Do Grand Nationals get too much credit for the greatness of the G-Body?

Status
Not open for further replies.
yup, I lived there for 3 years and loved walking into the bay to go diving....🙂
Wonder what the import requirements are on that?

Do you have anything to declare? Well....

(Cause even with cremation, there are some bone chips and such... which are biological plant/mammal type material for customs purposes...)

*headline: man arrested for smuggling human remains into US ftom Canada to dump in the bay, clean water act and pollution charges to follow if successful...*
 
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.

Spoken like a true Canadian.

When I hear a Canadian saying "We have to DO SOMETHING about Global Warming!!!!" I try to remind them that their *ss would be under a mile deep Glacier if it wasn't for the GLOBAL WARMING that happened only 12,000 years ago.. You know... back when the peoples who run casinos now where running Bison off cliffs for food and they have the DNA to prove it.
 
I sure wish I knew somebody with a stock GN so I could experience this incredibly awesome car, since the only one I ever drove (an 86 that belonged to a former employer) was a total dog. I had heard all the raving about them and was looking forward to being impressed. I was not.

I'm assuming it was the miles (in the mid 80s) or poor state of tune (seemed OK, but who knows), but for the 7K he paid (circa 2000) I expected a lot more, given that the car badly needed paint and bumper fillers (which we did).

I don't discount other people's claims about the awesomeness of the GN, but that was not my experience....especially given all the bragging about being a corvette killer and the fastest production car of 1987. I think he wore that "we brake for corvettes" t shirt every other day for a solid month.

They were fast for their time and responded very well to modifications (a few hundred $ would take a stock low 14 second car into the mid 12s). These cars had an incredible amount of potential relative to other cars available in the mid 80's.
 
Yes. The GN guys helped to push the notion that GNs are the only good G bodies. That all of the other models are worthless posers. I remember on some GN forums, members would pretty often rag on other G body models and their owners saying why would anybody buy them when they could buy GNs. Of course not all GN owners are that way, but sadly a good number are. Though a few did admit they miss the ability to just start the engine, drive, and forget about it like with N/A engines. Not having to keep a constant watch on the boost level, scan master, and knock gauge, etc. to prevent blowing the engine.

The great irony with turbo Regals, except for GNXs, is that while they had the most powerful stock powertrains, they also had the weakest body and frame configuration of all the g bodies. Missing body bushings, missing bracing, failure prone brake boosters, etc. Most turbo Buicks will have distorted frames and bodies because of this. Not to mention the 3.8 motor itself had flaws since it was not originally designed to be turboed. The famous lack of head bolts to properly clamp down the heads under high boost. The weak oiling system, the tiny crank thrust bearing, split pin crank, weak cam bearings, no factory ability to adjust valve lash, soft aluminum oil pump, and more. Thinking about it they probably need parts more than other g body models, especially as many GN guys are proud to blow up their cars often, they are going to need a good supply of replacement parts.
Never knew about the body and frame, makes no sense but GM doesn't always. I personally like non adjustable rocker arms, they work great with stock base circle cams. The crappy factory fuel pump is a well known issue. My BIL took a used 86 GN for a test drive at our local GM dealer. He blew the doors of a 5L HO Mustang, the water mark for 90's performance and left 2 long black streaks on the highway, part of the GN legend.
 
At our local 1/8 mile track in the late 1980s, everyone had 5.0's. Everyone. We were kids and 5.0's were cheap and plentiful and fast cars had manual transmissions. Power robbing Automatics are slower than manuals (kids know everything).

There was a group of 5.0L guys at the track that were taking very lightly modded cars and running very low 8 second 1/8 miles, Which was low 13's and not the typical high 13 people squeezed out of stock 5.0. They were running the speed density 87/88's because they were .2 seconds quicker with the same mods according to them. Their race technique was lots of gear + sticky 10" wide slicks and a 5,000 RPM clutch drop launch. If you know about the early 5.0's the T5's were weak, so these guys were on their 3rd or 4th transmission on cars that were only a couple years old.

Then one of the faster cars in the group gets a 150 shot. Fist run Boom! 7.50's. Second Run, Boom! the rear axle is ripped completely out of the car and it leaves on a flatbed.

After that, the 5.0 Group started showing up with Turbo Regals, one by one. They all ran easy, consistent mid 7's and the original owners were trading them in so they were getting cheaper and cheaper. By the Mid 1990's, the promise of the "275 Hp LT1" was too strong for a lot of TR owners and you could get 275 HP and a Six Speed! in an F-body, so that HAD to be faster than a T-R. It wasn't and I remember multiple times when a 4th gen LT1 F-body owner would come up to me at the track and say how much he now regretted trading in his T-R.
 
I think GN have a charm to them. They have a unique engine that was ahead of its time which i think gives them a cult following.

I agree I dont see why being weak from the factory is STILL held against all other gbodies. You can drop any sbc in easily and half of the monte carlos and cutlass have them now anyways. I dont get why other nice gbodys are considered 2nd class muscle cars. Theyre an amazing canvas to do whatever you like.

I get why they might never get the same mecum type attention as previous generations of cars because a bone stock gbody is a 305 or 307 car not a factory 454.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: motorheadmike
Spoken like a true Canadian.

When I hear a Canadian saying "We have to DO SOMETHING about Global Warming!!!!" I try to remind them that their *ss would be under a mile deep Glacier if it wasn't for the GLOBAL WARMING that happened only 12,000 years ago.. You know... back when the peoples who run casinos now where running Bison off cliffs for food and they have the DNA to prove it.

I was born in Canada but I was never asked if that was ok with me, which it is not. As for Ice ages there has been 6 and they all melted without the help of industries or burning of fossil fuels.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Texas82GP
I think GN have a charm to them. They have a unique engine that was ahead of its time which i think gives them a cult following.

I was thinking the same thing about the GN being so unique at the time and unexpected.

Reading all the car magazines back then, there were little tidbits about the changes coming to the the 86 GN in the Spring/Summer of 85. I just do not think anyone was prepared for the numbers that car would generate. I know I had some “holy crap” moments when road tests started to be published and how much of a jump that car took in a year.

Then the stories of minor tweaks, stuff like performance chips, and the high 13 second runs at sea level in cool Fall temps on a basically stock car was just mind boggling back then. Everyone I knew wanted one.

As a kid my cult cars were the 427 Cobra and 1970 LS6 454 Chevelle. I remember always hearing about the crazy stories about how powerful these cars were compared to all the rest. An example was how Shelby would put a $100 dollar bill in the visor of the Cobra and said you could have it if you could get it while the car was accelerating. According to the stories no one ever grabbed the bill! True or not, that just added to the mythos of that car. (If I recall a few car journalists said the stories were true about the bill grab)

Looking back 30+ years the GN and T types were generating their own stories. The exotic cars they were beating in street racing, the large money bets that kept getting larger as the stories cycled around, and so on. The intercooled GN’s were now setting the new “did you hear about the....” stories with all the car guys I knew.
 
Wonder what the import requirements are on that?

Do you have anything to declare? Well....

(Cause even with cremation, there are some bone chips and such... which are biological plant/mammal type material for customs purposes...)

*headline: man arrested for smuggling human remains into US ftom Canada to dump in the bay, clean water act and pollution charges to follow if successful...*
When they cremate me there will be a hardware store worth of metal parts left with the bone chips and such...lol
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

GBodyForum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Amazon, the Amazon logo, AmazonSupply, and the AmazonSupply logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Please support GBodyForum Sponsors

Classic Truck Consoles Dixie Restoration Depot UMI Performance

Contact [email protected] for info on becoming a sponsor