One more thing car doesnt have- ported heads

[VadersV6]

There were alot of things my car supposedly had and didnt have, and time keeps showing it all to be BS. Just takes 1 lying ass hole to start a lie that keeps passing from owner to owner. Sucks when you pay top dollar for a car worth a little over half of what you paid. I wont be able to get anywhere near what I bought it for, when I sell it. Then you chalk up all the thousands Ive thrown in ontop of that.
Ive repaired a million little things over the past year to improve driveability, idle quality, power, etc. The thing barely ran at all when I bought it. The intake gasket was the last thing I hadnt touched. I pulled the intake off this weekend and they used a steel pan gasket. There was no gasket material anywhere. Just steel. Is this normal? They used some crappy black RTV that was floating around everywhere but not serving much of any purpose other than to make a mess. I used a Fel-Pro pan gasket kit that was of far better quality.
Much to my disappointment, the heads were not ported. Deep in there, it looked like they had done some VERY light bowl work with a die grinder, (so little its not worth mentioning) and from what i saw it didnt look like they had a clue what they were doing. Ill bet this engine wasnt even rebuilt like they said. Probably just a head rebuild. It looks like they may have used some stainless intake valves at least. So anyway, I ported about the last 1 1/2" inches of the intake manifold runners, since thats the main pinch point. I cleaned the whole thing up, painted it, replaced the PCV grommet cause the old one was rock hard and not sealing at all...pouring oil all over the place and leaking mad air. I decked all the surfaces (amazing how warped this thing was everywhere), and sealed it all up properly.
The car runs pretty good now. Idles really well. The main thing is that now I can tear the tires loose in 2nd gear from a roll just by giving it 1/2 throttle. For guys who have done this- How much power is in the job that I did? 30hp maybe? What kind of ET/Dyno improvements have you seen with champion irons? Pulling the intake off on this car was a major PITA compared to my old car, so i wont do this right away...let alone doing a PITA head swap. But I do want to port a set of heads and lay them aside for a rainy day.

 

[jamericaniSS]

Man sucks about the new revelations about your car, hope it all gets worked out

 

[Raymond Bunch]

I almost got a headacke reading this. WOW! This really sucks finding out you bought something and it wasn't as described to the fullest. To me this type of crap and dishonesty is absolute BS.

In saying this if you need any help let me know and we'll set up a time to do it. Just send me a PM. Regards.

Ray

 

[DCVING 6]

They used some crappy black RTV that was floating around everywhere but not serving much of any purpose other than to make a mess.

You better make damn sure that the RTV didn't clog the oil pump pickup before you start driving it again... unless you want an excuse to re-build the engine.

That's too bad when people have to lie about the work done to the car like they did. Good luck with it.

 

[VadersV6]

