Idea on launch. Suggestions?

[HighMileage]

I'm really thinking about getting a built tranny and a 3,000 stall converter to match the new T60-bb turbo.

I *was* gonna do the turbo,tranny and converter all in one shot,but my stock turbo went bad. Instead of having the car down AGAIN,I'm just gonna drive it with the new turbo until snow flies. I have horrible 60ft times,but the 3,000 will change that. ( I am the roll-race king,tho! lol)
A stock converter is in there now.

A friend of mine doesn't think I will like the 3,000. He recommended using a MSD box and retarding timing at the line. Then he recommended this:

I was still thinking on your timing retard for launch.. What if you supply air pressure to the MAP sensor during launch so you get a lot of timing retard..(not sure what fueling is going to do) After launch a 3-way solenoid connects you back to normal. If your O2 sensor keeps your fueling in check, then you should be able to get about 30 degrees of boost retard, which should spool the crap out of your turbo. If you have a little hand pump, you should be able to do a quick test at home.

If that works, I can also show you how to do this electronically...MAP sensor bias.

Just thinking you will hate the 3000 stall converter on the street..

 

[JimP]

Contact one of the vendors here Dusty Bradford or Dave Husek and never look back. I run one of Dusty's 10 in lock up units, stalls around 2,800 rpm, car feels about a thousand pounds lighter.

 

[earlbrown]

If you supply extra air pressure to the MAP, your dash mounted boost gauge will read higher (since that's all the MAP does on our cars). If they MAP actually controlled fueling, you'd go rich as hell and the computer would have to drop the INTs and they would start pulling the BLMs... about that time you'd launch with raw fuel all over the place and after you blew out the fuel out and the engine cleared it's throat, you'd be lean during the pass.

If it's timing retard you want at launch, Bob Baileys chips have that as an option. Keep in mind, filling the manifold with extra raw fire puts extra heat and stress into the system.

 

[Nick Micale]

.........
A friend of mine doesn't think I will like the 3,000. He recommended using a MSD box and retarding timing at the line. Then he recommended this:...................Just thinking you will hate the 3000 stall converter on the street..

Sounds like your friend must hang with a "ricer" crowd as many of them launch like that, but with a TR there are better methods, and he also has no clue about a 3000 stall converter in a turbo Buick?

No matter what you do or what "assists" you may have off the line, the converter MUST be matched to work with the turbo for good 60' times.

If you actually plan to race the car and win, it has to be consistent, and again this is where the converter plays a very important part.

A local GN racer with a TE-60 has many wins with a converter that is even higher than a 3000 stall, and it is great on the street as well.

My advice to you is to find a friend or member that has a combination similar to yours, and has the credentials to show his accomplishments, and follow his plan rather than someone not really qualified on turbo Buicks.

 

[buickGN3:16]

9.5" art carr 3000 here, works really well for street strip combo set ups


Posted from the TurboBuick.Com mobile app

 

[HighMileage]

Thanks for the suggestions,guys. Yes,this friend of mine really doesn't have any background in turbo Buicks. The guys trying to help/suggest are 3 guys I have been privately emailing with for 10 yrs or more from imperialclub.com

We talk about car stuff mostly. Old 440 Chryslers,etc.

They have been interested in turbo Buicks since I got mine 4yrs ago. The guy who suggested that just bought a new Porsche.

I think I'll be ok with the 3,000 stall. Afterall,when I was 17 I put a Vega torque converter in my Powerglide equipped '69 327 BelAir.

I'll tell him what you guys said. His recommendation was a little over my head.

Thanks again.

 

[HighMileage]

Earl.. It's above my head again! I know that I know the answer to his question,but I'm drawing a blank.

I copy/pasted your response to him,trying to explain. He wrote back:

"Are you sure you trust this comment. How is the car getting the boost information for spark retard for boost.. If it does not have any feedback on this, then you might be running too much timing with the extra boost you are now running. I think if this were the case, you would have heard the knock by now, or seen the evidence of it. If he is right, I feel it would be worth looking into the safety of the extra boost you are running. Perhaps the stock tables have enough margin..or the alky you are running is enough..?

I know it is an older system, but I thought it would have had the smarts built in.."

 

[Red C5]

Earl.. It's above my head again! I know that I know the answer to his question,but I'm drawing a blank.

I copy/pasted your response to him,trying to explain. He wrote back:

"Are you sure you trust this comment. How is the car getting the boost information for spark retard for boost.. If it does not have any feedback on this, then you might be running too much timing with the extra boost you are now running. I think if this were the case, you would have heard the knock by now, or seen the evidence of it. If he is right, I feel it would be worth looking into the safety of the extra boost you are running. Perhaps the stock tables have enough margin..or the alky you are running is enough..?

I know it is an older system, but I thought it would have had the smarts built in.."

I think you're more than good trustuing Earl and Nick. Send him the pic from Nicks signature
As far a 3000 stall, no problem there. My GN had a 3500 stall and it saw more street time than track. Stick with the guys that have years of proven results.

 

[earlbrown]

Earl.. It's above my head again! I know that I know the answer to his question,but I'm drawing a blank.

I copy/pasted your response to him,trying to explain. He wrote back:

"Are you sure you trust this comment. How is the car getting the boost information for spark retard for boost.. If it does not have any feedback on this, then you might be running too much timing with the extra boost you are now running. I think if this were the case, you would have heard the knock by now, or seen the evidence of it. If he is right, I feel it would be worth looking into the safety of the extra boost you are running. Perhaps the stock tables have enough margin..or the alky you are running is enough..?

I know it is an older system, but I thought it would have had the smarts built in.."

