TurBording
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2002
Here's the scenario. My friend Paul is in town and it's been two years since he last went for a ride in the big bad GN. Now Paul is a long-time friend and we have a friendly grudge match going as his lifetime project has been a very sweet 1966 Corvair powered by a Buick high perf 455 hooked to an Olds Toro transaxle. (One sweet ride: http://www.mts.net/~lhonke/pbruce.htm ) The car is custom everything from the clutch pedal through to the center caps and has been a 20-year project of tweaks and upgrades. The car is as sweet as they come and totally bad ass.
So Paul is in town on business so we hook up in the evening to go for a ride in the GN and to go have some dinner and shoot the s**t on our cars. The GN is running great, the night is crisp and cold with the only problem being the road just ain't sticky enough - even after warming up those 50 series a few times. Even so, it doesn't take more than a few good roots to get a couple of good "hooks" and Paul is laughing like a school girl again on a first date. Since the last ride two years ago he has poured a ton of time and dough into his 455 for a full rebuild and even so that little 231-6 still has him still bowing down in respect.
Ya gotta love Turbo Buick V-6 power! It humbles even the big block Buick guys!
So Paul and I have a nice dinner, relive his last trip to the Montreal Formula One and than head back out on the road towards home. It's 12:00 a.m., the city is near deserted and the road is all ours, unfortunately with no one to play.
So after some fruitless hunting we cruise back towards my place to put the car to bed and lo and behold what do we come upon exept a late-model Mustang GT sitting at the lights waiting for a green. It's the Turbo Gods answer to a Buick guy's prayers looking to impress a friend with an easy but wholly respectable sacrifice - roadkill Mustang served piping hot!
So Mr. Mustang is obviously eager to get somewhere as he is half hanging over the sidewalk waiting for his green at which point we slowly creep up beside far enough from behind that he can see us shaking him down. "Hey Buddy, what ya got there! Is that a real car?" "Want to come out and play?"
Upon seeing us sliding him "the look" Mr. Mustang desides he should stage so he starts backing his car up so both of us aren't hanging into the intersection. (I guess this means we're gonna have us a little race here.)
So we're now both in position with Mr. M. throwing us some prelaunch revs so the spanking he is about to deliver us won't come as a complete surprise.
My comment to Paul; "You're gonna to enjoy this!"
Paul is all smiles as he knows what is coming.
The advance left-turn light goes green and I start building some boost on the GN when out of nowhere a police cruiser pulls up to the red on the cross street to our right just as we are about to launch. It's after midnight on a weekday, the roads are deserted and we pull a cop as a front-row audience 15 seconds after staging with a new GT after a full evening of hunting. There's no one else around for blocks, just the three of us, but it's as bad a mix of talent as you could ever want at a street race.
Of course the cop and his partner see the two of us waiting for a green and even a cop can figure out what is about to happen so we're instantly getting the laser look from John Law and his partner.
Busted without even busting loose. SH*T!
Needless to say on the green both us and Mr. Mustang crawled through the intersection like a couple of cowardly, law-abiding totally sorry-assed excuses for car guys. It was so embarrassing and to be honest it was all I could do to fight the urge to say to hell with it, this Mustang is going down ticket or no ticket but I wimped out. I'm so depressed.
What did I do wrong?? One minute the world is perfect, the next the Turbo Gods are peeing on my shoes and laughing at me. A Mustang is offered up as a worthy sacrifice and then snatched away again but seconds later. And it gets worse....
So we continue through the intersection and the cop heads the other way but the moment is lost in time. We do a rolling blast by the Mustang a couple of blocks further up when we know we are in "the safe zone" just to show him who is serving "smack" tonight and who is receiving but he doesn't want to play anymore. What fun is that?
So being responsible guys with wives and jobs Paul and I decide to call it a night and head back to the garage only to find out when we pull up that the GN is trailing a path of antifreeze down the road. What the hell happened here I'm thinking. A perfect race, an open road and then a last minute choke. It must have hurt the car as bad as me. Ever been draining a kidney and tried to stop half way through? Well the GN appears to have responded pretty much just like it feels.
So after all the excitement, the race that almost was followed by the big let down, it now appears that I even broke my car. The Turbo Gods must hate me. What can I have done wrong?
I parked the car in disgust and haven't been back to look but here is an odd problem to troubleshoot.
1. The car is leaking antifreeze somewhere around the front cover area but I can't see where. It is leaking a lot! Droplets galore but not a gusher.
2. The car is leaking only under boost. It does not leak while sitting and idling.
3. After shutting the car off there is still pressure some minutes later when you release the rad cap.
4. No antifreeze is showing up in the oil.
5. No antifreeze is leaking out of the rad or around any of the hose connections.
6. The lowest part of the engine front and crossmember is where it is noticably wet.
7. The back of the water pump pulley appears to be dry so the pump seems OK.
Has anyone experienced this before? My thoughts are an odd headgasket failure or an intake manifold leak that is pressurizing the rad under boost. Even so the leaking under boost is not pushing it out from the rad cap but from somewhere around the front engine cover. It is totally strange. If anyone of you has run across this type of intermittent failure (antifreeze leak) under boost-only mode before please give me some hints as this one has me stumped.
