1987 pro-touring grand national, from the ground up
- Thread starter dsapper
- Start date
I would use black center caps and get a set of black lug nuts also. Save the bling for the outside rim and the brakes.
novaderrik
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 12, 2004
polished center caps and chrome lug nuts will offset the black a bit.
I like the black center caps better.
They are Johnny joints on the top of the housing and on the control arms. Its a TrueTrac posi. I looked at moser for a 12 bolt but by the time I had the axle retainers and modifications I wanted on it there was just to much cost. Plus I really like the ford 9" with a diff cover, first time I've ever seen that.
GNXwannabe
Member
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2006
Polished centers and chrome lugs get my vote.
Looks great! Why did you go with a ford rear rather then just beefing up the stock 8.5? Also what are you going to do for fuel lines, I'm guessing custom bent SS? Keep up the good work man! I would let that shop build my car and not worry, looks like there doing a hell of a job to me.
HelloBozos
A Bozo in Buick
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2011
Finaily More car's to Corner with me!!...Great Job, I'm next on this whole frame off body deal'e'o..It's just that time for it..You putting any type roll cage in this car? You know you have to go to the frame with it.I like your choice powder coat, my BMR tubular front upper an lower a-arms came that way. Watch your down pipe to Rear upper arm distance, it can be close,i used bronze bushing so don't melt. Hope that tranny came with warrenty..heh..When that Alky hits, it's Adois Amigous!!!
Enjoy! Please keep the info comming
Bozo
(ps theres couple video's mine playing around on my profile)
Enjoy! Please keep the info comming
Bozo
(ps theres couple video's mine playing around on my profile)
Great work so far. LOVE the concept. Questions:
1) Any reason you didn't go with the tall AFX spindles from SC&C?
2) How do you plan to keep this beast cool on a roadcourse in Nevada? I roadrace a Player's Camaro and the needle never even moves, but my Buick would likely start on fire if I drove it that hard. Roadracing you'll be under full boost probably half of the time. Thoughts?
3) Powermaster?
1) Any reason you didn't go with the tall AFX spindles from SC&C?
2) How do you plan to keep this beast cool on a roadcourse in Nevada? I roadrace a Player's Camaro and the needle never even moves, but my Buick would likely start on fire if I drove it that hard. Roadracing you'll be under full boost probably half of the time. Thoughts?
3) Powermaster?
Stock 8.5 would have taken a beating plus GM rear ends are dangerous for road racing or high performance driving. They have c-clips so if you break an axle the wheel just falls off and something bad then happens. You can get c-clip eliminators for the rear ends but they are made more for drag racing, I've tried 2 different kinds and they always bend and start leaking after 1 or 2 hard runs on a road course. So that leaves 2 options, go with a ford 9" or get a 12 bolt from moser, currie etc and get Ford Torino ends on it and still get ford brakes etc. But then you have weird axles and still overall a weaker rear end. By going with the ford I leave open 100% of the massive ford aftermarket parts, get a removable third member and the stronger rear end. But honestly the Nascar diff cover sent me over the edge, kind of looks like a modified gm rear end now hah.
For the fuel lines I have the stainless steel coming from the engine and tank from Brian at gbodyparts.com. We will make the middle section from scratch.
No roll cage, its more of a street car than anything. I'm of the opinion that without a helmet on roll cages are more dangerous for a driver than having none. I'm assuming you mean front control arms? These aren't normal bushings but if they get to hot there can still be problems. I coated all the exhaust so hopefully that will help, I'm also considering having the factory heat shield remade for the passenger side exhaust. The tranny actually has a lifetime warranty upto 800 horsepower and is currently working in 1200 horsepower cars so I should be ok.
1. Yes! I actually wanted to but the brake and wheel/tire combo couldn't be solved. Nobody knew what the correct offset would be or what wheels would clear the spindles, it was very frustrating. The setup I went with gives you the same geometry but without as much of the "cool" factor. ATS was owned by a guy in Vegas named Tyler, cool kid about 26. They made the spindles while in Vegas and he had another kid working with him that had a Grand National. So ATS got sold off and is now in California and that kid didn't go with them and sold his buick. Now nobody has any idea wtf is going on. None of the wheel companies had any idea and the brake company wasn't any more help. So it was either keep buying 800 dollar per rim wheels with 4 week lead times or go to the tried and true method with the baer spindles. Long answer haha
2. Yes, Nevada. Well I've done this in Vegas a few times with quite a few different cars. I've coated the entire exhaust, from the turbo housing to the test pipe, with 2000 degree coating to keep engine compartment temps down. I purchased a high volume water pump and a large 3 core aluminum radiator. I'm putting functioning GNX vents in the side with the inner collars and copying GNXray with the inner headlights for extra ventilation. Also, out here anyways, you don't have any need for anitfreeze so I run pure distilled water with redline waterwetter, drops it another 10 degrees. I'm also going to be leaving out the rearmost weather stripping on the top of the hood for extra ventilation. If that doesn't work I can get a bit more exotic with a few ideas and worst case scenario is wrap the exhaust on top of the ceramic coating.
3. Vacuum actually. Powermaster isnt an option, so that leaves vacuum, hydraulic and manual. I've had personal bad experiences with hydraulic on these cars, needless to say when the car dies so do the brakes. Manual isn't for me as much as I plan on driving this on the streets. And I've heard very positive things about the vacuum conversions on these cars so thats the way I'm going at least at first.
PS thanks you guys for the real questions, started to feel like an episode of "Days of our lives" in here
I've got some pictures of the watts-link setup being installed. I mentioned before I had it re-powder coated black instead of the red. The brace is installed and also the edelbrock braces to the upper and lower rear control arm mounts. The tabs were a bit big on the edelbrock braces so they had to be shaved to fit in the lower control arm brace but they look like they were made for each other now.
They have to fab a bracket to hold the watts-link mount and swaybar mount on the same location since going with a ford 9" I lost the extra room on the axle tubes. Hopefully that will be done this week and I can get those powder coated and installed. That would be the last thing needed on the suspension
They have to fab a bracket to hold the watts-link mount and swaybar mount on the same location since going with a ford 9" I lost the extra room on the axle tubes. Hopefully that will be done this week and I can get those powder coated and installed. That would be the last thing needed on the suspension
BAER ss4
