Hello all. I have had my 87 we-4 for about 6 or 7 years now. I have spent an absolute fortune on this car and am getting to the point that I am getting tired of it. I loved this car and swore I would never sell it, but I made some choices on mods that I regret and can't/don't want to try and put it back the way it was. I miss being able to put the family in it and go out to dinner, or to jump in it and drive it to work without pulling my hair out. The car was built with a goal of 9 second power that would be used mostly on the street. Not necessarily able to run 9's because the suspension/tires are not there, but make enough power that in theory you could. I wanted to be able to outrun the z06 with a 20 year old 6cylinder and a back seat while retaining air conditioning and all creature comforts. The car has many loose ends, and is far from where I intended it to be, but it is drivable. I had the car baseline tuned by a local shop and was completely disappointed with the numbers and have since lost heart in the car. My question is: do I take the car to where I had the engine built and have it properly tuned, make big numbers and try to sell the car together? Or do I part it out, and rely on name brands and reputations to sell the parts? Thanks for reading, look forward to hearing some thoughts.
Thinking about selling my we-4.
- Thread starter seeyabye
- Start date
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For some reason people keep buying into the "we have a 9 second car and we drive it everywhere" thing. Bottom line is if you're making power to reliably run in the 9's, you're giving up comfort/drivability/reliability. Whether you run race fuel or alky, you still need a cage, tires, and all the crap that goes with it.
From my experience, low 11's can be driven daily with no ill effects.
I'd say keep the car until you reach your goal, then make your decision. 9's aren't easy, I don't care what somebody says on the Internet.
From my experience, low 11's can be driven daily with no ill effects.
I'd say keep the car until you reach your goal, then make your decision. 9's aren't easy, I don't care what somebody says on the Internet.
I understand that 9's aren't easy. I also know that it is not cheap. I have to check my records and receipts, but I believe I have spent over $25k on drivetrain. The big number I was referring to was rwhp. I don't care if the car ever runs 9's or even 10's, that is not why I built it. I think you are right about 11's. In retrospect, I should have left the car alone when it was in the high 11's. I think the biggest mistake I made was trying to go too big. Instead of jumping up one size turbo, I went 5. Instead of getting Champion heads, I got the Champion GN1R race ported heads. Instead of getting forged pistons, I got the stroker crank and rods with forged pistons, girdle, billet this and billet that. Before I knew it, the car had a cage, complete Aeromotive fuel system, custom built downpipe, and the Big Stuff 3. Now I can't even tune my own car! GRRR!!!
I know it's frustraiting but I'd say put it to the side for a while. You had big expectations and it's been disapointing but take a break and look at it after a month or so. If you still feel the same then get rid of it and wait until you find the one you want. I started 2 years ago with a rust bucket and I've been in a simular funk but I just got a better body now along with a crate engine so it's on now for sure.
GNBRETT
Pelennor Fields
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- Feb 8, 2004
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- 15,860
Bring it to Bigwood.
Couple things....
First, you've had the car 6 or 7 years, so, you should know whether you are going to miss it or not. That should factor in here.
Secondly, your "goals' are rather hard to understand. What is it, some meaningless number on a dyno that will make it all worth while for you? I don't get it??? If you are not going to race it, why did you cage a street car? You just lost some of the creature comforts you claim to desire right there.
Figure out what you want, and perhaps you can still get there. There shoud be no regrets for the overbuilt engine. Even the heads. Screw it, just means that you won't need to push it so hard towards it's limits. I think what you should do is downgrade. Sell off the turbo for something more mild. Go with a stock ECM and a simple tuning setup. Get a converter with friendly street manners (like the Edge Racing converter I recently installed and love). Soften up your suspension a bit if it's too unfriendly. Most things you need to do to return to pleasant driveabilty are very doable. The worst thing is that cage, but you could likely get it removed and fixed.
Salvage your car, or sell it off and buy one that is already set up how you want. To me, that is a negative because after 7 years, this is YOUR car, and you should be able to make it into what you want. And it means something more when you put the pieces of the puzzle together yourself. Anyway....
Good luck.
First, you've had the car 6 or 7 years, so, you should know whether you are going to miss it or not. That should factor in here.
Secondly, your "goals' are rather hard to understand. What is it, some meaningless number on a dyno that will make it all worth while for you? I don't get it??? If you are not going to race it, why did you cage a street car? You just lost some of the creature comforts you claim to desire right there.
