 or 87 will. The hot air is hard to work on and mod to make it real fast (although they can if you have a strong will). You can mod that hell out of the hot air with any engine and all the suspension etc you want. At some point you will exceed the top value of a modified g body. The Unreal X just sold a few weeks ago. It was a magazine car and had all the best mods for a Turbo Buick. Fantastic looking and reliable. I knew it many years and how much money was spent on it. https://turbobuick.com/threads/unreal-x-for-sale.462574/ It will never be worth 100k but you can easily drop that into a g body. Still at 32K it was still a hell of a car.

 

[Silent viewer]

I'm really not that worried about value honestly. When I build projects like this, I usually do not ever let them go. Hopefully it will appraise high so that I can insure it for a realistic replacement cost when it is done just in case something bad happens. The way it is looking now is we are going to continue building my spare frame with LS power and all of the suspension work, frame boxing and what not on the side. When that is done we will strip the car down, fix all of the rust and set it on it's new frame. The car is going to be painted piece by piece at that point and put back together. I am going to get allot of hate on what I am doing to this car but hopefully I get some respect on the quality of work that I put into it.

 

[jiho]

I'm gonna sound bad here, but I have been waiting for years to see more electric powered swaps. I thought by now you would see those all over the place.

Batteries. Someone somewhere would have to invent a new kind of battery with bleeding edge physics. But if someone ever does, electric will take over real fast.

EDIT: And no, solid state is moving in the right direction but not quite there yet. Still 5 times your gas tank, at best.