new owner of 84 gn. what should i do with it?

R

Racecar_Dave

Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2016
i wasnt really looking for a grand national but one happened to pop up in my craigslist needing some restoration for a price i decided i could gamble on.

Heres the details.

1984 Buick Grand National. the turbo motor is currently out of the car with a bad case of failed rings. the turbo needs a broken bolt extracted, the drivers side manifold is cracked, the throttlebody is in a box along with turbo and crossover pipe. I am missing some parts like the distributor or coilpack, mass air meter and plumbing and im sure some other things because when i asked for the bolts that went to the engine he couldnt find them.

it is also in need of some minor rust repair on the corners of the doors and on one side sill.

it has a set off all cloth leir siegler seats that i have never seen before in a gn. they say "Grand National" right on the head rests and look to be over 30 years old. unfortuantly i purchased the car from a cigarette smoker so it has that delightful smell (currently fighting it with my ozone generator)

i havent been able to find the rpo sticker in the trunk but im not exactly sure where i should be looking.

The car currently runs and drives and has a 4.3 carb'd crate motor in it.

Heres my questions. What makes a grand national valuable? should i work to restore the originality of the vehicle and its engine? should i replace anything else in the motor in addition to rings and bearings? since i require both intake and exhaust plumbing should i update it to 87 plumbing and add an intercooler? Should i just buy a blow through carb and build a turbo for the 4.3?
 
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Nice find!
If it was me an my car to do as I please,I would hit the forsale section on here an buy that complete 86/87 cold air motor an never look back.them seats are worth what you paid for the car.happy boosting .
 
Value aside

You will enjoy the car a lot more (parts availability/ performance / ease of maint)
 
Upgrade the motor and keep the original one if your worried about that. You will find all the parts on here that you need and the seats are awesome.
 
You asked for opinions, so here is mine!

If you are really enamored with a GN and want to have fun and great performance with it, your smartest move would be to convert to the 1986-7 intercooled set up.

No matter what you do with the hot air configuration, it will still be a slug, a nightmare to work on, and still will cost you a bloody fortune.

"What makes a GN valuable", in one word - PERFORMANCE!

From an investment point of view, an intercooled conversion will make this car more valuable than with the hot air mess under the hood.

A turbo 4.3 will kill the value and your check book, and still not achieve the performance of the 1987 conversion.

Wish you the best in this project! :)
 
I'm with everyone else here. Ditch the 4.3, and don't look for an 84/85 setup to swap in. Hot-air is terrible, and really only worth holding onto for restoration purposes and making trailer queens. If you want it to scoot and impress at the same time, and aren't looking for a car-show-only trailer queen, swap out to an 86/87 setup. It will certainly increase the value over that 4.3L, too, keeping it all in the 3.8L family. The 86/87 ECUs and other parts are a dime-a-dozen, relative to the 84/85 parts, and the 'wow factor' stays intact with a 3.8L setup. Find a 109 block engine from the 86/87 cars in the 'for sale' section on here, and swap it in instead of a 4.3. There are a few other things that need to be done, but if you can pick up an 86/87 longblock and ECU to match, that's 95% of the parts you need. You can also kind of convert the 84/85 block to be similar to an 86/87 block, but they're not 109 castings, so you can't run crazy horsepower on an 84 like you can on an 87.

Good find!
 
kjizzle said:
You can also kind of convert the 84/85 block to be similar to an 86/87 block, but they're not 109 castings, so you can't run crazy horsepower on an 84 like you can on an 87.
Click to expand...

I take exception to your statement that the 109 block is superior the early blocks in strength because both blocks have the same weak area which is the web between the cam bore and the crank bore.

The experience we have with broken 109 blocks is the web mentioned will crack or split, and the immediate symptom is lack of oil pressure.

We have put 600 RWHP to many early blocks and they have survived at that level, and like 109 blocks it is a crap shoot of how long either block will survive at triple the original factory rating?
 
I stand corrected, then. I thought the hot air blocks were the same as the NA blocks.

Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk
 
Being only 2000 made and maybe 1/4 of those not turned into the famous hot air hack jobs I would personally stick to its originality because they're very few original 84's left if I owned it. 84/85's will never be fast or valuable as an 86/87 even though it's rather rare. The demand is just not there for them because general bad condition of most 84/85's. I have to disagree with Nick on a LC-2 swap and I highly respect his word but like he said 84/85's are expensive to maintain and source oem parts for. The correct seat covers are $1200 alone not including shipping and if a shop puts them on just to give you an idea of what kind of a money pit this can be. And no those are the original seat covers either. If the 86/87 appeals more to you then sell the 84 and buy one. Making the 84 right is going to cost you thousands. Putting in and sourcing a complete LC-2 with all the accessories (harness, ecm, radiator, sensors, relays, fuel lines, brackets, etc etc etc and the tranny is another issue.) will run several thousand. In the long run the 86/87 will be the better choice due to its higher resell value (usually triple or higher) over the 84/85's. It's your car and money though and most importantly your choice of what direction to go with.
 
i figured restoring and keeping everything 84/85 would be best thing for its value because of the low number made BUT because it needs things like bondo (or new doors) and a paint job not to mention a rebuild of my current hot air motor and sourcing the undesirable missing parts and missing key documents like the RPO codes That my 84 could never be a barrett jackson car. So instead i have purchased a complete 87 motor from a fellow member and he has agreed to allow me to help him remove the old motor and take as many pictures as my sd card has room for. he has also assured me that he would include everything i needed to swap my gn with the exception of a 87 downpipe.
 
Shawn N said:
Alot of 85's have 109 blocks.
Click to expand...

Where did you get this information?

I have dealt with many 85's over the years, and never seen a 109 block from the factory with a 109 block?

There were some blocks in 1985 from the factory that used the 109 pan and timing cover, but were the same internally and same deck height, and they did not have water drain plugs in the block.
 
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