Stroking a 305

[Clone TIE Pilot]

I rather have a good shape stocker over a poorly modified basket case. Seen a lot of G bodies modified by clueless owners and rendered worse than stock. Worse thing seems to be the wiring as people love to butcher up the wiring harness in the most bizarre ways.

 

[bob64]

Dude, stock G bodies are piles of crap. They really are. Flimsy frames, poor build quality, vastly under engineered and under powered. No to mention they handle like a fat guy on a wet trampoline in stock form and lord help you if your car wasn't undercoated from the get go.

We are the reason there are still G bodies to modify. If it wasn't for the people on this forum, a lot of these cars would've been crushed a long, long time ago. Hell, 10 minutes after purchased my Regal and left, some guy and his kid showed up to the p/o's place to buy it with intentions of turning it into a stock car. It had 84,000 miles (at the time in 2014), BONE STOCK, no rust, original down to the radio. The heat, AC, power antenna, cruise, all still worked. Poor thing would've been gutted and destroyed if I would've stopped on the way there to pee. We save these cars from that fate. That's why this forum exists.

All we're trying to do is offer our input. Some guys have been on this site for almost a decade or more, and a good chunk of 'em saw these cars roll out of dealers with less than 20 miles on them back in the day. We've all seen it 100s of times before; Guy has a car, wants to "keep it numbers matching" and rebuild the gutless turd that the car was born with, only to get that idea shot down. Why? It's simply a waste of time and money. No one cares about a numbers matching 305, NA 231/4.1/307/diesel G body. If it ain't a 231 with a big ol hair dryer strapped to the front, a 2+2, or a 442, people besides us just see another cheap derby car.

And it's not that we're after "REAL" performance, we're just after performance. These cars aren't Chevelles or Camaros or Chargers. They're G Bodies. Sloshy, slow, dumpy, brick-shaped G bodies.

In the end, it's your car. We can't force you to go one way or another, we're just offering advice from experience.

Do people really find G-bodies are that bad? I had a 87 olds back in 86 thought it very sharp to look at an nice ride. An today l still like the lines of all the G-bodies, but in a performance not so much.

I think it might be an age thing, l grew up in the 60's so big boxy was in. Then the 70's came the body lines and some power an noise. So l guess that's why l like the body lines of the G-bodies.

I love my Z-28 but there's no room for a 6 point in it, l couldn't get in. G-bodies got space for stuff like that. They really have potential.

The 60's an 70's corvettes an camaros road like lumber wagons, Camaro was frontend heavy and the corvette, well to low and narrow and the dam 4 speeds kept hitting me in the knee cap, an the fibreglass stresses with age if your not careful. Chrysler had some nice rides, Ford mustang suck's for comfort.

Whether l had the money or not to buy new, l'd still buy old cause they were solid, not plastic and light weight. I want to live!!

Rant over, just my opinion

 

[MrSony]

Do people really find G-bodies are that bad? I had a 87 olds back in 86 thought it very sharp to look at an nice ride. An today l still like the lines of all the G-bodies, but in a performance not so much.

I think it might be an age thing, l grew up in the 60's so big boxy was in. Then the 70's came the body lines and some power an noise. So l guess that's why l like the body lines of the G-bodies.

I love my Z-28 but there's no room for a 6 point in it, l couldn't get in. G-bodies got space for stuff like that. They really have potential.

The 60's an 70's corvettes an camaros road like lumber wagons, Camaro was frontend heavy and the corvette, well to low and narrow and the dam 4 speeds kept hitting me in the knee cap, an the fibreglass stresses with age if your not careful. Chrysler had some nice rides, Ford mustang suck's for comfort.

Whether l had the money or not to buy new, l'd still buy old cause they were solid, not plastic and light weight. I want to live!!

