FullThrottle87
Member
Hey Buick gang, just wanted to make my not so short introduction. Long time lurker, new Turbo 6 owner! I live outside of Seattle, WA and am a lifetime professional mechanic who grew up around oldschool hotrodders building streetrods and mostly old Buick/Mopar/Ford muscle cars.
My love of Grand Nationals started as a child in the late 80's my best friends dad bought the most badass car in our neighborhood, a Black hardtop '87 GN with digital gauges and the G80 3:42 Posi. I was a young kid and riding around in the Buick GN with the boost pushing me into my seat and doing insane launches left a lasting impression on me forever! Fast forward 20+ years and I constantly thought about Grand Nationals and how I really couldn't think of a muscle car that I would rather own and be behind the wheel. Once I decided that it was time to finally own the Grand National I had lusted over so many years, it was a matter of finding a nice one with the options that I wanted.
This summer I decided instead of getting a piece of crap for less initial money, that I'd be wiser to spend a little more money for something that needed less work and restoration that I could enjoy driving while I made repairs and upgrades. After chasing many leads and looking at dozens and dozens of GN's, I ended up going cross country to Maryland and got a clean, all original 1987 Grand National 65,000 miles, factory stock. I had to have T-tops and the digital gauge package, this one was in good shape all around and it had all the options I needed and was in my price range. I was going to driver her back cross country but fear sank in and I wisely had the Grand National shipped out to Washington as opposed to stuck on the side of the road in Kansas hating life!!
When the GN arrived I immediately started doing the Spring Cleaning with full tuneup. I'm a mechanic for a living and the systems on the 80's SFI and GM engine management seem like back to basics compared to what I generally work on... I had a misfire going and diagnosed a bad coil (bad ohms) and replaced lots of vacuum hoses, on and on! Everyday the car got a little stronger and a lot smoother. I couldn't get the TPS to adjust out properly at full throttle no matter what I did and it just felt weird, so I replaced it and reset the TPS on my voltmeter. Finally got WOT and a good idle voltage, WHOA! I flushed out the intercooler and replaced all the hoses... basically just taking care of the mechanicals before I do some tasteful bolt on mods, keeping the stock appearance with the factory wheels, interior and trim. Now that I've got the Buick mostly parked for the winter I plan on pulling the cracked header off and welding it up with a gusset to reinforce it from future cracks, and upgrading the fuel pump and entire fuel system before I start spending money on more speed! I want a nice weekend or nice day cruiser that I can hold my own streetlight to streetlight with alot of the newer muscle cars you see all day on the roads. I'm going to drive the wheels off this car and keep cleaning it up and upgrading it making it nicer and better than when I received ownership of it...
My love of Grand Nationals started as a child in the late 80's my best friends dad bought the most badass car in our neighborhood, a Black hardtop '87 GN with digital gauges and the G80 3:42 Posi. I was a young kid and riding around in the Buick GN with the boost pushing me into my seat and doing insane launches left a lasting impression on me forever! Fast forward 20+ years and I constantly thought about Grand Nationals and how I really couldn't think of a muscle car that I would rather own and be behind the wheel. Once I decided that it was time to finally own the Grand National I had lusted over so many years, it was a matter of finding a nice one with the options that I wanted.
This summer I decided instead of getting a piece of crap for less initial money, that I'd be wiser to spend a little more money for something that needed less work and restoration that I could enjoy driving while I made repairs and upgrades. After chasing many leads and looking at dozens and dozens of GN's, I ended up going cross country to Maryland and got a clean, all original 1987 Grand National 65,000 miles, factory stock. I had to have T-tops and the digital gauge package, this one was in good shape all around and it had all the options I needed and was in my price range. I was going to driver her back cross country but fear sank in and I wisely had the Grand National shipped out to Washington as opposed to stuck on the side of the road in Kansas hating life!!
When the GN arrived I immediately started doing the Spring Cleaning with full tuneup. I'm a mechanic for a living and the systems on the 80's SFI and GM engine management seem like back to basics compared to what I generally work on... I had a misfire going and diagnosed a bad coil (bad ohms) and replaced lots of vacuum hoses, on and on! Everyday the car got a little stronger and a lot smoother. I couldn't get the TPS to adjust out properly at full throttle no matter what I did and it just felt weird, so I replaced it and reset the TPS on my voltmeter. Finally got WOT and a good idle voltage, WHOA! I flushed out the intercooler and replaced all the hoses... basically just taking care of the mechanicals before I do some tasteful bolt on mods, keeping the stock appearance with the factory wheels, interior and trim. Now that I've got the Buick mostly parked for the winter I plan on pulling the cracked header off and welding it up with a gusset to reinforce it from future cracks, and upgrading the fuel pump and entire fuel system before I start spending money on more speed! I want a nice weekend or nice day cruiser that I can hold my own streetlight to streetlight with alot of the newer muscle cars you see all day on the roads. I'm going to drive the wheels off this car and keep cleaning it up and upgrading it making it nicer and better than when I received ownership of it...
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