Intercooled GN's or EFI 5L 5 spd Notchback Mustang's, which were faster bone stock?

[ck80]

I wouldn't go on TikTok or a Mopar forum and bad mouth a GN but since I have one and am on this site. You guys will understand I am not biased in this opinion.

Quoting magazine times is a joke. I've had both cars and spent many days at the drag strip.
All these cars you mentioned, were separated by tenths.

How are 15 second mustangs vs 13 second buicks separated by tenths? I guess many tenths, kind of like saying my yearly salary is many $5....

The Buick's production did not end due to shaming a Corvette.

never said it did. I said buick underrated horsepower both for insurance and to get green lighted to improve the power plant. It is well documented gm killed many cars and projects because they would outshine the vette. Goes all the way back to the Pontiac banshee that they not only killed on DeLorean, but had the clay molds shipped over to chevy after to heavily dictate the c3 body style. Read up on it.

Also cutting a light has zero to do with E.T.

True, but if you read all the posts in this thread, there was mention of Foxbody guys pointing to supposedly stock GNs losing to supposedly stock GTs on the track. Your ex potential doesn't change, but winning or losing a match up certainly does.

So even if the magazine proved 1 car is way faster but you go to the track and the same 1 car is always losing, who is right?

The car that is faster is always faster. Winning or losing a race doesn't dictate which car is faster.

I wrote my time in the 1st page but the truth is the bone stock red 88 Mustang LX hatch which had 380,000 kms, burned a litre of oil every 1500km, was rusted to sh*t but it ran a legit, repeated 13.9@99mph. I don't know what moron runs a 5L in the 15's. Also had a 92 Mustang LX notch with minor bolt ons. It went 13.6@ 102.

But did you do that in 1988? No, you didn't.

Maybe you're not old enough to understand or remember but tires in the 1980s sucked. Not as bad as tires in the 1960s, but compared to today, they sucked.

You could probably take any 80s car, assuming it hasn't lost compression or suffered mechanical breakage, and, using modern tires you will out perform what it could do 35 years ago.

Same reason cars from the 1960s run faster today.

What I recall from the 90's was the Mustang was a very affordable car. So by the time the GN which was twice the price, got boost, injectors, scanmaster and tires. Mustangs were showing up with nitrous and superchargers. So the debate of stock vs stock became a minor point.

Yet, still doesn't change the fact that the GN was a faster platform.

 

[markaria]

How are 15 second mustangs vs 13 second buicks separated by tenths? I guess many tenths, kind of like saying my yearly salary is many $5....

never said it did. I said buick underrated horsepower both for insurance and to get green lighted to improve the power plant. It is well documented gm killed many cars and projects because they would outshine the vette. Goes all the way back to the Pontiac banshee that they not only killed on DeLorean, but had the clay molds shipped over to chevy after to heavily dictate the c3 body style. Read up on it.

True, but if you read all the posts in this thread, there was mention of Foxbody guys pointing to supposedly stock GNs losing to supposedly stock GTs on the track. Your ex potential doesn't change, but winning or losing a match up certainly does.

The car that is faster is always faster. Winning or losing a race doesn't dictate which car is faster.

But did you do that in 1988? No, you didn't.

Maybe you're not old enough to understand or remember but tires in the 1980s sucked. Not as bad as tires in the 1960s, but compared to today, they sucked.

You could probably take any 80s car, assuming it hasn't lost compression or suffered mechanical breakage, and, using modern tires you will out perform what it could do 35 years ago.

Same reason cars from the 1960s run faster today.

Yet, still doesn't change the fact that the GN was a faster platform.

One of the things that perhaps has been forgotten...but I remember quite well... is that depending on how the mustang was equipped made a huge difference. Fastest stock fox bodies were base equipped lx 5.0/5speed cars (low 14sec). Fully loaded gt's with A4s were easily a second+slower. And A4 convertibles were lucky to make it to the mid 15s stock. I had quite a few runs with stangs/irocs etc back in the day when I had my lightly modded supra turbo...fun times when 14 sec cars were fast lol

 

[blk7gxn]

If someone is at the track racing, they are a car enthusiast, and isn't that what we all are here.

