BUILD Boostie’s 1987 Notchback

[Pro Stock John]

Pics look great. My build is following a similar path.

 

[Boostie]

Pics look great. My build is following a similar path.

Its just crazy to me how fast heads up racing has gotten. Even traditionally slower classes have killers and 1/4 mile stuff seems completely dead.

 

[LikeABauce302]

Love the pictures! I look forward to seeing this car doing work at the track.

 

[Pro Stock John]

Its just crazy to me how fast heads up racing has gotten. Even traditionally slower classes have killers and 1/4 mile stuff seems completely dead.

Yeah it has. I have to force myself to not get caught up in that. For me it's about 90% driving and 10% racing.

 

[Pro Stock John]

How is the car driving with that radiator?

 

[Boostie]

How is the car driving with that radiator?

It so far has been decent, I had plenty of warm days where I was out cruising and temps seemed to be 195ish. Real test will be long drives in 90-100* weather. My biggest issue so far is coolant temps rising when I shut the car off. I would love to upgrade to an electric water pump to fix that but currently dont want to spend the $700 to do so. I would like to be able to have coolant circulating with the fan on while the car is off. I have a few friends who have done rocky mountain raceweek and some of the days hit triple digit temps. I think LS fest would be pretty fun as well.

 

[Boostie]

Yeah it has. I have to force myself to not get caught up in that. For me it's about 90% driving and 10% racing.

I had a friend bring me down to realiety on this too. I have already hit my original ET goal with the car and now trying to figure out what the next step would be. I was told not to chase numbers because that can take the fun out of things and get costly very fast. Considering I started with essentially a shell and did the mini tubs, suspension, engine, fuel system, brakes and wiring/tuning all in my garage is a huge accomplishment to me. The only thing that I haven't done personally on the car so far has been the front end alignment.

 

[Pro Stock John]

When I first started building, I was like "oh I want to go 5.20s" and that drove me pretty hard. After about a year and half into the build I realized that I lose interest in cars that don't drive well on the street, because I had a car like that.

I'm sure we have a bunch of common friends who hit GLD and 41 once a week and I'm not about that life. On the other hand I want to still go low 5s lol. But knowing me and my car, I need it to be 100%, 100% tested before I hit the track. I'm almost there.

My interest in HR DW and RMRW has gone way up too.

My single 16" Taurus fan and dual pass rad (18 tall and 20.7 core) have been running 190s when it was hotter, worst was 204 in very slow traffic, and lately it's in the 180-189 range. Definitely watch your idle and cruise timing and AF, make sure it's burning off.

 

[BOTTLEFED]

Glad to see the car out finally,looks good. Everything has gotten super fast these days,the average street car now runs 10s lol.

 

[Boostie]

Glad to see the car out finally,looks good. Everything has gotten super fast these days,the average street car now runs 10s lol.

Id be willing to bet most are low 10's high 9's. I went one day this summer with a friend who has a Chevy SS with a blower on it that gets driven year round who drove to and from the track and cracked off some high 9 second passes. The last 5-10 years has gotten crazy between technology and tuning. The fact that there are cars doing 3.5X's in the 1/8th and then cars doing drag week driving 1000 miles in a week while cracking 7 second passes every day humbles you a bit

 

[BOTTLEFED]

Id be willing to bet most are low 10's high 9's. I went one day this summer with a friend who has a Chevy SS with a blower on it that gets driven year round who drove to and from the track and cracked off some high 9 second passes. The last 5-10 years has gotten crazy between technology and tuning. The fact that there are cars doing 3.5X's in the 1/8th and then cars doing drag week driving 1000 miles in a week while cracking 7 second passes every day humbles you a bit [emoji38]

Yea, its definitely not where if you have a 9sec car you are considered fast anymore, its very common to run into a 9 sec car on the streets these days. Which this is mind blowing cause i don't care what anyone says a 9sec car is still fast! Lol

 

[Pro Stock John]

You?

 

[Boostie]

You?

View attachment 102719

Yessir! Tried to sneak up on Saturday to get some more t&t in and unfortunately there was over 300 cars there and multiple oil downs. I spent 7 hours in staging to make 2 mediocre passes. I was working on PID control for my boost control setup and made some huge progress and the car didn’t break so I can’t complain! Got a lot of plans for winter and will be more than ready come spring!

 

[Pro Stock John]

Sweet, maybe we should have a cruise next few weeks. I'll be done with my rear suspension changes.

 

[BOTTLEFED]

Car definitely looks bad ass.

 

[Boostie]

Quick winter update. Added a bunch of creature comforts and changed some stuff on the Holley. Spent a bunch of time cleaning up the wiring which was the bulk of it.

Swapped from the simple stage module to a NOS SSR to allow staging to be controlled by the Holley software.

Added a shift light, horn, turn signal indicators on the dash, dome lights, usb phone charger, under carriage lights and a few other odds and ends. Have an electric water pump on the way to help cooling the engine down with the car off.

One that I’m working on now is to swap from my Scott rod rear seat delete to a s197 back seat setup. While the seats won’t really be functional due to the cage, I think it is a lot more aesthetically pleasing. The s197 seats are extremely light which is a bonus

 

[BOTTLEFED]

I like the rear seat setup!! Looks better than the scott rod panels.

 

[Boostie]

I like the rear seat setup!! Looks better than the scott rod panels.

Me too, I think overall it looks cleaner. The scott rod stuff got the job done but IMO was a little too unfinished looking for my linking.

 

[Mook]

Looking like a ride at Great America.

 

[Boostie]

Jeffs FRC made me self conscious about my rattle can hood so I finally got it sprayed. To fit the street car look I also bought a wingless trunk to swap on the car.

Spent a lot of time redoing wiring this winter and also added a lot of creature comforts. The car has all working lighting, radio horn, phone charger and all the other little things I wanted to make driving the car more enjoyable. Also added a electric water pump, shift light, trans temp sensor and a slew of other things over the winter.

Going to try to see how far I can push the tires SBE engine this year with my combo and try to street drive it as much as I can.

In parallel I’m starting to look at different options on maybe building a backup motor as my current one def is showing some of its age. If anyone knows of any cheap iron truck engines (more so care about block/crank) lemme know!

 

[BOTTLEFED]

I think you should sell it to me so I can put proper motor in it

 

[Boostie]

I think you should sell it to me so I can put proper motor in it

Your setup in my chassis would fly!

 

[Pro Stock John]

Looks awesome!

 

[Boostie]

Been busy enjoying the shit out of this thing lately. Drove it for about an hour and a half this morning after beating on it at the track last weekend. The ol sbe 5.3 lives to fight another day

Testing on 26’s. The car actually went quicker on these compared to the 28’s at the same boost settings

 

[Boostie]

Hit a milestone tonight that I’m pretty proud of, can’t say I don’t drive this thing