🔧 BUILD Quarter Life Crisis. It's a thing. v.GN

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Your highest dreams will not come true overnight, and even if they do your life will never be perfect. It took me way too long to realize that, but this car was the expensive lesson I needed to get me there. Let me explain.

I've been a Buick fanatic nearly my whole life. Being the owner of a show quality intercooled Grand National race car was a life goal of mine. After being fed up with an overly ambitious restoration project that wasn't even Buick bodied nor powered I dropped everything and gave up. The project got parted out, and I started shopping for something better. I couldn't afford a good Buick yet, so I looked for something I could fix up and flip. Meet Nacho!

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I had always had a little thing for El Caminos and I picked this beauty was only $3800. It ran like complete garbage, but it was completely rust-free! I thought that fixing the obvious vacuum leak would make this an easy $5000 car.

I brought it home and immediately removed the carb. Some goof put a spread-bore to square-bore adapter between the stock intake and quadra-jet.

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Score! I didn't want to fall in love with it, so I started taking it to cruise nights with a for sale sign in it. I even tried to road trip it home to Lisle, but I didn't make it far.

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I was about to stop for gas when I noticed white smoke rolling out behind me. I knew I was not going to make it, so I turned around. I knew it was officially game over when I heard a loud pop and saw a big splash hit the windshield. Only I would blow a head gasket and pop the radiator hose on a stock low output 305. :rolleyes: A tow truck got me the rest of the way home.

I wasn't taking a lot of pictures of my work back then, but here's a little taste of my first major start to finish engine repair!

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I had always wondered why the car ran so consistently rough and painfully slow, but I figured that was just the 305 life. As it turned out, this POS had terribly mismatched heads! One side was stock, and the other side had some kind of large chamber 350 head with a 305 gasket. The fact that it ran without blowing the head gasket for as long as it did was a miracle, but I was not happy about blowing the flip.

After scoring some very cheap ebay reman. heads, painting a few parts, and slamming it all together I got serious about selling. Within a couple days, I sold it to a very motivated buyer for $5100. After the purchase, tires, engine repairs, plates, and insurance, I made $200. Those were not the profits I wanted, but a profit nonetheless. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned.

Once again, I was without a project and still without a Buick. Depression resumed. I started my search for the "perfect" 30 year old car. Not wanting another basket case, but also not wanting to get hosed, I turned to the family friend who got me into Buicks in the first place. He helped me find "the one". Here I am in 2016 about to drive a Grand National and call it my own for the first time in my life.

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...Now the real story begins.

v6buicks

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What alcohol system are you running?

FWIW, if I still had a turbo Buick it would definitely be on corn. It's a toy, might as well make it a very fun one.
Razor.

I don't know, man. I'd rather dump this this turd on somebody whose got money to burn on a clean and mostly original car than risk breaking stuff with questionable modifications. FWIW the car is slow now and I still like it. I'll either like it more when it just starts up and goes in the spring without needing half of it's bolts and fittings re-torqued, or I'll just have a slow car that's easily worth more than what I paid. Either way, I win. I love the car, but I am not sentimentally attached to it at all. Is it possible to be sentimentally detached? Again, I love the car, but I actually have more bad memories with it than good. I will really just like GNs for what they are because they were what I wanted when I was four. lol It doesn't matter if it's fast or slow as long as my Grand National is all a Grand National is supposed to be.
 
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Jon01

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I get it dude. Like the lust after a Testarossa. They run mid 13's, ride like lumber wagons, etc...but god damn do I want one.

I don't have any experience with Razor's kit. I had an SMC system on mine back in the day if that tells you how long ago it was that I owned one.
Don't be afraid of E85, you're way more likely to hurt something if the alcohol system doesn't energize than you are if you get a tank of E70 vs E85.
 

v6buicks

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Guess what? I'm finally following through with something on this car! Back to stock(ish) is the plan. I'm actually going to keep the alky system for a bit longer despite it being my least favorite part on the car. I just don't want to go through with the hassle of removing it, tuning it, and having a hole in my gauge pod just to have a slower car.