In the 80's as mentioned before, Turbo cars were still "black sheep cars", the technologies were advanced for the times. Some people couldn't afford a GN or T Type, some, the technologies were intimidating and scared them off. The GN SFI was a totally computer controlled powerplant, and if you didn't know what you were doing, things could go south quickly. Every 1/10 of a second cost $, and as mustang and Chevy racers alike, these were cheaper horsepower/torque makers with keeping HP/per dollar hands down cheaper than any Buick GN. Many who did have endless funds still didn't want to take the risk of going into the unknown. One thing that boosted cars like, is a cold atmosphere, and race times always differ depending on that day with a turbo car. I'm surprised this blog has lasted this long with so many arguments, I'm thinking we have some Ford lovers lurking in our midst, WELOCME! 🙂

 

[L92 OLDS]

One of the things that perhaps has been forgotten...but I remember quite well... is that depending on how the mustang was equipped made a huge difference. Fastest stock fox bodies were base equipped lx 5.0/5speed cars (low 14sec). Fully loaded gt's with A4s were easily a second+slower.

Good point. The LX cars were definitely quicker. The GT’s had all the body cladding and extra weight. One other note is that the mustang became quicker in 1986 with the fuel injected 5.0 @ 200hp. Back in the day I used to drive them all in stock form. The GN was the fastest. These cars were my inspiration to swap in a 403. The 90s were a fun time and the Oldsmobile hurt a lot of feelings

 

[olds307 and 403]

Exactly why I said factory tires, not modern tires, Drag Radials or Slicks. Drove to the track off the show room floor. Otherwise a 350 gross HP Olds 350, it was underrated at 325, 70 442 W31 with a 4 speed and 3.91 is about the same 1/4 mile on 1970 tire technology. We had no track's growing up close by. Mustang's were fast, compared to most GM's, especially modified ones. That GN my BIL tested had the chip I believe and probably the upgraded fuel pump. He passed a 5L like it was standing still. It could have been a shitty driver. My Wife beat a new base Camaro, at minimum 305 hp with the 250 hp 3.5 V6 at highway speeds with our old 2010 Challenger. That is where it performed best. Off the line, it would have lost for sure. I just surprised people drove the 5L off the lot and pulled high 13's. The hopped up sbc from the late 60's and early 70's like the 327 in the 71 Chevelle beat the 5L pretty handily on the street. I think the stock 69 sbc 350 in my BIL Beaumont narrowly beat 5L Mustang's but it was a stock high compression motor.

 

[86LK]

Good point. The LX cars were definitely quicker. The GT’s had all the body cladding and extra weight. One other note is that the mustang became quicker in 1986 with the fuel injected 5.0 @ 200hp. Back in the day I used to drive them all in stock form. The GN was the fastest. These cars were my inspiration to swap in a 403. The 90s were a fun time and the Oldsmobile hurt a lot of feelings

I bought a used, beatup, 110k miles, '81 Mustang hatchback in June of 1989 while in college. Had factory Recaro bucket seats but came with a 200ci straight 6 1-bbl Holley rated at 90hp and a 4-speed manual. The gearing on that thing was so tall I could easily keep up with my college buddy who had a 1985 Mustang with the 2.3L SVO rated at 175hp@4400rpm and 210lbft@3000rpm when we did stupid stuff like racing thru the streets of the small city at night where we went to school.
I even thought of swapping in a 302 but that never happened (a good thing as it turned out). Point being, any given Sunday and sometimes it's the car and sometimes it's the driver.....

now go hop into your favorite hotrod of the moment and play Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry or Vanishing Point or Bullitt. And for all the younger guys that would be Fast&Furious or The Italian Job re-make (not the better original

)

 

[81cutlass]

I don't think many people will argue GN's were faster than 5.0 foxes, but GN's were less common, more expensive, and more finicky than a 5.0 fox. That holds true today.

The amount of GN's that spend 99% of their time at car shows or putting around on the highways that run in the 16's or slower I would bet is astonishing. If 10% of GN's that exist today would run within a second of what they ran stock in 86/87 I would be shocked.

