Have high powered factory cars ruined hotrodding???

[UNGN]

Wow, that's amazingly quick for an 80's street car. What mods were done to it to go 12.20?

In the 80s did you get to see big block muscle cars like 454 Chevelles battling it out with the new GNs? I think that would have been pretty awesome to witness.

By the late 1980's/early 1990's real "big block muscle cars" were starting to be worth something, so "rich guys" would show up at the track with them and get destroyed and then go back to the weekend car show circuit and brag how their gross HP cars were somehow really "under rated". I attended a few of the Muscle Car Review magazine drag races which promoted stock appearing head to head racing since the 1980's and my nearly stock 225HP convertible 5.0 was faster than nearly every small block @ 14.1.

The fast street cars were all nitrous cars and mid to high 10's you were the king of the track,

To get a turbo regal to run low 12's@110, you just follow the recipe mods that had been on the internet since the early 1990's: replace the dead factory fuel pump, Make an adjustable wastegate (about $6 in parts and tools), K&N cone air filter, port the turbo elbow with a dremel tool, test pipe for the cat, either dump the exhaust behind the test pipe or put on a new cat back exhaust with straight thru mufflers, 237 fuel pressure regulator fuel from a fwd car like a grand am -$5 at the junkyard (for 45psi) then add a chip (like the $25 Thrasher 108), put in rase gas and sticky tires, set the boost to 18-20 psi and you are pretty much guaranteed at least mid 12's.

I was running low 12's before I even bought a scan tool. MPH falls off when the computer retards timing. The trick is to stay conservative and make small changes. You slowly add boost and add octane or lower boost if trap mph began to fall.

 

[Qdub24]

If anything, the newer high performance factory cars have pushed the hot rodding crowd to new heights of performance on the street and at the track.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154140470346390

 

[motorheadmike]

With those Buick turbo v6s, once you start hotrodding them you have to buy a scanmaster and keep one eye on it at all times the engine is running. One hiccup, and the v6 can blow a headgasket, fail to build boost because of a blown exhaust gasket, or puke its internals out. Big problem is the Buick v6 was designed to be a granny motor, which is why it has a few design issues such as not having enough head bolts to prevent the heads from lifting from boost and blowing HGs. The weak thrust bearing that are easy to wipe out, and too weak to use with a manual trans. Poor flowing heads, weak oiling system, oil pump that chews its soft aluminum housing out, etc. Then there are the body issues. GM in their great wisdom, put the most powerful stock g body engine into the weakest body configuration. All but the GNX have missing body bushings, frame bracing, and body bracing that the other lower powered g bodies got. Its why some of the hopped up GN guys have blown out rear windshields from body twist, had driveshafts go though the floorpans, doors no longer shuting right from body warp, and even twisting the rear lca mounts clean off the frame. The instructions for the Tinman brace states the mounting holes are not predrilled as most Turbo Buick bodies are already badly distorted from the engine, especially if the car was ever track ran. Turbo Buick boards are filled with such horror stories. The GN guys say a stock g body is not designed to withstand more than 400 hp before you start damaging the frame and body.

This response is rife with dated information... about 1 to 2 decades old. Ignore it.

FWIW, I put 30psi (logged) into my stock 3.8 with the factory original head gaskets from a TE63e turbo. Simple oiling mods are available to deal with the minor issues. And I never owned a Scan Master (junk) - I spent my money on actual datalogging software like TurboLink, DirectScan, and the PowerLogger - cheaper and easier than re&reing the heads.

Amazingly the late-model stuff is just as susceptible to blowing up from stupid-*ss irresponsible tuning blunders. Don't treat your head gaskets like a fuse, kids.

 

[UNGN]

My T-type had over 250 dragstrip passes down to mid 11's@118+ with zero driveline failures on the original 2004R and one original headgasket (the other was replaced by the original owner when the electrode off of a "Splitfire" sparkplug broke and burned an exhaust valve).

When the sparkplug broke, the car was in high 14 second trim (the dead stock fuel pump wasn't keeping up at 14 psi of boost and leaning out the motor and the resulting detonation broke the plug). He replaced the valve and the headgasket/bolts and sold the car to me (with the burned valve in a sandwich bag). I replaced the pump and never had a fuel problem again. I didn't even run a hot wire to the pump until I was nearly in the 11's.

 

[Matthew Goeke]

Built cars will always impress more than bought

 

[Clone TIE Pilot]

This response is rife with dated information... about 1 to 2 decades old. Ignore it.

FWIW, I put 30psi (logged) into my stock 3.8 with the factory original head gaskets from a TE63e turbo. Simple oiling mods are available to deal with the minor issues. And I never owned a Scan Master (junk) - I spent my money on actual datalogging software like TurboLink, DirectScan, and the PowerLogger - cheaper and easier than re&reing the heads.

Amazingly the late-model stuff is just as susceptible to blowing up from stupid-*ss irresponsible tuning blunders. Don't treat your head gaskets like a fuse, kids.

