Your opinion on wanting to buy a GN and looking at cars

[Grandnational81]

I am new here and figured I would ask people "in the know" about the desire I have to purchase a 87 GN.
I have a 1969 Chevelle that I am building as a drag car, it is a beautiful restoration on a completely rust free arizona car, The Chevelle will be a stock suspension based small tire (MT 28x10.5W) stock wheel houses, powered by a about 800 hp BBC. The car is going for cage work this winter and may run next year.

That being said I want a car that is fun to drive, not a super fast car, but I am not looking for a muscle car, the GN has always interested me but I am mainly worried I am going to spend 10-15k on a car that will need alot of work to stay running right, or lose a motor or trans and I will have another project car.

I found a 1987 GN in my area that can be had for 10k, it looks nice in pics, appears rust free, and was not driven in the rain or winter. it has 91000 miles on it and is mostly stock except for a manual boost controller which I am not sure what it does or why it would be on there without other supporting mods.
The interior looks nice, and is unmolested, it has the better stereo, std non digital dash and t tops

Is there is GN buying checklist lol? I am very mechanically inclined, but know nothing of the turbo 6 world.
Does the car sound like a good deal? and what should I inspect wen I see this car in person.
Is a high mileage GN still a good investment?

 

[SFITurbo]

Looks good....Miles not a big deal....most GN's have had the whip laid to them somewhat..tuff little effers though... You'll be entering a completely different world and love/hate every minute of it. Read some of Mean Chickens posts in the fish stories form and you understand these cars. They are not the "average" run of the mill muscle car.

 

[JC Turbo]

The car you posted looks like a T roof car by the bags in the trunk. If thats the case I'd check it real well for rust in the roof, floor and b pillar areas. All well know rust areas for T roof cars.

Sent from my iPhone using Turbo Buick

 

[INEEDAGN]

These cars will rust if you show them a picture of a salted road. Check front edge of t top weatherstrip close, as well as bottoms of the doors.

Driver side exhaust header ALWAYS cracks between 3 & 5. Make sure it's been welded up good. Pull intake hose off at turbo and spin it, check for play in it.

Powermaster braking system is JUNK in most people's opinion, plan on converting it to something else.

Stock fuel pump is marginal at best, upgraded in tank pump and hotwire kit arent too expensive. Stock or old school chip has too much timing for pump gas, modern chips are cheap, plan on getting one. You need some sort of scan tool to monitor knock under boost, they take a lot of abuse with no knock, but if you let it ping it can destroy about any build. Theres a spring cleaning guide and a buyers guide on gnttype.org. 91k is relatively low for the age. You won't get much lower for 10k even in a soft market. Don't blindly trust that 5 digit odometer though, use your common sense during inspection.

 

[ZNix]

My car has 120k miles on it now.. The last 15k were composed of constant abuse and has suffered through daily driver duty for two summers now. These engines are tough, as long as there is NO knock. Not a little, not a decimal, NONE. The transmissions do not typically just go on stock power. When you start to add things to make a little more potent, that's usually when the trans starts to shit the bed. All it took wipe second gear out of my car was 24PSI on a stock turbo using alcohol injection. If the car is clean and mechanically sound, I don't see how you could lose on the deal. Hell, I paid 8500 with only 10k more miles but my paint was shot. Speaking of which.. I have to start working on that.. Oh.. On a side note. GOOD LUCK KEEPING IT STOCK! That notion will last for all of... a week maybe? That's all it took for me to order an alcohol injection kit, injectors, and a chip . Do your reading. This site has a plethora of information available from little things like doing your brakes all the way up to full blown how-tos on engine builds. There is NO way I could have done without these guys. Being a young kid (compared to a lot of these old farts), I needed a lot of help starting out. These guys were there for me if I needed it with their wealth of information. Thanks again guys!

Suggested mod sequence:
Fuel pump + hotwire (maybe an adjustable fuel pressure regulator also)
Turbo Tweak chip and 60lb injectors (remember, I doubt you will keep it stock for long, this is for upgrade-ability. If you are going to keep it stock.. Just the TT chip)
Manual boost controller (car already has that)
Razor's alcohol injection
3" Downpipe (I like the Terry Houston style, but there are others out there)
F$$$ there goes second.. Trans Rebuild (combo should be good deep into the 12's at this point)
Want more? Turbo time! Your goals will determine the turbo (and likely stall converter)
The list goes on and on..

Zack

 

[Grandnational81]

You guys are awesome, thanks for the input so far.
Ahh knock, brings me back to my GTP days!
I had a black SLP GTX, and a total of 3 3800 SC cars- probably explains my feelings for another black car

 

[jasjamz]

Go for a ride in a low milage car that is a hard top or sunroof car. Use that as a benchmark of how it should ride. There are some amazingly fast cars that ride like a bucket of bolts and some that have amazing paint jobs that ride just as bad. Painting one to look nice is much easier that making it ride nice and tight. It takes a ton of time to get it back to good and tight. Look for signs of stress cracks above the drivers window on the roof and the top corners of the rear window. Look for cracking on the inner a pillar on t top cars.

 

[Grandnational81]

Go for a ride in a low milage car that is a hard top or sunroof car. Use that as a benchmark of how it should ride. There are some amazingly fast cars that ride like a bucket of bolts and some that have amazing paint jobs that ride just as bad. Painting one to look nice is much easier that making it ride nice and tight. It takes a ton of time to get it back to good and tight. Look for signs of stress cracks above the drivers window on the roof and the top corners of the rear window. Look for cracking on the inner a pillar on t top cars.

