Leave The Damn FR-S/BRZ/GT86 ALONE.

An Open Letter to Subaru and Toyota:

You've made quite a splash with the FR-S/BRZ/GT86. Congratulations on a commendable design.

You might not find this letter of much interest, as I'm currently not in the market for a vehicle. However, I am a driving enthusiast, and I assure you, were I in better financial straights at this time, this would be a good contender for my first new car, ever. Simply put, there are few used cars to compare it with, at least ones that I'd feel good about the idea of maintaining. I can't just use my usual metric of 'oh, yeah, but I could just buy an old one and mod it, and still probably spend less than buying a new one.' And, unlike a lot of other modern cars that would fall by the wayside due to my hot rodding predilection, I can't just go out and build one myself, so to speak. 

I'll spare you reading the rest of my blog to let you know I like traditional American cars, though I've had plenty of imports and find them both different tools good for different jobs. I've owned a couple of Celica Supras and MR2s, both project level cars I didn't get to really experience in full but were mightily impressed by, and have some light Subaru experience as well. I have respect for both companies, their histories, and their products.

With that in mind - that, while I'm of the 'Stick a Small Block Chevy in it' mentality, I think the FR-S/BRZ is a great design as-is - and, I'll bet, one Porsche wishes it had thought up first. It's a true original and a great example of what Japan can come up with in the pursuit of a great sports car. Jeremy Clarkson would agree, and last I'd heard he was ultra-smitten by the Mercedes C63 AMG Black Edition. Nice company to have.

Most driving enthusiasts/car guys agree on the merits of the car, and while I'm not a new car buyer, I eagerly anticipate perhaps being able to pick up one of these used in a few years. I'll likely have to 'settle' for a first gen Miata, but while I've been in love with Chevies and their small block V8s all my life, and are very proud of GM's latter day renaissance, I'm fairly captivated by this car. And many new'import' models to me, or rather the class of cars the term represented when I was growing up, seems rather bloated now.

My SE-R Classic was ~2300lbs,  a new one is now 900lbs heavier. And that's roughly accurate for all cars made lately. The Honda Civic Si is closer in spec to a Prelude VTEC of 20 years ago than a Civic Si of the same era. Both a good and a bad thing, some would say. I started losing interest when new FWD 'compacts' were outweighing big block Novas. When Camrys and Accords started making my Whale Body Caprice seem svelte. Seemed like the import scene had had it's day, as legit world beating compacts became overshadowed by the new breed of 400 horsepower 'midrange' models. 5, 6, 7 hundred horsepower to be had, who cared anymore? Of course, I'll never get to buy one of these cars, but it's fun to bench race, isn't it?

For one, how many variants on the FWD 'hot hatch' formula can one lust after? Instead, look at this car, promising intriguing new possibilities in an age where every variant on every theme had seemed done already. We even have 'Jetsons cars' in the sense of the self piloting cars being developed. And flying cars, too, for the folks that don't think sliding into a ravine or getting into a head-on freeway collision seemed dangerous enough. And - as a wagon owner now, bravo - it even gives you a lot of the 'hot hatch' usability, unlike many other 'dedicated' sports cars that essentially say 'you'll be wanting another car if you actually have a life or feel like bringing anything with you.'

And frankly, cars like the Lexus LFA don't even show up on my radar. Not going to happen short of an 80's style recording contract, winning the lottery, a fat lawsuit, etc. The $110k ZR1 and slightly more frugal Z06 show up merely because of Bowtie love and the fact that if I were to spend such money, the return on performance is ridiculous, putting the car very much in LFA territory, aka some of the fastest production cars money can buy. If I decided to live in it in lieu of a house, it might even be quasi attainable! But still, I'll likely not own a new 'halo' car anytime soon, perhaps ever.

Not even if they accepted Food Stamps.

Even the WRX STi, while it was the car that really broke me originally on my pro-US stance on performance cars, nowadays I'm back into RWD V8 cars, and we have plenty to choose from in all shapes and sizes. It wouldn't make me show up at the dealership for a new one, as good as it is, because - again - I could get a used one and modify it for less money if I really wanted it. Turns out I like slip angle and burnouts and drifting - RWD stuff that AWD puts the kibosh on. It's a great car, Subaru, but I have options, and they're not going to make me forget about losing money watching the car depreciate. No offense, just my fiscal reality.

The FR-S/BRZ is something else - something made of Obtainium. I appreciate that, and the car's relative simplicity and restraint when some cars get away with being rolling iPhone docks.