Thanks for the offer Ray. I REALLY appreciate it. I put myself in a bad position. I had just bought a house and my drive to work was going to quadruple. Then the place I work was sold and moved to a city even farther away. I couldnt deal with the idea of having to drive a stick car with a heavy clutch in 35 miles of traffic each way, so i wanted to get an automatic car, and why not get the car I always wanted? A guy from this board was really familiar with these cars, and he offered to find me a good GN. Then I could sell my car, and then the same day, or the day after, buy the GN and I wouldnt have to be without a car. He found a GN, and I went to look at it, but couldnt go for a ride in it cause of a bad master cylinder. Well, I sold my 5 year old, immaculate cobra for 12,000, and I went to buy this GN, and found alot of things I wasnt happy with, but I had backed myself into a corner and had to get another car right away, or I wouldnt be able to get to work. The previous owner, or the one before that, had lied to this board member who found me this car, about everything, so its not like he knew what was wrong with it. One guy (kenneth kwak) started a lie, and it got passed from owner to owner to owner. I guess this Kwak guy had some work done on his house, (or maybe the guy after) but didnt have the money to pay the guy. So the guy who did the work said, "I like that GN. Howabout you just give me that car and we'll call it even". This Kwak (or whoever) guy made the car out to be something it wasnt, so it would seem like the guy who did the work was getting a fair deal. Well I guess this guy who got the car, ended up just parking it for 4 years. I think cause the master cylinder was out. (plus the car barely ran). He never registered it in his name. No one since Ken had registered it. When I got my new pink slip in the mail, ($600 later) it said that the date that the 107,000 miles was first documented was in 1994. (Carfax came out clean except for an excessive mileage claim at some point (100,000 miles) The speedo was disconnected when I got it cause the needle would bounce around violently and grind really bad. It took me 30 minutes to fix it. Wish this old owner would have done it. He neglected and abused EVERYTHING on this car. I think the original pink slip had been intentionally "lost" because it said the date for 107,000 miles was in 94. I did a write up about 6 months ago of all the things that I had fixed so far. In microsoft word, It filled like 2 pages. There is still a long way to go. At least the car runs pretty decent now, and pulls very strong. The cam has no flat lobes, the inside of the motor is clean, and compression comes out good. But I still have to have my tranny pulled for a converter swap, and I need my lockup circuit fixed (still no lockup). Need exhaust work done cause they cut the 4 bolt flange off for the cat converter and welded every component together (cant throw a DP or cat or test pipe on cause of this), the catback is totally rusted and full of holes. The front suspension is wasted. Needs shocks and brakes. Needs a proportioning valve and a brake accumulator. Needs a cam and crank sensor. Needs the AC pump replaced, as well as some component of the A/C system replaced under that shroud thing cause it leaks really bad. i charged it and it worked for a day, and then the pump started smoking and the belt was dragging bad and was blowing hot air....it really needs a whole new system. The whole passenger side of the car needs to be sanded down and get all the cracking bondo fixed, and needs to get repainted cause the paint is extremely thin. The weatherstripping is shot. I just dont know if I should keep fighting on, or just call it a day and sell it. It all depends on what this car may be worth some day. Given its questionable mileage history, I dont know what it'll be worth. If you stand back and look at the car, it looks like a really nice car. I get compliments all the time. But IMO, its just a polished turd. I wish "overhaulin" would just come and steal it.

 

[steve davis]

dont beat you self up too bad,most of all of us has done the same thing one time or another.i have put S15,000 in my car this year and i am not done yet ,but i love my car and iam getting it done just the way i want it done ill never get out of it what i have put in it ,but i dont care .i dont plan on selling it and as long as i am happy ,who cares.steve

 

[VadersV6]

I guess I expected too much after spending 12,000 bucks. Ive definetely seen far better turbo buicks for thousands less. I just wish people who dont have the skills and know how to own a 1975 taxi cab, wouldnt be allowed to buy a buick grand national. This guy was a careless idiot and a bold faced liar. Some people are just so short sighted and selfish that they dont want to consider just how expensive thier lies can cost the next person. And the next and the next. Theres that old saying Ive brought up before....It only takes 1 idiot to throw a pot of gold in a lake, and it takes all the wise men in the village get it back out....
So anyway, what do you guys think that intake port job was worth in power? Not really sure what it would be worth in a TR at 20psi. What could I see to gain by going to some ported irons at 20-23psi?

 

[steve davis]

Ported Intake Probly Not Much.a Set Of Champion Irons ,a Lot Maybe 50-70 Hp With Proper Tune,fuel Ect.JUST MY .02 CTS

 

[Gary Wells]

Brent:
Sorry to hear of all of the things discovered. Hope that everything straightens up and flies right.

 

[blown okie]

most of the cars i've seen on overhaulin, if they were mine, i would have rather them not touched a thing and let it be restored by someone that knows what they're doing, not by someone that THINKS they're a car guy b/c they can draw up a set of wheels that are about as practical on a car as they would be on a john deere tractor, and ugly to boot, plus would you really want your car done by cheap labor and rushed to do it in a week, not me. plus when they see the turbo six, nobody will even know what the hell it is or even be able to spot the turbo, they'll put a junk crate motor sb chevy in it, and think they've done you a favor.
anyways don't feel bad about what you've found out about your car. I know frustration, try converting a hot air to cold air one piece at a time, it seems like you never quit spending money, and then buy a complete car ( the 86 gn i just bought) for about the same or less than you've spent for a bunch of engine pieces. makes one question their own logic at times.
Don't sweat it. it's just money its made to spend and you can't take it w/ you when your dead. you'll see that its worth all the b,s,&
t's.

