Virginian's

TURBO6 IS BACK

Hi Guys and Gals, Bill from Va Bch here. Been gone a while, catching up now. Yes Red, you most likely have seen me over near Jefferson and Mercury, I work at the shipyard on the USS RR.. Nah, I don't like parking her over there so usually only on fridays I might take her (If it's sunny out, ha ha). I know Frank Baber over at Performance Buick/Pontiac in Suffolk, guys a legend, I have never met anyone more knowledgeable about these cars, not to mention the fact that he can HOOK YOU UP! Great guy to know, that is for sure. I am considering selling my latest 87, all stock, never modified, great shape, all receipts since new etc.. Got a line on a really nice one in Illinois, thinking of uggrading to show car status =-) I am reasonable on price, especially to fellow owners, it really is a sweet car and very well cared for mechanically.. looks great, just not a show car, I finally can afford one I think and want to upgrade. If anyone knows of someone looking, this one is not ragged out, give me a shout, I have not advertised it, just got around to contemplating letting her go. I will get another though, so it's fine. siuwed@aol.com
Bill
 
show car ? who has time for that.

put the money into going fast and lets all go racing.


i hear alot about that guy at performance but from what i've seen come from being worked on by him has a lot of $ in go fast parts and they're not all that fast .

i havent met him that i know of so i cant really say its him but i have seen some pretty slow cars that the owners say that he works on and tunes them.

not my friends cars tho so i dont know if they push for the fancy parts or if he just puts them there.

if your coming over this way give me a shout sometime

757-570-4403
 
RACE

I did not mean PARKED show car.. >=-) ha ha ha.. No way I am having something and not enjoying it. Clarification: I now own my third GN. My first was an 85 when I was 20, destroyed it and rebuilt it several times racing it, learned on it basically, gave it up when (now x) wife blew motor. Second car was hopped up 87, great deal, fast when bought it, ate money like king kong loves bananas, sold it because of money probs, kid blew it up, I ended up helping him rebuild it over the next year and decided I could never again live without one of these cars, but I wanted one that was not raced with no troubles. So I found my current one, retired navy commander, had her since new, garaged for past two years due to prob that he invested over 7 grand at dealer trying to fix. I took her home, swapped some sensors, turned out to be the MAF, and BINGO.. I had my happy daily driver.. =-) She is pretty, she runs and drives great and turns a lot of heads, gets tons of compliments etc.. But she does have minor flaws, and certainly would not be cost effective to show really, no car that has been driven that much could be without so much detail work that I really do not see myself ever having time to do. I have decided that since I will always have one, I want to get one that is immaculate, and at least I can just maintain that, but I want go fast as well. I can afford around twenty grand or a bit more now and I am seeing some VERY NICE ones out there in that range. You know, the ones with 3 or 4 thousand on them, garage kept, spoon fed warm oil on cold nites, hand butter rubbed with qtips when dirty? ha ha ha.. I would rather let the one I have now stay stock and go to a good owner than tear it up racing, it's in pretty good shape and never breaks down. Anyway, that's my reasoning. =-)
Frank Baber, nah, he gets them after someone spends a fortune on fancy goodies and the car will not run right, then he fixes a 2 grand problem in about a minute for free... Any parts you can't find, he has them tucked away, all I know is that he has showed me a lot of things that made me feel really stupid when I remembered the money I spent trying to resolve them in the past. Any buick dealer in the area will refer you to him for technical work on these cars, he is the area expert. One look at his cars and it is apparent why.. ha ha.. He does not buy his parts, he MAKES them himself mostly.. Alright, hopefully it will be nice out today, I need to wash cars and oil change and all, have a great day. Bill
 
Frank Baber

Gonna jump back in here b/c of comments about Frank...

I use to drop by the shop just to hang around if I didn't have any other plans & would chat a little while he worked - there are not many mechanics that I would feel good about poking around under my hood, but I would feel 100% certain that I'd have no complaints w/ Frank. He worked incredibly fast (probably due to lots of experience), was always 100% on the work he did, and didn't mind that I was looking over his shoulder.

With that said, I don't want anyone to think that he's the kind of guy that thinks "the customer is always right", if you know what I mean. I tried very hard not to get in his way while he was working, and I'm sure he would have let me know if I did. I just say this basically to let anyone know (if they haven't met him yet) that my impression is that he is a 0% BS kind of guy & don't waste his time or think he'll be impressed b/c you might own a GN, (b/c he won't.)

I know of one guy that Frank did some work for who wasn't happy, but I won't say anything more b/c I don't know all of the details. Frank never tried to sell me anything, and probably didn't care if I ever bought anything from him or not. He even hooked me up once with a spare motor for my Powermaster that he had lying around. If big $$$ cars that he worked on are "slow" I'd be curious to hear more details about them. I don't know how good his tuning skills are, but all of his cars were faster than mine. He seemed more of a mechanic than a tuner when I got out of the Navy back in 97, but his tuning knowledge seemed as good as mine if not better. He never said anything that I disagreed with. If anything, I'd think that Frank set up the cars to run reliably and not fine-tuned-on-the-ragged-edge, which anyone that has done so knows is a pretty time consuming task. I imagine that Frank can only have gotten better between 97 and now, but I don't want to get in a big arguement over it, so I'll just shut up about it at this point. Sorry for the BW, but don't think I'm trying Kiss A** or nothing, it's just that I get really long winded sometimes...