And it's as close to a modern Elan as we're going to get. Not in the sense of a direct copy per se as in the Miata, but the glove the Elan threw down in the 60's as the car wars went nuclear on both sides of the Atlantic. V12 Jaguars, American and German V8s, etc. As Peter Egan said in this month's Road and Track, 'it instantantly makes you wonder why so many other sports cars were so large and heavy. What were they trying to accomplish that the Elan couldn't do? Support a larger engine? (Which, in turn, required a heavier car?)'

It's not 1500lbs, granted, but you don't have to carry tools with you just to make it to work, and compared to almost every car that isn't an Elise out there, it's quite svelte enough.

While it's an extreme example, and a bit of a stretch, to compare it to the Elan in a way, the FR-S/BRZ reminds people of how 'little' you require to create driving enjoyment. Chasing lap times and other numbers is fine in a way and great for the automotive world, as much of our efficiency and safety strides have been made at the race track, at least in the form of the seed technology. But not every car, not every driver's car especially, has to be a 'Supercar'. Yet, were this car somehow offered at this spec in the 90's it might be considered one, or damn close.

This car had only 76hp more than the FRS/BRZ, and
it's a legend you still can't touch for less than the cost
of a new Toyobaru 20 years later.

Mike Kojima has written reams on the SE-R Classic and he's gotten to drive who knows how many cutting edge cars, and owns one of the fastest and highly tuned 300ZX Twin Turbos in North America. Yet he loves the SE-R, still, some 20 years later, FWD and all. And the SE-R is simply good engineering and attention to the right details in a pretty ho-hum package, at least from a 'car guy' standpoint. I loved that car and was crushed when my well used example threw a rod, but it remains a high water mark in my automotive experience. And, after all, it was merely a hotted up Sentra. All 140hp of it. The FRS/BRZ is so much more special than that.

However, 200hp - JDM only output back in the day, for many platforms - doesn't seem good enough for the 'I want everything yesterday' crowd, and as there have been libraries written about car design and modification, immediately folks saw the FR-S/BRZ, said 'I'll bet a WRX STi motor would bolt right in', and the RABBLERABBLERABBLE calling for 'more horsepower!' hasn't stopped since.

Everyone is a critic, a 'tuner', a wannabe engineer, and has some 'really good advice'.

From the viewpoint of someone who has hot rodding in his blood, that can't even refrain from customizing the car he lives in on almost no budget, who wants a V8 swapped RX7 like no one's business, can I say this?

Leave it alone.

At least for now. The car has hardly been out six months yet, if that, and frankly folks are still getting used to something that has a lower cg than a Cayman and costs less than a Mustang GT. Like the Miata before it, folks are getting used to driving it the way it needs to be driven, but they're figuring it out and liking it. As the Porsche 914 crowd still likes to say, it's a car that makes you tighten the nut behind the wheel in pursuit of higher speed. That legend itself, part of the experience of going fast in the 'People's Porsche' was figuring out how to actually drive it in the fastest manner, instead of driving it like a 'lesser' car.

There is always the aftermarket, and I've already heard of 450hp BRZs out there. Whether you turbocharge it or not, the Genie is out of the bottle, and no doubt the import tuner crowd have been salivating and bench racing this thing since you've announced it, not even concerned with the car-as-it-is, and merely how they're going to 'make it better' even before the first journalist - or perhaps even test driver at the factory! - had driven it.

Folks put 5.0 Mustang motors in the Miata, too. We've got one driving around Venice, and it's a hoot like all hot rods are, I'm sure. But somehow the Miata sold plenty just how it was, and while it was certainly upgraded over the years, it was a long time before the Mazdaspeed Miata was necessary. And really, it hasn't been since. Not to sell an awful lot of cars of a type most companies don't consider 'viable'. Few people are storming out of Mazda dealerships because there isn't a turbo option from the factory for the Miata. Racing series grew up around the car. And Caymans and Boxsters still sell, despite being hindered from overtaking the 911. For about twice the price of the gem you're offering.

If you want to tweak it - why even ask, of course you will. Just this: listen to your audience like a good musician or stand up comedian would, and they'll tell you. Apparently - I haven't driven one yet - there's a bit of a flat spot in the torque curve. Perhaps it's an easy enough thing to tune out for next year's model. If the torque dip is fixable without major surgery, fix it and see if they're still whining.

Think about the Corvette and it's seats - Chevy merely had to listen to what every journalist said about the damn seats. It wasn't some vague thing that was hard to put a finger on.