 

[VadersV6]

Sure you arent thinking of pimp my ride? Chip Foose is no half ass. When he sees a car with bondo on a panel, he cuts the panel off and welds on a new one. The entire car is stripped to the bone and nothing but top notch parts are put on. Now pimp my ride...yuck. They add about 80 pounds of bondo and dont touch the suspension, wiring or drivetrain. Because of recent criticism, theyve dropped in a couple crate motors without even cleaning the firewall or fixing the hacked up wiring. They install TV monitors on the gas tank so when the rear end gets hit, the wiring will ignite the gas in the tank and kill whoever is in the car. Especially after their lamborgini doors get stuck shut. They suck more than any car builder has sucked before. If Chip Foose doesnt understand something, he brings in someone who does. He really doesnt seem like some megalomaniac ass wipe like boyd coddington. Whats funny is that most of boyd's crew now works for Chip, lol. I would feel completely safe having Chip build my car.

 

[DMan]

The factory (and replacement) intake manifold gaskets are in fact steel. They seal fine if properly installed. RTV is usually placed in the corners where the heads, manifold, and block meet.

How much did you pay for this car?

 

[VadersV6]

$12,000
Given how thin that gasket is, you're pretty much screwed if a tiny bit has been milled off the intake and the deck surfaces arent totally square and the same height on both sides. There is no margin for error with such a thin sheet of steel. Kinda getting off the subject...Having square decked alot of blocks, I can tell you that these older factory decks can be cocked as high as .020", and one deck height is higher than the other .005-.020" on most of these old school blocks. Having your block decked doesnt fix the problem. They just zero the deck in (make the 4 corners read close to the same number), and then they mill off what they need to. To square deck a block, you clamp on a front and rear main cap, and mount a special fixture to the block. There is a big V shaped plate that has 2 surfaces that are exactly 90 degrees apart with 2 holes. One mounts on the front of the block, one on the rear, and then you run a long bar (which has been precision cut as well as the holes in those plates that the bar slides through), through the block. There are 2 cone shaped pieces that locate into the main journals on the front and back, and then a smaller rod that goes through the cam journal and holds the whole assembly together. This fixture/block assembly mounts in the deck cutter, and instead of zeroing (using a dial indicator) on the deck and just following the existing angle of the deck, you zero in on one of the 90 degree cut faces of this fixture. This way you end up with 2 faces perfectly 90 degrees apart, as well as a piston face that is perfectly colinear with the deck. Hard to get a "zero deck" when one end of the piston measures .020 deep and the other is at 0. Plus this improves quench and reduces detonation and fixes a whole host of other issues. Anyway, if everything isnt right, I dont see how the intake could seal when one head is cocked at an angle and will keep the intake manifold mating surface from sealing evenly all around. The Fel Pro gasket I got is thicker and can make up for various problems. I cant imagine that GM thought their machining process was so accurate that they could rely on a very thin sheet of steel to properly seal everything....especially under boost. Most of their gang tooling equipment is so worn out that you can have cylinders that dont have an exact pitch and unsquare decks, a drifting main bore depth, and on and on. They drill the main oiling passage halfway in from one side and then halfway in from the back side, and the 2 holes are usually really misaligned. This is another thing that has to be fixed on a race prepped motor. GM blocks were always the worst. Dodge motors were decent and Fords were the best on average. Im getting really off the subject here. Anyway, I wouldnt recommend that thin steel crap on any motor cause it relies on super precision machining and perfect repeatable angles on the intake gasket mating surfaces to seal....especially under boost! What are they thinking? Looking at my old gasket, it looked like it was leaking all over the place. Its not obvious, but if you look closely you can see where heat riser passages in the heads are leaking into the lifter galley, and intake ports are leaking from side to side as well as into the lifter galley, and out the top as well.

 

[DMan]

Well the factory gaskets do seem to work fine, so unless you've got major block misalignment issues, I've never heard of the intake gasket being a problem area for these cars.

As for heads, living in SoCal gives you a ton of options. A few years back I pulled my cyl heads off and shipped them to Oxnard, CA, where Todd McKenzie of McKenzie Cylinder Head will do an outstanding job. (He does all Duttweiler's head work - so he's pretty good). He did the heads and manifold. And at a very reasonable price.

Tell him Denis from Boston sent ya.

 

[Jerryl]

VaderV6,

I feel you pain ....... It is EASIER for me list the things I have NOT replaced!