Yeah, it's a fine balance between supply/demand and profit/quality. I'd rather have somewhat higher prices and high quality than just cheap offshore knockoffs that don't fit right half the time, or need a lot of re-work.
Do Grand Nationals get too much credit for the greatness of the G-Body?
- Thread starter oldmansmonte
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When I bought my '86 T-type in 1995, it was a solid 12 second car... in the 1/8th mile. Right after the 1-2 shift it would shut off and didn't come back until the boost had dropped to zero. It still had the factory fuel pump that could not provide any volume at 16 more psi above Atmospheric and it just gave up trying.
I got a new fuel pump and managed to run a bunch of high 9's in the 1/8 with a best of a 9.35. A broken aftermarket sway bar was letting the wheels hop excessively. Next time at the track, after a blistering 9.2 run, the 11 year old Tank to body fuel line split and nearly burned the car to the ground.
About 2 years later, thru incremental tuning and fixing one broken thing at a time during/after weekly trips to the track, I was able to get the car to run 7.7's@89 mph (equivalent to 12.1's @111 in the 1/4) with the following stock parts:
100% untouched 90K mile long block
Stock Turbo
Stock Fuel Injectors
Stock complete fuel system (except pump and a FPR from a '90's grand am at the junkyard)
Stock intercooler
Stock Transmission
Stock Torque converter
Stock Rear axle
Stock Wheels
Full Stock interior
Stock suspension (With lowered springs and bigger swaybars added for better handling)
Stock Body with No lightweight body parts
Through full exhaust (dual cat back ultraflow mufflers)
Here were basically the mods the cars had:
Cone K&N air filter
Racing chip (I would add a couple gallons of race gas to the tank at the track)
Adjustable wastegate (DIY $6) with boost set to about 20 psi
Low backpressure exhaust
Test Pipe instead of Cat
Drag Radials
Right Side airbag
S10 Pickup rear wheel cylinders
I later welded a Big neck on stock intercooler, but ran 7.7's without it.
I added a $400 turbo and 36# injectors from an '89 Ford Supercoupe and went 7.30's in the 1/8 and 11.50's in the 1/4. Literally 100's of drag strip passed, never blew a headgasket, never hurt the transmission and never really broke anything except old hoses.
The closest 1/4 mile track was 100 miles away, so I drove it there and back on the drag radials. If anyone remembers the 1990's, you couldn't go to a dealer and buy an 11 second car FOR ANY PRICE, so you can see where the GN guys got their "superior attitude" from.
This summer I'm going to ty to get my T-type back to the track and see how it does, now that you CAN go buy a 11 second cars at the dealer... but not for $5,300 (what I paid for mine).
Hopefully going back to the track, soon.
I got a new fuel pump and managed to run a bunch of high 9's in the 1/8 with a best of a 9.35. A broken aftermarket sway bar was letting the wheels hop excessively. Next time at the track, after a blistering 9.2 run, the 11 year old Tank to body fuel line split and nearly burned the car to the ground.
About 2 years later, thru incremental tuning and fixing one broken thing at a time during/after weekly trips to the track, I was able to get the car to run 7.7's@89 mph (equivalent to 12.1's @111 in the 1/4) with the following stock parts:
100% untouched 90K mile long block
Stock Turbo
Stock Fuel Injectors
Stock complete fuel system (except pump and a FPR from a '90's grand am at the junkyard)
Stock intercooler
Stock Transmission
Stock Torque converter
Stock Rear axle
Stock Wheels
Full Stock interior
Stock suspension (With lowered springs and bigger swaybars added for better handling)
Stock Body with No lightweight body parts
Through full exhaust (dual cat back ultraflow mufflers)
Here were basically the mods the cars had:
Cone K&N air filter
Racing chip (I would add a couple gallons of race gas to the tank at the track)
Adjustable wastegate (DIY $6) with boost set to about 20 psi
Low backpressure exhaust
Test Pipe instead of Cat
Drag Radials
Right Side airbag
S10 Pickup rear wheel cylinders
I later welded a Big neck on stock intercooler, but ran 7.7's without it.
I added a $400 turbo and 36# injectors from an '89 Ford Supercoupe and went 7.30's in the 1/8 and 11.50's in the 1/4. Literally 100's of drag strip passed, never blew a headgasket, never hurt the transmission and never really broke anything except old hoses.
The closest 1/4 mile track was 100 miles away, so I drove it there and back on the drag radials. If anyone remembers the 1990's, you couldn't go to a dealer and buy an 11 second car FOR ANY PRICE, so you can see where the GN guys got their "superior attitude" from.
This summer I'm going to ty to get my T-type back to the track and see how it does, now that you CAN go buy a 11 second cars at the dealer... but not for $5,300 (what I paid for mine).
Hopefully going back to the track, soon.
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I just hope someday it will be worth something close to what I have in it...LOL
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Yeah. Talk like that will get a guy kicked out out of Canada, don't-cha-know, eh.
nope, I don't trust it when they say made in Canada. On a box of cereal it says made in Canada but they are only talking about the box, the cereal comes from china.
That would be my dream come true, in my will I refuse to be buried in Canada. Burn me and dump my ashes in Tampa Bay.
You know, it's skating the edge of politics so I'll try to be careful...
But one good and AWESOME thing if the US did get in a trade war with china is that it'd force an end to that illusion of made in US/Canada where they just put a sticker and two screws on a pile of crap make overseas and claim it's domestic.
Some prices would go up, but so would quality. Worthwhile trade off to me.
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