Crystal Ball Alert - I can see the future, and it's the Internet. People will complain. About things they'll never buy in the first place. But they'll still do it. You'll get feedback - probably more than you want!

However, really, I loved my CRX Si, and the powerplant was...ok. I mean, really, a little flat in the torque department? Have they driven an older Honda? Or some of Toyota's revvier engines? It was hardly the centerpiece of the car, merely really not getting in the car's way. The D16's 6000 rpm power peak is only 100rpm over an LS3s now, hardly stratospheric, yet the car simply produces wide grins even today, when there are likely base model automatic Kias that can trounce it from a stoplight.

I think folks are so prone to nitpicking everything that such 'more powah' requests should be taken with an extra large grain of salt. The Internet's favorite pastime is posing as an expert, after all, guilty as charged myself - and while I'm sure the car is going to be developed and improved upon, it's entirely possible that the better course of action to lean towards is letting the car stand on it's own merits and letting people come around.

I used to think Miatas were 'girl cars' and mocked their tiny shifter, which I likened to an Atari 2600 joystick in the shadow of giant Hurst sledgehammers. This was circa 1995 when I was in high school, before everyone was on the internet, but if I could have been, I would have roundly mocked it, and perhaps even been taken seriously as I've always had a way with words. I'm sure there are legions of clones out there of the dumbass I was back then, if not even worse, and they're all over the net.

I've come around. I still like my redneck cars for what they are, but my last car was a Mercedes, and before I rediscovered my love for American Iron, the only American car I owned was a Chevy van, because it was...a van. For awhile I wouldn't consider American cars either. If I can come around, and around again, I'm sure other folks are capable.

When they don't seem like it, remind them that the 14.8 second quarter mile and 6.2 0-60 dash of the FRS/BRZ is faster than a:


1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS 0-60 mph 7.9 Quarter mile 15.2
1985 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z28 0-60 mph 6.9 Quarter mile 15.0
1995 Chevrolet Impala SS 0-60 mph 6.9 Quarter mile 15.2
1967 Ford Mustang (V8) 0-60 mph 7.3 Quarter mile 15.4
1988 Ford Mustang GT 0-60 mph 6.3 15.0 
1996 Ford Mustang GT 0-60 mph 6.7 Quarter mile 15.1
1995 Mercedes E420 (Auto) 0-60 mph 7.0 Quarter mile 15.1
1967 Lotus Elan SE 0-60 mph 7.9 Quarter mile 16.1
2010 Toyota Camry SE 0-60 mph 8.0 Quarter Mile 16.2
Every non-Turbo Toyota MR2
1989 Toyota Supra Turbo 0-60 mph 6.5 Quarter mile 15.0
1989 Mazda RX-7 Turbo 0-60 mph 6.6 Quarter mile 14.9
2009 Mazda RX-8 R3 0-60 mph 6.5 Quarter Mile 14.8
Most every BMW non-M 3 series before '98
All 2002-earlier Infiniti Q45s
All Non-John Cooper Works Mini Coopers made since 2002
2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS Sedan 0-60 mph 7.7 Quarter Mile 15.7
1973 Porsche 911S 0-60 7.7 Quarter Mile 15.1
1974 Porsche 914 2.0   0-60 mph 8.8   Quarter mile 16.5
1988 Porsche 944 Turbo   0-60 mph 6.5   Quarter mile 14.9
1998 Porsche Boxster   0-60 mph 6.3    Quarter mile 14.8


That's a small and very incomplete list. My SE-R and Si would belong up there, too, as would Project Roadmaster in all likelihood. The list of cars that this car nips on the heels of in acceleration, and would probably annihilate in cornering ability, would be much longer. 

No one buys those cars because they're 'slow'. Hell, the FR-S will beat a 76 Lamborghini Countach LP400 to 60 by .4 seconds. 

Line up. 

Tell the nerds to lighten up, relax, and congratulate yourself on making a great, unique, and fundamentally great driver's car in an age when everything seems to be a copy of a copy. Thank you. 

- The Actually Smart Car Blog, and drivers everywhere. 

Sneak Peak At Our Next Project

As you might have heard, Project Roadmaster is in another stable and doing well. I've been working on our new project and it's something different entirely, but something cool and valid and has a place in hot rodding, especially in our present times. Another often over looked platform and a hoot to drive.

Hint: after the practical flag waving ending of my last post, it's NOT the American ride. It's simply...the most interesting practically free hot rod in the world. 