Don't know if you can trust my comments or not ....... BUT the MAP sensor ONLY runs the dash's boost lights. The computer has no idea how much pressure is in the manifold. So to answer your tuna's question, the ECM doesn't get boost information for spark retard and boost. Spark retard knowledge comes from the ESC circuit.


That's why we have to have knock detection tools to tune. The loose nut behind the steering wheel does the boost .vs knock settings.

 

[HighMileage]

Yeah.. I don't know,Earl. You could just be throwing me a bunch of hokum.

They are just a bunch of guys trying to help out. Plus,they seem curious as to how these cars operate,which I think is cool. Sometimes they throw unorthodox (there's a word!) questions at me that are way over-thunk'd. I'm pretty much sold on the 3,000 converter for my combo,but they think it will make my car unstreetable and try to help.

So,thanks for the help on this.

Btw,my household breaker in the ashtray is working like a charm. No more relays and signals or whatever..
The only problem is I can't get the ashtray lid shut. So,I will have to fabricate another mount to drop it 1/2in or so.
Gotta find better screws,too. ...or countersink the hunk of AL that I fab'ed. Still in useable rough draft stage.

 

[earlbrown]

Grab that flap of pot metal on the bottom of the lid with some channel locks. It'll break off clean.

 

[JimP]

The car will still be very nice on the street, better overall as a matter of fact, it's too bad you weren't closer, I'd let you take mine for a spin. Even when I had a PATS 3,200 the car was a pleasure to drive. The PTC has improved overall drive-ability in every single gear and rpm, range. My TE-60 was recently rebuilt with a garrett dual ball bearing center section (757197-5001S P-trim it should be similar to yours) my current converter is the PTC 10 inch (245 mm core) 2,800 stall. I'm installing the turbo tonight but it's cool here the high is 7 degrees Celsius today so this won't help with traction even with drag radials. I'll come back to this post and let you knowhow it works. The rest of my mods are in my Sig.

Hope this helps provide you with some confidence, my single greatest mod was a good converter matched to the turbo, no regrets.

Jim

 

[sscamino]

I had a Pro torque 3600 stall with a TE-67 ,it was too much for the street,fried the tires and the trans temp was higher than what I wanted.When I changed things a little ,had ProTorque resatall to 3200 and put a B&M trans cooler 11x8x1.5 .The car is more streetable,reacts better and temp is lower than engine temp ....and they didnt charge me for restall. 3200 is a great street -strip convertor .

 

[Nasty Wendy]

Idea on launch. Suggestions?

I was going to suggest a Reuben but .... nevermind


You've gotten great advice from everyone here. Your friend's concern about the 3000 stall converter tells that he isn't used to cars that make good torque. A converter can't really be be a x rpm stall converter. It is built to a certain degree of looseness or tightness. The tighter the converter the lower the stall speed and looser means higher stall speed. The power that your engine makes is going to determine what rpm the converter stalls at. If you take a converter that stalls at 3000 rpm in a bone stock engine and put it in 4.5L Stage 2 that makes 800+ lb/ft of torque that converter will stall much higher because of the torque made by the stronger engine. Keeping that in mind think about how loose a converter has to be to stall to 3000 rpm in a torque anemic import. The power that a stock GN makes would more than likely stall these cars' stock converter past 3000 rpm. The GN can stall a fairly tight converter to 3000 rpm and what makes a converter 'streetable' or not is how loose it is. You may not notice the difference between the stocker and a 3000 rpm stall while doing normal driving.

 

[2QUICK2B6]

I had an old lock up art car 3200 with a TE-60 instant spool and car felt fine on the hwy ... I would roll into the beams put the car in neutral rev it up an press the brakes ... vaccume brakes then build as much boost as I could best 60ft was 1.55 would tote one tire a lot on dr's ... the launch in my avatar is with the stock long block 3200 art car an te60 on dr's

best 1/4 on that combo was 11.40's I bet I could have dipped into the 11 teens with a converter from dusty

 

[we4Mateo]

Yeah.. I don't know,Earl. You could just be throwing me a bunch of hokum.

They are just a bunch of guys trying to help out. Plus,they seem curious as to how these cars operate,which I think is cool. Sometimes they throw unorthodox (there's a word!) questions at me that are way over-thunk'd. I'm pretty much sold on the 3,000 converter for my combo,but they think it will make my car unstreetable and try to help.

So,thanks for the help on this.

Btw,my household breaker in the ashtray is working like a charm. No more relays and signals or whatever..
The only problem is I can't get the ashtray lid shut. So,I will have to fabricate another mount to drop it 1/2in or so.
Gotta find better screws,too. ...or countersink the hunk of AL that I fab'ed. Still in useable rough draft stage.

View attachment 204659

I think they don't realize how simple these cars are. We're talking total first gen sfi and electronic spark control. The ecm really does have no idea how much boost or even air is coming in at wot. There are translators out there that allow a certain modern chip to read actual airflow at wot, but that's new tech using old hardware as a foundation. It's kinda nice though too as there isn't much in the way of modifying these cars either ie: crank the boost and make sure you spray enough gas of enough octane to prevent knock and not go too lean. That's it. You will also be fine with a 3,000 stall. You may not actually spool that high depending on your turbo, cam, and timing down low, but it'll help launch spool tremendously.

 

[87GNSteve]

It was a dirty trick the GM engineers pulled on the poor 3.8. Its poor brain doesn't even know it has a turbo hooked up to it, for all it knows it thinks it powering a FWD Electra taking Granda Ma to church.

 

[earlbrown]

...and grammy had an attitude!