Here is my take on conversions, I have a garage full of parts, years of money and more headaches than I care to talk about. One thing I can agree with everyone is if you are NOT willing to learn with a HA, sell and get a 86-87 intercooled. If you can tune a HA, you will be able to tune ANYTHING.... HA are NOT forgiving. Not every HA is the same. Lee Thompson started a revolution, a HA that was faster than it should have been. Jaime, Brent, Eric and John, all have pushed their way into the Fastest HA cars. I am sure that many more will join them. It took years, time, money and determination to get there. I have been on this forum since the early 90's and have seen all kind of setups. Personally, the biggest gain is the least liked, NOS. My 85 with a ATR 2 1/2 down pipe, K&N filter, Kenne Bell HA Nitrous chip and a hot wired XP and Kenne Bell Ext. Pump gained hp with NOS. On a HA, a 50 hp shot was worth 80-90hp. I pushed MY LIMIT with 90hp shot (worth 130 hp). I ran 12.79@109 best. When I say MY LIMIT, I limited my NOS to 90hp (although Kevin @ NOS said I could have SAFELY went with a 125 hp). I was running as fast as the intercooled guys in 1990-91. At the time, NOS sold a intercooled kit and I took the nozzle and placed it in the back of the intake just like the alky guys did. Trust me, I did my homework. Hundred of phone calls to NOS and Kenne Belle. The Kenne Belle HA Nitrous Chip WAS THE ONLY chip for HA on NOS. I think Jim Bell only had 3 of them
. It had the speed limit moved up to 160 mph. If I popped my hood, you would have never found it.
My next phase was removing NOS and adding a intercooler. I started a research journey that took me from Spearco, Turbomotion and JS Manufactoring. I have a section of a garage with said equipment in various boxes. I considered also adding 86 intake and removing intake restrictions. I am like alot of HA guys, learn from others mistakes. Parts do NOT make you fast. Tuning your combo to run of the edge does! I been dealing with my car 25 plus years. I did discover that the Department of Energy had 5 HA cars in Oak Ridge, TN running on E85 back in 1984-1985. Buick used propane injection to pressurize and push e85 via a 30 gallon tank. Note Buick logged mileage for the e85 and the gasoline in comparison. Interesting the HA picked up 48hp/95ft torque just by using e85. This made the E85 HA fast. Only major issue was one we already know about, cold starts below 32 degrees. In 86, Buick added a intercooler and the HA cars were replaced. Same conversion, minus the propane. They had bigger fuel pumps and some chip mods. End result was after a year of testing, better emissions than gasoline, 310 hp using E85. Well guess what? Some Turd Burglar released the report to GM Brass (Chevy). GM told BUICK, kill the Grand National NOW... Buick did not even get a 1988 version of GN. We ALL KNOW WHY. If the GN had have been sold in 1988, you could have bet it would have best emissions of any GM car with 310hp. CAN YOU SAY VETTE STOMPER....
Sorry for this history lesson
. With this being said it is really your choice what to do with your car. Adding a intercooler would net 20% (40 hp, according to Spearco). Adding E85 would at close to 25%(48-50 hp). Adding alky would net 25-30% (50-60 hp). Adding NOS would net 45%(50 hp shot =90 hp).
With any HA design you need to do a lot of reading and research first before you decide how you want to do things. We don't tell you how to do it because each car is different as much as the owners are different. The HA guys don't have the Borg mentality that most of the IC guys have. The parts are different other than the block and head parts, and hard to find.
