So, got a 1987 that needs some TLC. Looking for advice on building something reliable and fast, sadly sacrificing speed.for reliability. Already got a race car that isn't streetable, and always needs something fixed.
Trying to get this Buick as fast as I can, as long as it doesn't need parts every week..
Any suggestions on parts as this progresses would be appreciated, so I'm not burning money foolishly.
So before I get into my response too far, here are us at RPS's personal car builds, and some of our customer's as well. I would suggest taking a look through each of them and see if you notice anything that everyone (or just about everyone) had done in their builds, and then take a look at what each build seems to be for, and what mods they are choosing to do in order to accomplish that. Link:
https://www.boostedrps.com/customer-s-rides
If I was you I would create a multi-point list of areas you wish to address on the car, and what your goals and budgets are for those respective areas.
For example, if you look at my build page on our site:
https://www.boostedrps.com/tyler you will see I break the build into different section; *Engine
*Engine Mangement
*Turbo System
*Fuel System
*Suspension-both Front and Rear.
Reason for that is that in order to have a fast-as in 9 second- street car that is reliable, you
WILL need to address something in each of those areas. Some more than others.
I would start with Your;
*Engine
*Turbo System
*Fuel System
I am leaving out Engine Management and Suspension because those things can change as time goes on, or as deals appear on the Part for Sale section or Advertiser Special section.
I would figure out what engine block you want to use to have your engine built with, and use that as your starting point. From there I would locate a good rotating assembly to put in it, along with some billet main caps (just the center two, you don't need the front or rear main caps), and then look for some good cylinder heads as well. If you go aluminum, I would suggest TA SE heads, and having Jeff Bird in Washington do the port work. I can provide you with his number if needed. We also sell TA parts (WE being our company- RPS - our website is
www.boostedrps.com ) and a BUNCH of different rotating assembly configurations :
https://www.boostedrps.com/rotating-assemblies and we actually are having a special on certain rotating assembly setups, and have 3 of these setups left. We should be receiving our billet main caps come November, which I would add into the mix for your build, and should have a cost of somewhere around $160-$180.
After that, I would look into what your ET goal is. Depending on what percentage this car will be driven on the street vs track, and what your ET goal is, it will have an influence on what turbo we would recommend. Here is a nice list of just
SOME of the turbos that we offer:
https://www.boostedrps.com/turbos we are the
only WORK Turbo vendor for the Buicks, and we have such a strong relationship with WORK, that we are allowed to sell their turbos for a bigger discount than what you would pay if you went direct to WORK. Selecting the right turbo will influence your downpipe selection and boost controller options as well. Your stock headers will work down to the 9s. The main reasons people upgrade their stock headers is; 1) Reduction in backpressure in the exhaust, which also makes the turbo not have to work as hard and reduces the amount of stress and strain on the turbo, 2) Appearance. Visually aftermarket headers just look much better. 3) Swapping to a 4 bolt turbine housing, OR going to an external wastegate setup (compared to an internal wastegate setup like stock) although people DO add external wastegates onto their stock headers. 4) Going to a twin-scroll configuration for the headers, which requires a twin-scroll turbine housing on the turbo as well. This is really used for high performance/high output setups, or people looking for the absolute quickest spooling of their turbo (Borg Warner claims that their twin scroll housing on their EFR turbo helps to reduce the spool up on the turbo by up to 1,000rpm-and that is because of the Twin Scroll housing, NOT their lightweight turbine wheel) and very precise boost control since you have to use 2 wastegates as well (assuming you have properly sized wastegates installed). In case you aren't familiar with them, here is a pic of twin scroll headers. These are my personal set for my Stage 2 header. Notice how the turbine mounting flange for the turbo is divided into 2 sections, and the crossover pipe that comes from the driver's side never meets up with the passenger header? The crossover pipe goes all the way to the turbine flange. Take a look:
Anyway, I hope that gives you an idea of one approach towards assembling a car/engine for your goals. If you have any questions, please call me at 707 362 6030 or email me at
1987GN@gmail.com
-Tyler
At the Bates show, I bought an EGR block-off plate that reads " FUCK YOUR LSX".....
I hope it sparks a conversation or two............ or maybe even a race.
I may or may not remember selling you that piece