Perhaps the scanmaster is outdated, but you still have to watch your sensor readouts like a hawk and tuning and datalogging software isn't cheap. To fix the oiling issues, you have to go inside the engine and enlarge the tiny oil galleries, some of which are not aligned well from the factory. Fixing the oil pump issue requires replacing the cast timing cover for an aftermarket one with a improved oil pump. Buick V6s have much worse oiling systems than SBCs, even LS engines do not have as good of a oil gallery setup and suffer greater internal leakage losses and windage from the deep block skirt. Factory Buick heads flow like crap and aftermarket performance heads are expensive. replacing the factory head bolts with studs helps the HG issue, but has drawbacks. Plus the Buick V6 relies on those awful rubber block tensors for the timing chain that are easy to get chewed up and clog the oiling system with rubber chunks. The nylon tooth cam sprocket, which most 80s GM engines suffer with to be fair. Plus the fact that the Buick V6 has a 90 degree V angle is not ideal for a V6, it should be 60 degrees.

The body breakage issues will only get worse as the cars age, corrode, and fatigue from high stress. Especially since stress levels rise more sharply from a turbo motor vs a more gentile rise from n/a engines.

Turbo Buicks are pretty infamous for blowing head gaskets. The real GN guys will tell its not a matter of if, but when.

Plus there are also problematic exhaust manifold leaks that cause the turbo not to spool up like it should and loss of power, etc. Higher than stock boost will cause the engine seals to leak. Turbo heat cooks the upper A arm bushings. Driver side exhaust manifold being crack prone, leads to loss of boost. Can't forget the problem prone Powermaster brakes

 

[motorheadmike]

Perhaps the scanmaster is outdated, but you still have to watch your sensor readouts like a hawk and tuning and datalogging software isn't cheap. To fix the oiling issues, you have to go inside the engine and enlarge the tiny oil galleries, some of which are not aligned well from the factory. Fixing the oil pump issue requires replacing the cast timing cover for an aftermarket one with a improved oil pump. Buick V6s have much worse oiling systems than SBCs, even LS engines do not have as good of a oil gallery setup and suffer greater internal leakage losses and windage from the deep block skirt. Factory Buick heads flow like crap and aftermarket performance heads are expensive. replacing the factory head bolts with studs helps the HG issue, but has drawbacks. Plus the Buick V6 relies on those awful rubber block tensors for the timing chain that are easy to get chewed up and clog the oiling system with rubber chunks. Plus the fact that the Buick V6 has a 90 degree V angle is not ideal for a V6, it should be 60 degrees.

The body breakage issues will only get worse as the cars age, corrode, and fatigue from high stress. Especially since stress levels rise more sharply from a turbo motor vs a more gentile rise from n/a engines.

Turbo Buicks are pretty infamous for blowing head gaskets. The real GN guys will tell its not a matter of if, but when.

Plus there are also problematic exhaust manifold leaks that cause the turbo not to spool up like it should and loss of power, etc.

You have never actually owned a Turbo Regal have you?

 

[UNGN]

Even with all those problems I'm trying to think of a car I could buy for $5,000 and run low 12's on street tires, basically stock, and I'm not coming up with any, so I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

For every idiot that made a milkshake oil on his high 13 second GN because he thought turning up the fuel pressure was a substitute for octane, there were 10 guys like me that ran at least mid 12's with 100% stock, untouched motors following the "recipe" on the GNTTYPE.org list

 

[zdeckich]

We have a 1/2 mile and 1 mile shootout every year and the Hellcat Charger is the king of the bone stock 1/2 mile @ 144 mph. Maybe the C6 ZR1 could match it, but that is about it for stock cars. The C7 Z06 was a few mph slower as was the Hellcat Challenger. My stock '13 5.0 could only muster 131 (though that was faster than the 3 Boss 302's and all of the stock N/A Camaros/Challengers)

Nothing else stock could beat the Stock Hellcat Charger, but my buddies '89 TA with a budget twin turbo setup went 177mph in the 1/2 mile and fear was the only thing keeping him from going faster... so Hot rodding still wins.

My dad's hot rod (a '04 Chrysler Crossfire with an AMG 5.5 compressor V8 out of a wrecked S-class) ran 141 in the 1/2 mile - 3 mph slower than the Hellcat Charger, but would be neck and neck with a Hellcat Challenger or C7Z06 so hot rods still have their place.

You going to the Wannagofast this year in Dallas? Id love to see the GP run. Ill be there in my CTS-V

 

[UNGN]

You going to the Wannagofast this year in Dallas? Id love to see the GP run. Ill be there in my CTS-V

I had not heard of this event. If I had motivation, I'd put the 2.72 Australian B&W rear axle that has been sitting in my garage for 12 years in my TTA and crank up the boost. The 2+2 doesn't do that well in the 1/2. It doesn't catch/pass C5's/Mustangs/4th gens until around the 3/4 mile mark.

We did a 1/2 mile racing event about 10 years ago at a small airport in Nebraska. I'd be running down cars like a freight train, then would run out of runway... a couple of the cars DID run out of runway, because the shutoff area was short and most brakes don't get a 140-160 to zero full effort stop too often. I remember turning off and seeing in my rear view mirror a guy in the next pair of cars blowing by the turnoff @ at least 70 mph, not slowing down with smoke coming out of the fenderwells.

My future brother in law helps run Redbird. I'm surprised he has never mentioned this.