BTW, can anyone give me the latest on his metallic pearl Limited w/ the GNX flares & the Hurst Lightning shifter? If you've seen it you know what I'm talking about. TIA.
-Greg
 
No BS

Hi Greg,

You hit it right on, the guy is no BS. If he is in it for the money, he is not getting rich off me.. lol.. I cannot count the times he has stayed late to work on my car without even charging me, or even the parts that he has provided at his cost which happens to be much much less than anywhere else. Steered me away from being ripped off quite often, found me parts that supposedly did not exist anywhere in the world, gone over my car top to bottom showing me what was what. I think he is in it for the love of the car, no other explanation. The T-Type, yes, I know the location.. SWEEEEET CAR!! It is inside the dealership in a reserved spot under cover.. 4 inch homemade MAF sensor feeding a monster turbo. Doing leather seats himself, last I saw it.. I know I was in awe.. what a sweet car!! You are right, I have a ton of go fast knowledge, he refocused me on keeping my car and engine in one piece, and did so in a way that made me understand the sanity behind his advice. He gets my business, that's that. I am out, have a great nite.. Bill
 
cool good to here some good reports... i really need to go meet him myself since i just posted what i,ve seen and who they said worked on them..

i dont know these guys personally just people i seen at tracks around here and when they start talking about the mods on the car i usually ask who does the work on the car mainly just to see who messes with them .

i do know of one over here that has a motor by him that the first one he did locked up leaving the shop or something and he did the motor again. it has i think it was a 212 or 218 cam ported heads and lots of other things and the car is dying to stay in the 12's and has run many 13 second passes he was at the track when we took my buddy's internally stock GN to the track and went best that day of 11:59 street trim or not ported heads and cam it should go much faster

who knows its most likely the owners messing with them till they flat out run like poop. we all know that you can buy all the parts they make for these cars but that dont meen it will run.

im going to make it a point to go meet this guy.
maybe we can learn some stuff from each others experiences.
 
Virginians

I would also be interested in meeting all of you guys at Cecil or VMP. I am just a beginner but I should be finished with my mods by March 1st and will be looking to make my first ever pass down a dragstrip. It will be fitting that it will be in a Grand National. Never ran any of my other cars {72 Nova, 75 Camaro LT, 2 Stealth RT's "slow", 91 Z28, 68 Shortbed C-10 which I just sold to get money for the GN}. Let me know fellows.
Stixx 11
 
im looking to go to vmp when they opem next month

i need to get a few problems fixed but hopefully i'll be ready then we can post in here before we go and possibly meet up there.

see ya at the races...:)
 
Inquiring minds...

Know where VMP, but haven't heard of Cecil or MIR. What tracks are those? Where are they?

-Greg
 
QUESTION

Hi guys, I would like to know how much improvement was gained on your cars by gutting the cat, or a test pipe. I assume one is as good as the other, I am thinking of a test pipe though to save the cat. I may do some mild mods to mine not to race, unless it's kicking someone around on the street.. 14" K&N, Valve cover vent, adjustable fuel reg, 160 thermostat, thinking about the thrasher chip (any experience there?). Already have a syclone pump since I replaced the tank and pump last year so that is good to go. I don't want to break the car, but I would like to have some good kick, let me know what you think. I am also interested in slightly wider tires, what will work on stock rims? Any way to go to a 16" tire by changing rims without having spacers and all that snazz? Thanks.. Bill
 
Cecil amd MIR are up in Maryland. Some people call MIR Budds Creek. Maybe you have heard it called that.
Later
Chris
87 GN
turbo less
 
Re: QUESTION

Originally posted by siuwed
Hi guys, I would like to know how much improvement was gained on your cars by gutting the cat, or a test pipe. I assume one is as good as the other, I am thinking of a test pipe though to save the cat. I may do some mild mods to mine not to race, unless it's kicking someone around on the street.. 14" K&N, Valve cover vent, adjustable fuel reg, 160 thermostat, thinking about the thrasher chip (any experience there?). Already have a syclone pump since I replaced the tank and pump last year so that is good to go. I don't want to break the car, but I would like to have some good kick, let me know what you think. I am also interested in slightly wider tires, what will work on stock rims? Any way to go to a 16" tire by changing rims without having spacers and all that snazz? Thanks.. Bill

man gut that thing it not like we have emission testing here just visual so i'd leave it on but gutted.(like mine)

dont come ride in my car if you dont want to do much to yours it will ruin you and then you'll have a different outlook and start making it faster and that gets expensive.

since your from va. beach you should hop on this site it dont move very fast but on the weekends it will give you an idea of were everyone is hanging out. i just pick on the guys on there alil most of them know my car.hampton roads racing

i ride around on 16's without spacers but the fronts rub some in a hard dip but with a lil more backspacing they would be perfect .
i've got 245/50/16 goodyear gsc tires on it on 2000 s10 extreem wheels.. i got a pic here but its not that great but its the only one i have in the comp now with the extreem wheels on it.
 

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i wanna play to...doesn't matter which track it is, i'm pretty close to all of them....i got it good....
cecil couty, 75/80, MIR, VMP, Old Dominion( sucks ), Capitol Raceway...i can't think of any others...
 
you re kinda in the middle of the good tracks lucky you..:)

once tracks open i'll post in here any time i think im going to the track and others can do the sme if they dont mind company..;)
 
Virginians

Maybe we organize a semi-formal meet of Turbo Regals of VA to start the season. We can do a little tailgating and bulls#$% and have a good day. I am in and will probably have the slowest car there but it will be a very clean specimen. I am sure Peterkin will be in. Red you can take all of us for a ride in your fast car.
 
I'm definately in for this...I'd love to get you fellas inquiry's on tweeking my car, and talking GN bull...name the time and place!
I'm there.
 
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