Anyway, I found and bought what I thought was a reproduction of the stock MAF hose. At $50 I was disappointed to open the box and find out that the inside surface is just as rough as the outside unlike the original. I'm going to use it anyway for a couple reasons. 1) It's already here. 2) The outside still looks close enough for my half-assed restoration. 3) see my screenshot :ROFLMAO:
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So yeah, I'm good.

After a long, relaxing booze-fueled weekend at my future BIL's bachelor party in the Dells, I realized that I don't miss working on the Camaro. It was time to switch gears and work on something a bit easier. I'm probably this car's worst critic, but I despise the way this car looks and functions under the hood. The home made bracketry is trash, lots of parts don't fit right, and most of all, that POS aluminum MAF pipe and CAI is all hard plumbed. It needs to be completely disassembled in place if you want to remove any of those pieces. It takes at least 20 minutes which is stupid as hell when a stock system should take less than 20 seconds. Worst of all, this car doesn't even make enough power to need all that. GONE WITH IT!

The car came with most of its original parts so I went down to the basement, dusted off some boxes I hadn't touched in five years, and started getting to work! Here's what I started with.

Precision stock location intercooler. It's a very nice and costly unit that I might put up for sale soon. It's about as good as it gets if you want a stock location intercooler, but again it's not needed here. Besides, it's heavy as hell, and the 2016 raccoon incident did a number on this thing. The shroud is still a bit bent, a lot of the fins are hammered, and I was never able to recreate a bracket that would hold it in the perfect spot.
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A couple shots of the heinous DIY CAI I made. It was still miles better than the massive ATR rain sucker 5000 though. I had to remove that post-raccoon.
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For those who know these cars, it's essentially a poor man's Tin Man. I made it myself. I'll sell it for $40 if anybody wants it. Otherwise, I'll disassemble it and put all the parts in my tube/coupler stash
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The best part about this car is that it came with most of its original parts. I went down to the basement, dusted off some boxes I hadn't touched in five years, and started getting to work! I didn't take many progress pics, and I wish I did. The 35 year old plastics were pretty much white. I soaked them in armor-all for a few minutes which brought them back to looking new.
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Lol This is such a strange combination of parts I have on the car right now. The wimpy and rarely seen stock air box does not go with an Accufab throttle body and raised plenum. It probably looks funny to some, but I find it satisfying to have a solid mounted air box and flexible MAF hose. The car should still breathe just as well as it did before.

Does anybody know how the snorkel tube is supposed to mount to the core support? Christmas tree push tab? Bolt and clip nut?
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Anyway. The 40th running GS Nats/50th GSX reunion are coming up in a couple weeks, and I have a lot of work I want to get done. I want to replace the leaky valve cover gaskets, intercooler, plenum, and up pipe. I also have a small header leak between it and the head. Of course it's on the least accessible cylinder, so that's going to be an adventure. It looks like it's been cooking oil back there for a while. Hopefully I'll be able to just clean those parts and retorque the header bolts because I'm not about to go 240 deep into this exhaust system! I'm also hoping that the suppliers don't take their sweet time with shipping.
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v6buicks

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Man, this is a great thread! I have all the time in the world for a GN! Well done, so far! I look forward to further updates!
Thanks!

Enjoyed thread the thread end to end.

Market for those cars I think is pretty strong.
Thanks! Yes, it's been tempting to sell a few times in order to make a quick return and make space in the garage. However, I can't get myself to even buy a "for sale" sign. I've never heard of somebody who sold their only Grand National and was happy about it. I don't want to be one of those guys. This is my dream car, and I know I won't buy a second one if I get rid of it. This will probably stick around for my future kids to drive if they're into it.
 
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Mr_Roboto

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Yeah if you sell your dream car and then want another, you'll be buying back into an appreciating market. Yours has low miles, that's a big deal in that community.