So with winter now just around the corner it is a fitting but disappointing end to the 2002 season but a good excuse to pull the engine for a winter project. From here forward me and the rest of us Northern dudes will have to live through the exploits of all you southern rides so keep the stories coming and I hope yo have better luck than my last hunting trip. Busted and busted - a nasty mix!
So Paul is in town on business so we hook up in the evening to go for a ride in the GN and to go have some dinner and shoot the s**t on our cars. The GN is running great, the night is crisp and cold with the only problem being the road just ain't sticky enough - even after warming up those 50 series a few times. Even so, it doesn't take more than a few good roots to get a couple of good "hooks" and Paul is laughing like a school girl again on a first date. Since the last ride two years ago he has poured a ton of time and dough into his 455 for a full rebuild and even so that little 231-6 still has him still bowing down in respect.
Ya gotta love Turbo Buick V-6 power! It humbles even the big block Buick guys!
So Paul and I have a nice dinner, relive his last trip to the Montreal Formula One and than head back out on the road towards home. It's 12:00 a.m., the city is near deserted and the road is all ours, unfortunately with no one to play.
So after some fruitless hunting we cruise back towards my place to put the car to bed and lo and behold what do we come upon exept a late-model Mustang GT sitting at the lights waiting for a green. It's the Turbo Gods answer to a Buick guy's prayers looking to impress a friend with an easy but wholly respectable sacrifice - roadkill Mustang served piping hot!
So Mr. Mustang is obviously eager to get somewhere as he is half hanging over the sidewalk waiting for his green at which point we slowly creep up beside far enough from behind that he can see us shaking him down. "Hey Buddy, what ya got there! Is that a real car?" "Want to come out and play?"
Upon seeing us sliding him "the look" Mr. Mustang desides he should stage so he starts backing his car up so both of us aren't hanging into the intersection. (I guess this means we're gonna have us a little race here.)
So we're now both in position with Mr. M. throwing us some prelaunch revs so the spanking he is about to deliver us won't come as a complete surprise.
My comment to Paul; "You're gonna to enjoy this!"
Paul is all smiles as he knows what is coming.
The advance left-turn light goes green and I start building some boost on the GN when out of nowhere a police cruiser pulls up to the red on the cross street to our right just as we are about to launch. It's after midnight on a weekday, the roads are deserted and we pull a cop as a front-row audience 15 seconds after staging with a new GT after a full evening of hunting. There's no one else around for blocks, just the three of us, but it's as bad a mix of talent as you could ever want at a street race.
Of course the cop and his partner see the two of us waiting for a green and even a cop can figure out what is about to happen so we're instantly getting the laser look from John Law and his partner.
Busted without even busting loose. SH*T!
Needless to say on the green both us and Mr. Mustang crawled through the intersection like a couple of cowardly, law-abiding totally sorry-assed excuses for car guys. It was so embarrassing and to be honest it was all I could do to fight the urge to say to hell with it, this Mustang is going down ticket or no ticket but I wimped out. I'm so depressed.
What did I do wrong?? One minute the world is perfect, the next the Turbo Gods are peeing on my shoes and laughing at me. A Mustang is offered up as a worthy sacrifice and then snatched away again but seconds later. And it gets worse....
So we continue through the intersection and the cop heads the other way but the moment is lost in time. We do a rolling blast by the Mustang a couple of blocks further up when we know we are in "the safe zone" just to show him who is serving "smack" tonight and who is receiving but he doesn't want to play anymore. What fun is that?
So being responsible guys with wives and jobs Paul and I decide to call it a night and head back to the garage only to find out when we pull up that the GN is trailing a path of antifreeze down the road. What the hell happened here I'm thinking. A perfect race, an open road and then a last minute choke. It must have hurt the car as bad as me.
Ever been draining a kidney and tried to stop half way through? Well the GN appears to have responded pretty much just like it feels.So after all the excitement, the race that almost was followed by the big let down, it now appears that I even broke my car. The Turbo Gods must hate me. What can I have done wrong?
I parked the car in disgust and haven't been back to look but here is an odd problem to troubleshoot.
1. The car is leaking antifreeze somewhere around the front cover area but I can't see where. It is leaking a lot! Droplets galore but not a gusher.
2. The car is leaking only under boost. It does not leak while sitting and idling.
3. After shutting the car off there is still pressure some minutes later when you release the rad cap.
4. No antifreeze is showing up in the oil.
5. No antifreeze is leaking out of the rad or around any of the hose connections.
6. The lowest part of the engine front and crossmember is where it is noticably wet.
7. The back of the water pump pulley appears to be dry so the pump seems OK.
Has anyone experienced this before? My thoughts are an odd headgasket failure or an intake manifold leak that is pressurizing the rad under boost. Even so the leaking under boost is not pushing it out from the rad cap but from somewhere around the front engine cover. It is totally strange. If anyone of you has run across this type of intermittent failure (antifreeze leak) under boost-only mode before please give me some hints as this one has me stumped.
So with winter now just around the corner it is a fitting but disappointing end to the 2002 season but a good excuse to pull the engine for a winter project. From here forward me and the rest of us Northern dudes will have to live through the exploits of all you southern rides so keep the stories coming and I hope yo have better luck than my last hunting trip. Busted and busted - a nasty mix!