Figure out what you want, and perhaps you can still get there. There shoud be no regrets for the overbuilt engine. Even the heads. Screw it, just means that you won't need to push it so hard towards it's limits. I think what you should do is downgrade. Sell off the turbo for something more mild. Go with a stock ECM and a simple tuning setup. Get a converter with friendly street manners (like the Edge Racing converter I recently installed and love). Soften up your suspension a bit if it's too unfriendly. Most things you need to do to return to pleasant driveabilty are very doable. The worst thing is that cage, but you could likely get it removed and fixed.
Salvage your car, or sell it off and buy one that is already set up how you want. To me, that is a negative because after 7 years, this is YOUR car, and you should be able to make it into what you want. And it means something more when you put the pieces of the puzzle together yourself. Anyway....
Good luck.
Well, as my uncle once told me...."If you're going to invest a lot of money into a car, you might as well keep it because if you sell it, you will pretty much NEVER get back out of it what you put into it."
Will all your parts, I'd guess you'd come out ahead selling them off the car individually as opposed to selling the car all together.
Sounds like you had a case of the "bigger is better" syndrome. Been there, done that....and would do it all over again if given the chance. As in "not go so big". Last engine I did I stuck in a little too big of a cam, i should have listened to my elders when they told me a 240/246 duration cam was too big for a 396 big block.
Not sure what all you did that you regret....but something I once was told....is you start from stock....build the engine/trans to have a bit more power than stock....then build the suspension to hold it to the street....once you get tired of that you redo the engine/trans for a little more power, then again redo the suspension to hold the new found power...then repeat and repeat....it's sort of like a stepping stone...you upgrade one thing at a time...not just take a huge leap and go all out in the deep end before going in the shallow water first.
Of course I was recently reading a thread here where people said that unless you're just hard core racing the car every weekend and not ever driving it on the street, that a cage was really not worth the money or the crawling over everytime you went to get in and out of the car, or the inability to use the rear seat, or the constant noise a cage induces into the car, or even worse the possibility of smashing your skull into the cage if you ever wrecked on the street in which you'd most likely not be wearing a helmet.
Will all your parts, I'd guess you'd come out ahead selling them off the car individually as opposed to selling the car all together.
Sounds like you had a case of the "bigger is better" syndrome. Been there, done that....and would do it all over again if given the chance. As in "not go so big". Last engine I did I stuck in a little too big of a cam, i should have listened to my elders when they told me a 240/246 duration cam was too big for a 396 big block.
Not sure what all you did that you regret....but something I once was told....is you start from stock....build the engine/trans to have a bit more power than stock....then build the suspension to hold it to the street....once you get tired of that you redo the engine/trans for a little more power, then again redo the suspension to hold the new found power...then repeat and repeat....it's sort of like a stepping stone...you upgrade one thing at a time...not just take a huge leap and go all out in the deep end before going in the shallow water first.
Of course I was recently reading a thread here where people said that unless you're just hard core racing the car every weekend and not ever driving it on the street, that a cage was really not worth the money or the crawling over everytime you went to get in and out of the car, or the inability to use the rear seat, or the constant noise a cage induces into the car, or even worse the possibility of smashing your skull into the cage if you ever wrecked on the street in which you'd most likely not be wearing a helmet.
86WH1turbo
Broke
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2009
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- 100
I was in your shoes about 6 yrs ago. I had a camaro that I bought when I was 19 and went through a lot of money to do this and do that. I was always wanting to go faster but the reason I bought the car was to enjoy and go out with friends or a little street racing. But no matter how fast I always wanted faster and eventually ended up were you are. I had a car that was almost impossible to drive on the street and with the 6 gal fuel cell I couldnt get far if I wanted to. But one day I realized what I wanted to be fun turned into something that couldnt be enjoyed at a track. I got frustrated thinking what a pain in the rear it would be, not to mention all the work and money to get it where it is, to put it back to a more streetable and fun car again. So, I sold the car. I have been through about 20 cars and thousands and thousands of dollars since then trying to find the one I could enjoy. I did find one in the Buick I have now but one thing I can tell you is it would have been a lot easier and less expensive to stick with what I had. Not to mention, since a number of the ones I did buy were more trouble than they were worth, I knew what I had in that car and you cant put a price on piece of mind. I regret to this day ever selling that car especially since I had a lot of memories in it and I swore like you to never sell it. FWIW let it sit for a year if need be. It doesnt cost anything to sit. You may wake up one day and be reinvigorated to change it to what you want. Best thing is, now you know what you want and you know what you have. Just my opinion.
Already tried that. Bigwood did the Big Stuff 3, the downpipe and external wastegate, and tune. Jay Carter is quite knowledgeable about turbo Buicks, but didn't seem too familiar with tuning the Big Stuff 3. Randy seemed quite knowledgeable about The Big Stuff 3, but not too much about Turbo Buicks.
