It's all about the first 60 feet
1986 Buick GN. Stock motor & turbo. Little things done...
Drive It Like You Stole It !
Launching a TR to get the 60 foot time down into 1 and 6 tenths second territory is what it takes to run low 12s with a stock combo. (or nearly stock as mine is)
To increase the cars brake holding power for racing, I've upgraded my rear brakes with soft compound, long shoes front & rear, S-10 pickup wheel cylinders and an adjustable brake bias valve to reduce rear brake lockup tendencies on the street. I've also added a Biondo linelock and recommend one if you want to keep your brakes cool to enable max boost launches.
The whole point of this is to maximize the boost as soon as possible in the run. Usually my boost gage is at 24 psi within a couple of feet of the starting line. The trick to that is having the brake upgrades on the rear and a 2,800 RPM stall converter.
My technique for launching is to bring the RPMs up to about 2,400 before lighting the pre-stage beam and when my opponent goes in I nudge forward till I've pre-staged also. As soon as the other car is staged, I bring the RPMs up to what the brakes will hold and bump the brake pedal till the car is fully staged.
When the yellows start down, to launch hard, I floor the gas at the 2nd yellow and let off the brake on the 3rd. With my GN this yields low 1.6 second sixty foot times and the LF tire gets a little air. (about the same feeling as being rear-ended by a bus <lol>)
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This is what I've done to my car by porting the stock turbo, adding the larger intercooler neck and a few other airflow improving mods. In my opinion, there were a lot of built in restrictions in these cars as they came from the factory and it's been a interesting to me to find these bottlenecks and remove them. Sometimes I would do something that seemed as though it would make a bit of improvement only to find out at the dragstrip that it didn't help at all. After not too many of these disappointments I realized that if something were improved upstream, a corresponding improvement would need to be made downstream on the engine. A friend calls this "Chasing the cork." An added benefit is that the horsepower increase hasn't placed the extra burden on the engine that pumping more air in with a larger turbo would do. In over 200 1/4 mile passes, I have never had a headgasket failure or any kind of motor damage. Reading the list of parts below may be misleading to some extent unless it's kept in mind that some of the parts were installed with future upgrades in mind. They're not all necessary to get a Turbo Buick into the low 12s. If your plans are to improve the performance of a Turbo Regal, I'd like to first congratulate you on your choice of cars and hope that the experience returns as much fun for you as it has for me.
Performance Stats; Best 60ft: 1.62 Best 1/8: 7.62 Best 1/8 mph: 90.54 Best 1/4: 11.98 Best 1/4 mph: 113.46 Altitude Corrected 1/4 Mile - 11.80 @ 115. 24 Rear Wheel Horsepower - 413 Flywheel HP - 507 Awards and/or Trophies received 55 Show awards (1 best of show) Performance Modifications Turbo: Ported stock turbo w/Stage 2 inlet bell (compressor ported to match) Injectors: #36lb (Blue Tops) Convertor: Transcrafters Orange Stripe Chip: Jay Carter Street & Red Armstrong 108 race Intercooler: Modified Neck Stock Heads: Stock Engine internals: The only modfication to the engine was installation of 100# valve springs Gauges: Digital EGT w / hold, GNX dash, Caspers knock detector, Trans Temp gage. Exhaust: Hooker 2.5" Duals Boost control: Adj. Stock Special Notes: Car has all options except digital dash,
rear def. & block heater.
Former Vice Director - Ok Buick Performance Club Misc.: Alcohol Injection Postons Ceramic Coated Headers Installed Nov, 99
August 2007 Motor freshened by Tracy Hooper. Upgraded Parts include Edelbrock 204-214 cam, ported heads with O/S Manley SD valves. Miscellaneous under hood parts powder coated or polished.
Nov 2007 16X8 Enkei GNX style rims Goodyear Eagle HR 225-65X16 front & 235-60X16 rear.
Rims polished by www.ohppolishing.com
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