More coming soon.

Project Buick Roadmaster Part 8: The End Result

Hi all,

Well, it's time to send off a car that was such a good conveyance, one wants to talk about it almost in terms of a friend.

Bought off of Craigslist for $1000, minor investments in getting the car roadworthy for a cross country trip to New Orleans - two grown men, a pit bull, two lives worth of crap stuffed into one car - and we got there, comfortably, in style, plenty of power to blow past a few V6 Mustang dorks despite the huge payload on board.

The car got impounded once in New Orleans, we had to work twice as hard to both survive and pay for daily expenses and put away money for the impound fee - we had to get to LA, as there wasn't enough time left in the season to establish ourselves in NOLA just yet.

Long story short, we got back, now bringing yet one more person and their stowage (don't ask) to LA.

We averaged 23.4 mpg between the two cities. Traveling at an average of 70mph, 4200lbs dry, 5.7l V8, 'dinosaur' technology and all that, laden with no less than 1000lbs of humans and dogs and belongings.

Do that in your CRX, sir.

And before someone says 'minivan', let me remind you that I got us one of the last parking spots within any kind of walking distance on Mardis Gras day proper, and probably wouldn't have gotten it if I couldn't have gotten the crowd of drunken dipshits to part near Frenchman St. Laying the horn didn't do it - but lighting up the rear tires and that accompanying police car engine growl sure did!

So yeah, nyahh to you, too, Mr. Minivan. Also, if I'm going to be mistaken for something I'm not, I'd rather be mistaken (most times) for a pimp rather than a henpecked dad.

Not happening in Camarobird or Mustang, either.

None of the cars besides the minivan can slip through traffic as a Q ship, either, at least in stock form.

Just sayin'.

ROAD-MASTER!

The car has an impressive pedigree, and the design, rather than being 'archaic' as some detractors would suggest, simply proved it's worth and ability by surviving four decades of automotive history, and time proved the design strong and tunable for handling as well. After all, the Chevy 9C1s went as fast as 138mph in stock trim - do you really think the car is such a pig that it can't handle those speeds? Trust me, ask a cop who has driven both. Ask someone who has RAN from a cop in both.

As 'dowdy' as the stock, high riding, baloney wearing stock setup was, it was more in line with the Police philosophy- being able to go over any surface, quickly, reliably. Real roads, not race tracks. And still could hit all 109mph or so of the factory limited top speed in a little over a quarter mile.

Buick itself has often had some of the most potent engines and sturdy, durable technology available - it is in a real way America's answer to Mercedes Benz for over 100 years, the reason we have Chevrolets (Louis Chevrolet was a Buick racer), and was a middle point between working class Chevys and opulent Cadillacs.

As a matter of fact, when people would recognize me as the owner, often I'd here 'oh, you're the guy who owns the Cadillac, right?'

Anyway, once back on LA soil I was backed into in the Whole Foods parking lot. Awhile later I was paid insurance on the damage, but being pragmatic and a body guy I just pushed the dent out and lived with the fact that I'd have bought the car with the damage for that money anyway.

I was also now in the interesting head space of 'you know, technically I have -$200 into this car right now. I've actually made money owning it, in a way.'

So I ended up going what, for me, was whole hog. I wanted it to look like the Impala SS cousin it was, I wanted to handle like it was the SS cousin that it was, and I wanted it to sound off like it had a pair. The car was so responsive to really cheap and easy mods that I'm surprised they can still be had at this kind of money.

My test grounds this time around weren't Bouquet Canyon Road, which has become a rather 'hot' route for one, and for two I was simply unable to afford the extra gas money and possibility of breaking down at the time. Still, Elizabeth Lake Road west of Palmdale is a good little route, one that I drove many times on the way to a friend's house. My standard of measurement on that route - when it gets twisty, if you can go double the posted limit, you have something. If it went through without wrestling and drama, you REALLY had something.

This 'boat' is really something.

Believe it or not, there are people who would be
'embarrassed' to drive this. I feel the same way
hanging around such folk...

The biggest foe in handling is the stock 'baloneys', grandpa spec tires. I'd imagine perhaps the Goodyear cop tires are better in this regard but you have lots of weight, an old school suspension and floppy sidewalls. Doesn't inspire confidence.

