Performance tips needed for recently purchased 89 TTA

[Fastbird]

Happy to say I just purchased a 89 TTA! I am very familar with traditional Pontiac V8's but know very little about the Buick Turbo. I would greatly appreciate any performance tips any of you have. Thanks.

 

[Captain Mark]

Welcome to the club! What mods does your car currently have?

 

[Fastbird]

Captain Mark, The car is bone stock with 41,000 miles on it. Thanks

 

[The Swede]

Originally posted by Fastbird
Captain Mark, The car is bone stock with 41,000 miles on it. Thanks

KN filter
Thrasher street/strip chip
Adjust. fuel pressure
A good tool like, Scanmaster, Turbolink or Scantool
Slick tire
Lot of practice at the the track.

 

[rastaz]

The Swede basically sums it up if you don't want to mess around too much with a stock car. Check out the small mods and performance numbers in my sig. for an idea. I also have an adjustable FPR and a fuel pump hotwire kit.

 

[Gokou]

One very important mod was forgotten... yank the cat and get a test pipe on there! That makes a BIG difference!

I'll also add the following easy mods to the other recommendations:

SPRING CLEANING - clean out the intercooler and throttle body!

bypass throttle body coolant lines
valve cover breather / cap stock vent to turbo inlet bell (2nd breather too if you want to change the p/s valvecover)
fuel pump hotwire (a must!) and you might want to consider a new fuel pump, I'd be worried about a 41K mile stocker.
RJC powerplate

I'm following the same route with my car. I didn't want to mod it extensively but I wanted to address many shortcomings from the factory while at the same time getting more performance out of the car. Look at the webpage in my signature below and check out what I have done for mods.

 

[70Firebird/TTA]

For lasting effects....I would do oil change/tranny flush and differential fluid changout.

SYNTHETIC OIL a MUST! I use Castrol 10w30 FULL SYNTHETIC...Mobil 1 is great also..your preference.
Make sure you have the correct high perf oil filter with the "anti-bleedback" valve to prevent dry starts. I use FRAM HP4 which is huge and holds over a quart of oil instead of the puny 1/3 quart for max oiling.

For diff I went with 2 pints of "GM" brand fluid with the 4 oz GM Limited Slip additive.

Tranny was fully flushed when I bout my car with 20,000 miles...with Dextron 3. and of course the John's Perf Custom Oil Breather cap with K/N filter.

That should do for starters.

 

[Lee_Burough]

Reference site

You'll find an abundance of information about the LC2 engine at http://www.gnttype.org/

 

[Fastbird]

I appreciate all the responses guys. I understand all you've said except for the fuel line hot wire kit. What is the purpose of this? Thanks.

 

[1BADDAM]

It increases voltage to the fuel pump by about a 1.5 volts, translating to +20% more pump volume.

 

[Gokou]

Originally posted by 1BADDAM
It increases voltage to the fuel pump by about a 1.5 volts, translating to +20% more pump volume.

Yep! The factory decided to use rather small wire to feed the fuel pump. This small gauge wire over that long of a span means a BIG voltage drop by the time it gets to the pump. On my car with the stock harness at idle I was getting 14.4 volts at the alternator but only 13 volts at the pump. Less voltage at the pump = less fuel delivery = much better chance of running lean and popping a headgasket. Definately one of the factory "weak spots." After I installed a Racetronix hotwire kit I was getting ~14.3 volts at the pump. Keep in mind that as fuel pressure goes up (boost), the amperage requirements of the pump go up, and that small gauge factory wire becomes an even bigger bottleneck! Definately should be one of the first (if not the first) upgrade you do on a TTA (or GN for that matter).

 

[Fastbird]

Thank you all for the advice, I appreciate the response. I'll post more in the future on this car. It's going to be alot of fun when I finally get it out and drive it (8" of snow currently on the ground) It will be interesting to see how it compares performance wise to my 1969 Firebird (562HP, 573lbs/Tq) Thanks again.

 

[SpeednV6]

You will need a good fuel pressure gauge to test and tune. You need to make sure you are getting enough fuel at WOT.