A friend in SoCal has a Buick Grand National which he was sure was faster than my '50 Stude truck with a built 467 CID Poncho . My truck weighs less and my engine is twice as big . I told him - " Do the math ! " Well... I rode in friend's Grand National here in New Mexico today . He's put a bigger throttle body on , added an extra fuel jet and bumped the boost to 20 lbs . Holy Cow !!!!! The thing totally embar***es my Stude !!!! . I can't belive that 3.8 motor puts out that much horsepower and torque . I'm going to look at a turbocharger tomorrow . I'm a new believer in turbocharging .
Those cars are still one of my favorites. I have always thought that the drivetrain in one of those would make a perfect running gear for a closed hood roadster. There is a guy here locally, that has put that drivetrain in a '46 Chevy sedan, a '50 Chevy truck, and a '70 Skylark. My father still wishes he would have kept his '86... It was a blast to drive.
Yep...them fuggers knew what they were doin' back then. One of the few cars I actually want from the 80's.
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Yea, they can be made to be PRETTY nasty. And their stock suspension is SCARY if their turbo's have been upgraded.
I had to stop the video at the very end to see it, but is that the dyno readout that says "Max Power=1076.7" or something similar?
Bought one new in 86.Lot of fun with that ride plus 23 mpg on the hwy. Put 170,000 miles on it too. Weird car though,consider a state of the art engine with rope seals on the crank stuffed into a metric 64 chevelle ch***is. That was the eighties though,Buicks motto"We Brake For Corvettes!" Oh, the TV commercial with George Thorogood "Bad To The Bone" didn't hurt any either
Rode in a GNX some years ago and it was pretty impressive. The same guy owned an SVO Mustang with the turbocharged, intercooled engine and was even more impressive given the small displacement of the engine. He let me take the SVO out for a spin and I remember thinking that the SVO engine is a small roadster would be terrifying.
Neighbor is dong some paint work to one in his shop right now. It has 17, thats right, 17 miles on it.
i bought one new in 1987.put in a kennybell chip and a speedo adapter to fool the 123 mph factory shut off.one of the fastest street cars i have ever driven.i bought a nos kit for it and i still have it sitting on the shelf.figgered the wife might hit it by mistake.i put 200,000 hard miles on it before the rust up here,killed her.
I was into drag racing magazines back then, and I always remember seeing the grand nationals pitted against the fox body mustangs, it was not uncommon to see a buick, and a mustang both with 12-14 inch slicks pulling the front wheels 2-3 feet in the air off the line.. they used to piss me off to, because I was a diehard V8 fan and those buicks ate up most V8's.
Had a 84 Buick Regal T-Type. Two tone, dark siler and black. I have only seen one other one like it. New off the showroom floor, I paid $10,700. You never knew how fast you were going cause at 85 MPH the speedo would start flashing 85 and not go any higher, but once you got over an estimated 100+ MPH the front end got light and scary. I still regret selling it.
We were testing a small fleet of them at E**on Research in 86-7. As a test car lab techm I got to "test drive" them quite a bit! Wound up buying a new one for myself. GREAT car. Only problem was everybody wanted one. Mine was stolen TWICE. Totalled the second time, when the guy rolled it over, being persued by the cops. Wanted to use that driveline in one of my cars, but seems they always went for a lot of money at the auctions, even when they were in BAD shape.
Yeah it is.Easy and cheap to correct with S-10 springs in the front,stiffer supsension bushings and Camaro IROC rear springs.
I just sold a WE4 car about 6 years ago, they are great fast cars with just a few mods. It was my first performance car with a computer and injection, I regret selling that one. A friend of mine bought it and turned it into race only, currently knocking on the 9 second door. I was running 20 pounds boost on the street and when it spooled up it was a freaking rocket. I followed alot of Red Amrstongs thinking to get it fast, I too wouldn't mind that drive train in an old car.
No kidding !!! We were going up a curving onramp at close to 100 mph (from almost a standing start) and he couldn't keep the rear wheels glued to the road so you know what the front end did . I needed an underwear change .
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