I hear you, I had a 78 monte carlo once and it had T tops, that car was a PILE and it seemed ok- even without the rear frame that rusted off, lol- I would have rather found a hardtop car, but I am going to check this one out, the only thing a G body has been good for for me in the recent past was to gut it and chop it up for racing on dirt, I am pretty sure if this GN becomes part of the stable it will remain relatively mild compared to some, I want the car to be nice enough for my wife and I to drive anywhere, If I want to go fast I will put a procharger BBC in my Chevelle, but the 496 will put it deep in the 9's so if I have a high 12 sec GN that runs and drives decent that would be all I want, I do not want to spend another $4000 at Strange Engineering for another 9" rear end...

Thanks for the heads up I will look for stress cracks.
I'm assuming getting it to ride nice and tight would require replacing all suspension bushings, shocks, and some front end parts, but I am willing to do that, metric cars are cheap to replace suspension parts on.

I already have my eye on some 235/60/15 BFG radial TAs for the front and some BFG drag radials for the rear, I am planning parts for a car I dont own yet, this is not going to end well lol....

 

[O SO LO]

http://www.gnttype.org/general/buyguide.html

 

[Grandnational81]

http://www.gnttype.org/general/buyguide.html

Thanks, great info!!

 

[S10xGN]

How about a '96 S-10 with GN drivetrain and Ford 8.8" locker? Not a GN, but runs like one and nobody will want to steal it. Looking to shop mine...

 

[turbo39151]

Where are you located? Maybe you can find some local experts to assist.

 

[Grandnational81]

Where are you located? Maybe you can find some local experts to assist.

Oshkosh, WI

 

[Grandnational81]

Well I went and looked at the 87 GN pictured in my first post, and I bought it! I inspected every inch of it and outside of being a 25 year old G body in quite original condition I could not find any extraordinary flaws. The test drive was fun but a little underwhelming, it ran out good and everything, but I am assuming a full front end chassis rebuild would bring a little tightness back to the car, the steering was sloppy. the car had the rattles and annoyances I expected, but the overall condition of the car was great. The felts/ weatherstrip on the outsides of the door against the windows are completely shot so that will be my first project
The car amazingly is RUST FREE, I looked it all over it is SO clean I can not believe it, it has been IL/WI car all its life but never seen snow salt and even very little driving in rain.
I bought it for $9300 so I am hoping I made a good decision.

Here are some pics if you guys have anything neat you can tell me from the tag in the trunk let me know, I think the car has the 3.42 gear/posi, and I hope it has the 8.5" rear end, dont remember what the cover looked like.

 

[Grandnational81]

Oh and the speedo cable may be bad it makes a wierd buzzing noise and the speedo needle kind of does a wacky dance
Also the fuel gauge pointer is pointing WAYY over full, the car has a full tank of fuel, (bad sender maybe?)
The brake master has been changed (to what I dont know but it is pictured above) The original master with the gray switch on it is in a box of parts in the trunk that came with the car.
It has magnaflow mufflers/system?
It has 255 wide tires in back, and 235s in front, looks ok I guess..
dopey plug wires and I love that radiator cap
and a stupid 90's alarm that is coming out!

here is a pic of the rear underbody

 

[ZNix]

That is vacuum assisted brakes. Find out where they attached the vacuum line coming out of the booster to.

Zack

 

[toofastforyou]

Well I went and looked at the 87 GN pictured in my first post, and I bought it!
I bought it for $9300 so I am hoping I made a good decision.

Congratulations on your "new" GN!...It looks like in pretty nice shape, and the price you paid is very reasonable too.
Funnily, it seems that several Buick GN guys also like Chevelles and vice versa. Like you, I have a GN and a Chevelle (also with a 496 engine)....and to top it off, I have two sons and one has a T-Type and the other one has (you guessed it), a Chevelle!

Have fun with your GN...

Claude.

 

[Firechaser]

Congrats on your new ride! I was heavy into the old muscle myself and still like them however their is something special about these GN's when you start to tinker with them...they just fly and the sound they make w/ a bigger turbo and good exhaust under boost is just wicked. One thing that may help your sloppy steering (besides obvious worn front end parts) is the Jeep steering shaft, do a search and read up on it. If your fuel sender is bad, might be a good time to upgrade the stock fuel pump to a fresh pump & hotwire kit, Racetronix has a kit for our cars and he is a supporter on this board. I say another year or so it will be faster then your Chevelle....with a 6 cylinder

 

[Grandnational81]

Congrats on your new ride! I was heavy into the old muscle myself and still like them however their is something special about these GN's when you start to tinker with them...they just fly and the sound they make w/ a bigger turbo and good exhaust under boost is just wicked. One thing that may help your sloppy steering (besides obvious worn front end parts) is the Jeep steering shaft, do a search and read up on it. If your fuel sender is bad, might be a good time to upgrade the stock fuel pump to a fresh pump & hotwire kit, Racetronix has a kit for our cars and he is a supporter on this board. I say another year or so it will be faster then your Chevelle....with a 6 cylinder

I am going to check into that steering shaft mod, it will get a new sender, pump and hotwire,

The Chevelle is an all out race car being built for NMCA Xtreme Street class racing (eventually) this GN is cool but will serve a different purpose and my goal is to get it into the low 13's or high 12's and drive it around with the AC on and keep it stock looking, thats it.. I can't afford another race car lol so I will research that out and see what would be needed to get er in the 12's.

Thanks to everyone who as shared info and comments I am looking forward to becoming a member of your cult lol...

 

[Phoneguy]

Congrats on your purchase.
I am also a previous owner of 5 Chevelles, the last was a 69 SS. I miss that car alot.

From the trunk code above your car does not have G80 which is the code for posi. This does not mean that the previous owner did not already add that.

Bryan