I'd take a clapped out one at this point that ran fairly well. First T-type I ever saw was at the SIUC parking lot, the paint was nothing but oxidation, there was some rust but it still looked badass. Hell I'd buy it if I had the chance to.
 
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v6buicks

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I'd take a clapped out one at this point that ran fairly well. First T-type I ever saw was at the SIUC parking lot, the paint was nothing but oxidation, there was some rust but it still looked badass. Hell I'd buy it if I had the chance to.
It's starting to kill me from the inside out that the price gap is widening. Either you've found one worth saving for a bunch of money, or you've found one that's rusty and missing everything including the rear end for $1000. The days of poorly running but solid hot-air cars for $4k are coming to a close. The rough ones are worth more in parts. :(
 

blue-sun

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Great thread. Skimmed the fist page and this last one, will dive deep one day soon in the rest of this thread. Love GN's.


Yeah if you sell your dream car and then want another, you'll be buying back into an appreciating market. Yours has low miles, that's a big deal in that community.

This

I had my dream car(93 MR2 Turbo), she was 95% "done" (motor swap, new turbo and IC, etc) and I sold it and have been looking for one again ever since. Prices have taken off in the last few years and life (kids) has taken over, I should have kept it. Don't do it.
 
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Mr_Roboto

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It's starting to kill me from the inside out that the price gap is widening. Either you've found one worth saving for a bunch of money, or you've found one that's rusty and missing everything including the rear end for $1000. The days of poorly running but solid hot-air cars for $4k are coming to a close. The rough ones are worth more in parts. :(

Very true and technology has moved on enough at this rate I'd be better off looking for most any gbody that's fairly clean even as a roller (preferably with a better axle) and toss in either a gen 1 SBC or an LS.
 
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daturbosix

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I think the only reason why I still have these things is because I grew up with them. I feel bad for anyone who buys one and has no experience with them because they are a temperamental.

The moment my stage engine gives me an issue I'm yanking it and LS swapping it. Lol
 

v6buicks

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I think the only reason why I still have these things is because I grew up with them. I feel bad for anyone who buys one and has no experience with them because they are a temperamental.

The moment my stage engine gives me an issue I'm yanking it and LS swapping it. Lol
As much as I hate to hear that, I totally get it. These things are expensive, built terribly, and not fast by current standards.

Speaking of built terribly, let's talk about my valve cover gasket replacement experience since this is my first time.
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In 80s GM fashion. I had to remove the belt, rear alternator bracket, two wire harness mounts, and a couple vacuum hoses to get the cover off. The vacuum switch needed to be bent out of the way too since it's rear mounting nut is on stupid tight for some reason. Whatever. It was annoying, but no biggie. Then there's the passenger side...

I removed the breather, boost control solenoid, spark plug wires, and three wire harness mounts, but that valve cover had no chance coming out. After doing a bit of reading, I found out that the steel water lines also need to be removed that run between the front of the engine and heater core.
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It's seized. Giving this wrench everything I had just broke the steel fitting in the intake loose and kink the water pipe. :oops: I quickly ordered a new water pipe after that and went to bed. Despite the lack of success, I felt pretty lucky that somebody even still produced that pipe. To prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future, I also have an aluminum intake fitting on the way. This is supposed to avoid the corrosion that put me in this situation, but I already know that the fitting is not showing up for a couple weeks. The big elephant in the room is that I already cracked the intake fitting loose. I can pull it back tight again, but the chances of it leaking are pretty high now. Let's hope Highway Stars gets my part shipped quickly, so that I can cut the old line off pull the remains out of the intake, salvage the steel fitting, clean it up, and reinstall the new part WITH a new valve cover gasket.

Still like Grand Nationals? ? I never thought I would have so much to say about a valve cover gasket job on an old American V6, but this is life with an unloved turbo Buick.

Remember reading in earlier posts about how these factory intakes have huge caverns that hide stuff? According to my magnet, mine is apparently hiding a small hardware store. SMH
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