The reason I went with the cage is because the car has T-tops, and I wanted to stiffen it up so that is handled better and didn't flex as much for when I do race it. My goal for the car was to be able to outrun a new z06, but to also be able to stop (Baer brakes all the way around), handle well (lowering springs, hotchkis sway bars, tubular control arms, boxed upper and lower rear control arms, etc) and still have ac, power everything, nice stereo, etc.
Thanks for all the good advice. I think you guys are right, I'll regret selling it, especially considering the loss I would take trying to unload it. I don't need the money, so I am going to look today for a place to store it for a couple of months. Maybe once it is out of sight, out of mind for a while I can get motivated again.
Have you thought about an LSx turbo conversion on it? I am seriously thinking about it with my gn. I love the car but, I want something I can drive anywhere and not have so many worries. 5-600hp is all i want, is that too much to ask for.
- Joined
- May 27, 2001
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- 9,489
Bring the car back and lets take another stab at tuning it. There are a couple of things that you need to take into account.
#1 - The turbo you have needs a lot of boost to make power. I didnt want to lean on the car that hard. If you want to turn the wick up, I'll turn it up as high as you want.
#2 - Our dyno is brutal on automatic transmission cars. You dont race a dyno. Ive had cars not even crack the 500 horsepower mark that ran DEEEEEEEP into the 10s. Stick cars get way better numbers here and run way slower.
Randy does know more about the BS3 than I do. That doesnt make me BS3 illiterate, he just works with it more regularly than I do just like I work with FASTs more than he does since I tune street rods for another company. I still think IMO the BS3 is a superior system.
If you want to sell the car because you want to sell the car, then thats cool but if you havent raced it and have no times to correlate with your dyno numbers, youre kind of jumping the gun. You could have so many other things going on that you should at least have the combination looked over again and put on the dyno.
Jay, I was not talking junk or shop bashing you guys. I am very satisfied with the downpipe. I am disappointed in the car, not in the shop. My disappointment stems from the car making the same power with the stock engine and bolt on parts that is does with a fully built engine. The other issue is that I have no clue how to tune the car with the bs3, and it seems that everyone I know or talk to knows how to use or has FAST. Not your fault, but I should have saved a couple of bucks and went with the more widely used system in the Turbo Buick community. I'll try and take it to the local 1/8 mile track to see what kind of times it runs and then bring it back up there and let you guys take another look at it before I park it.
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- 9,489
Well, just let me know. Maybe we're all missing something. More boost will definitely make more power tho. You can bring it up before taking it to the track if you want, just give me a couple of days notice.
I stand corrected. The car is actually slower than it was with the stock engine. Previously, with the stock engine the car ran 7.30@95. Last night, the best I could manage was 8.0@91. I was not trying to leave hard, so 60ft time was 1.80-1.90s. Frustrating to say the least.
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Bring it back out, dude. One way or the other, we'll figure it out. How much boost were you running, etc? What was your 60 foot like on the 7.30 passes?
The 7.30 pass was a 1.65 60ft. That was with the stock engine and just bolt on parts on et streets. Last night I was on 17" drag radials to clear the big brakes on the back. I don't care about the time really, but the mph is embarrassing. I think I messed up my throttle valve cable also, the car is now shifting really late under light throttle even after trying to adjust it. Once I get the cable replaced, I'll bring it back and see what you can do with it. The only thing I have really done to it since you guys had it is replaced spark plugs and coil/ignition module and a bad vss. It is still on about 19 psi boost and whatever timing that was programmed. I finally got my computer to communicate with the bs3, but I have no clue what I am looking at.
Turbo Indian
worlds quickest 6cyl bird
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you should seriously have someone that knows bS3 to help you get a handle on the basics, weather it is BWR or a local person. you think you have a bunch of $ in your car now... run it without knowing what is going on with the program, then you will find out how expensive things can get.
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- 9,489
Your car runs okay operational wise so the hard part is done. When you bring it back out, we'll show you the basics. There really isnt that much to it once someone explains it to you. Starting from scratch is a different story but just making small adjustments is pretty simple.
Just give me a call.
Just give me a call.
you should seriously have someone that knows bS3 to help you get a handle on the basics, weather it is BWR or a local person. you think you have a bunch of $ in your car now... run it without knowing what is going on with the program, then you will find out how expensive things can get.
Yeah, I wouldn't chance making any changes. The only thing I am using it for now is a very expensive scan tool.