If you watch the youtubes, Kevin from JYD did a video where he got a 87 GN running again that had sat for ~20 years. This was a typical bolt on GN from the 90's with a turbo, headers, boost gauge and other stuff. I ran into a him at a car show this summer and chatted a bit about troubleshooting it because he was having issues. Granted this was a rusty IA car with 200k+ on it, but it was a mess. He mentioned it made like no boost and had a .22 shell jammed in one of the solenoids and I mentioned that that was likely the boost controller that would add or subtract boost and it needs to be hooked up correctly. It was set up to make like no boost. He looked at every GN at cars throughout the entire summer and they were all hooked up differently (wrong), so basically all these GN's running around make like 5 PSI and the owners think they are the fastest things around when they are turds. He called out in the video only one person throughout the entire summer his age (me) told him how to correctly set it up, everything else he saw was wrong.

The sub 10% of GN's that have owners that know and care run HARD. The 90% of just garage/show cars are likely turds. The coils, mafs, cam sensors, ect are all turds on those cars by this point.

And at least in the 80's, an afternoon with some bolt on speed parts, 'traditional' hotrodding knowledge, and any V8 60's-80's semi light muscle car, you could build the fastest thing on the road and out run any new stock or lightly prepped GN or 5.0 fox. A strong SBC, BBO, Pontiac, Mopar or SBF 3000 lb car with a good trans, headers, 4 barrel, and a good timing and fuel tune COULD be the fastest thing in town. All stuff that can bolt on and be done in a weekend.

That is not possible today. It would be really hard to take a 20 year old LS1 camaro or 4.6 mustang and make it faster than a Hellcat or ZL1 camaro/ Z06 vette in an afternoon. Sure, you can throw a Turbo on an LS in whatever chassis, but that is not an afternoon project. You MIGHT be able to outrun a new Hellcat if you toss a big blower on a S197 5.0 2011 mustang with a set of headers and cams, or spray the house down on a LS1 F body with a single plane intake and headers but the trans or rear end wont last.

It was easy to make a 10-30 year old hotrod outrun a factory 5.0 or GN in the 80's, but its really hard to make a 10-30 year old hotrod outrun a modern Hellkitty, Z06, GTR, ect these days.

 

[blk7gxn]

There's always something faster than your car, depends on how much money you want to spend, depends if you want to spend your life worrying about it or just enjoy what you have.

 

[Rt Jam]

But, it does have EVERYTHING to do with winning or losing races, establishing reputations, building legacies, earning bragging rights, and grounds for putrid misinformation.

I say this as a Hellcat owner. Talk about having a target on your back to start with, add in a manual transmission and lose to a turbo Civic and suddenly...

It doesn't matter that with an A8 there wouldn't be any discussion... the race is already over and the stories are trending on Instagram.

Ironically outrunning a Miata in a Hellcat on an autocross course doesn't generate the same folklore.

I could respond with reaction time has Nothing to do with E.T.

Say car A leaves on a perfect light. It takes 14.0 to go from start to finish.
Car B leaves 2 seconds after the green but takes 13.0 seconds to go from start to finish.

Car A gets the win light but car B gets to brag it's is faster, even though it lost.

In another example Car A cuts a perfect light. Reaches the finish line in 14.0 seconds
Next run. Same car cuts a super late light. 2 second reaction time but crosses the start to the finish in the same as always 14.0 seconds. Same ET even though the reaction time was different. So cutting a good light or a bad light, car runs the same Elapsed Time.
































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[motorheadmike]

I could respond with reaction time has Nothing to do with E.T.

Say car A leaves on a perfect light. It takes 14.0 to go from start to finish.
Car B leaves 2 seconds after the green but takes 13.0 seconds to go from start to finish.

Car A gets the win light but car B gets to brag it's is faster, even though it lost.

In another example Car A cuts a perfect light. Reaches the finish line in 14.0 seconds
Next run. Same car cuts a super late light. 2 second reaction time but crosses the start to the finish in the same as always 14.0 seconds. Same ET even though the reaction time was different. So cutting a good light or a bad light, car runs the same Elapsed Time.
































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Sir, turbobuick.com is that way.

Please see yourself out... and close the door behind you.