Rant over, just my opinion

I mean when they were new, yeah. They were ok for their time, but picking one up now? An old 70s Bluebird school bus rides better than a 30+ year old g with blown out shocks and saggy springs, rotten bushings, etc. My regal now was a night and day difference from the stock gm shocks and spings to new moog GN spec springs and $20 shocks... but I digress. G bodies need more power. 110hp in a 3800lb vehicle (including driver) can't even accelerate fast enough to avoid an accident. With more power however, you need to handle. And stop. And it snowballs from there.

 

[MrSony]

I rather have a good shape stocker over a poorly modified basket case. Seen a lot of G bodies modified by clueless owners and rendered worse than stock. Worse thing seems to be the wiring as people love to butcher up the wiring harness in the most bizarre ways.

I'd rather have a well modded car than a 30-40 year old pile of rusted crap. And yeah, why is it always the wiring? And on our cars specifically, the hvac box is always gutted or straight hacked off.

 

[Clone TIE Pilot]

I'd rather have a well modded car than a 30-40 year old pile of rusted crap. And yeah, why is it always the wiring? And on our cars specifically, the hvac box is always gutted or straight hacked off.

Tweakers?

 

[MrSony]

Tweakers?

probs. dumb kids too i'd assume. "who needs heat/defrost or ac? pffft."

 

[olds307 and 403]

I agree with many of the above posts and Mr Sony's handling description is spot on. If you push too much torque through a stock TH200C or 2004R and 7.5" rear end, expect them to fail. My 88 Cutlass someone cut wires everywhere, it sucked. I plan on looking at a 87 442, I should have bought 5 years ago before the rust and sagging headliner, which it didn't have 5 years ago. But it sounds like it has the stock 307 HO, very questionable on it's value and the 8.5" posi is in the car, I am thinking $4000 if he will take it, asking $5000 obo and I will save $830 a year licensing it over my 88 Cutlass.

 

[lilbowtie]

Well guys I think we might have done a number on our new member I hope we here from him again. Lots of advice given here none of it bad. It all comes from what ever aspect of this hobby we are into.

 

[DRIVEN]

Man, what a tough crowd. A stock Gbody really isn't that bad when put in perspective. Mine was 100% unmolested and 100% maintained when I got it. It was fine...and exactly how it was intended. Gbodys weren't designed and built to be performance cars. What were their counterparts? Volare, Granada, AMC Concord, and later the Taurus, K-car, and Camry. Any real performance standouts there?
Yes, the G is a great platform for performance improvements but they aren't in any way immune to 30-40 years of salt, neglect and hackery. No car is.

Back to the OP's post, he was pretty clear that he wasn't interested in a 350 swap. I can respect that and that's the way I responded. I still think it'd be an interesting build that's likely to add some fuel economy along with a little extra grunt.
What I didn't add, and some of you other guys did, is that gearing is a great improvement for the money. Exhaust helps too but with a stock-ish 305 it's likely to be just as much placebo as actual performance gain.

 

[olds307 and 403]

Man, what a tough crowd. A stock Gbody really isn't that bad when put in perspective. Mine was 100% unmolested and 100% maintained when I got it. It was fine...and exactly how it was intended. Gbodys weren't designed and built to be performance cars. What were their counterparts? Volare, Granada, AMC Concord, and later the Taurus, K-car, and Camry. Any real performance standouts there?
Yes, the G is a great platform for performance improvements but they aren't in any way immune to 30-40 years of salt, neglect and hackery. No car is.

Back to the OP's post, he was pretty clear that he wasn't interested in a 350 swap. I can respect that and that's the way I responded. I still think it'd be an interesting build that's likely to add some fuel economy along with a little extra grunt.
What I didn't add, and some of you other guys did, is that gearing is a great improvement for the money. Exhaust helps too but with a stock-ish 305 it's likely to be just as much placebo as actual performance gain.

True enough, other than the Fox bodies which are the most plentiful cars at a track, how many people own those cars? Our family owned a Fox body Fairmont and Zepher, terrible cars for ride, also were mechanically unreliable.