However, all of this is easy to correct with bolt on parts, and it's incorrect to assume that stock equipment hindrances indicate a lack of tunability in the overall platform. If that were the case then the Honda Civic would be an 'eh, pretty good' handling car but with upgraded wheels and rubber the chassis really starts to come to life. The factory equipment was often tailored to a commute-friendly conveyance, but had great underpinnings. Why would a Buick be different?

Thankfully the stock Impala SS items and huge amount of parts that fit this chassis and GM full size cars going back decades make it very easy to get good handling out of the Behemoth. The SS wheels are huge (17x8.5"), the tires available fit everything from Porsches, BMWs Vettes, etc - you can easily get tires in this size with good life left on them used, because enthusiasts with more money are upgrading.

German Tyres!

Once you've got fat meats under the this car, and lower the mass some, the character changes and now you're driving a real Impala SS clone, aka the 'Four Door Corvette'. The Hotchkis springs are really low; I think perhaps stock SS springs might be a better daily driver setup, but they handled and rode great, and my issues were mostly with my cockamamie exhaust mods hitting, which with some real money spent on the mufflers wouldn't be an issue.

In any case, now the car was ready to really throw down.

In addition to the Hotchkis springs, ContiSport 2 tires in 245-45-17 size, stock Impala SS wheels (made by ROH), I put Energy Suspension end links on the front, wooden spacer mod in lieu of buying body mounts (worked! Lasted, too! Free!), modded the exhaust to add both tone and power (tried both Muffler Delete and straight pipes (but with cats/stock exhaust), the one pretty liveable, the latter just barely tolerable, but a hoot.

The intake was re-modified during my smog test prep to a simple straight piece of sewer pipe. No fuss, no muss, no tape!

Pictured: Engineering

To give the car a little more driveability and panache in the interior I put in a Grant 737 faux wood grain wheel. The polished center's finish is ultra scratchable - might be worth clear coating. I mean, brand new microfiber cloths scratched it.

Also, if you use any real tools in the cabin after installing this wheel, be very careful, or you'll end up with an annoying chip in your wheel like I did.

The wheel did match the faux wood grain of the stock interior decently, did tighten up the controls a bit by being a smaller than stock diameter wheel, had a nice fat grip to it which was nice while driving, better than the stock wheel. I got one because it was 40 bucks off Craigslist. I don't know why, but it might be because if I'd have paid the 140 that was the suggested retail I'd have been more than disappointed - I'd have been livid.

I also added an Auto Meter tach that went in with one 10 cent screw in a stock screw hole in the trim around the gauge pod. It blocks the coolant guage, but hey, while I was at it, an Ultralite temp guage was going to go next to it. But then...

I actually think this sums up the car's 'smack dab between
modern and classic' vibe, myself.

I'd ignored a leaking problem at the axle, and the bearing seized and wore the axle down. I started looking up the parts, but had very little cash month to month to live off of. Still needed a car to get around and didn't have off street parking, so it had to be moved at least twice a week.

I started considering my options, and while I'd certainly lived a car guy's wet dream - doubly so for a guy sleeping in the same car he's wrenching on, natch - I realized I'd missed other opportunities and ignored other parts of what I consider 'my work' messing with this thing.

I also realized that, sky being the limit - this car could be built for drag, autocross, road race, what have you. Six speed? It's happened. Totally doable. Parts are there.

But there was the problem. I needed something that couldn't become such a pit. I've dreamed of an LS7 in...well...anything, really, but made me think if I'd gotten, say, 30k for some reason, would 18 go to what I consider the most Gonzo stock motor from Chevy in modern times? Could, and then it could get crashed, stolen, impounded after I'd frittered away the rest of the money like a real fool.

And, as I've often said, I doubt that in decades to come I'm necessarily going to be pleased with myself if it turns out I'd ignored my artistic pursuits in giving into my obsession with the automobile.

However, I do think it was good therapy, did wonders for my self esteem - "Dude, NICE car!" was an everyday occurrence. Woke up behind Gold's Gym many a time to see people checking out my car, going "what kind of car IS it? A Roadmaster? Oh...it's a...Buick? Really?"

Really.

I don't have to tell you there were some funny/weird looks when they saw a guy sleeping in it. Makes me laugh thinking of it. However, I saw some of those guys get in some high dollar hardware after checking out my ride. Not like they were driving boring beige crapmobiles and didn't know a good car when they saw one. And I'll bet they could afford the dough to recreate one.

At the end of the day, it was a wash - another fan of the breed and real SS owner, Matt, stepped in and bought the car for 1200 bucks as-is, which gave me enough money to buy our next subject, a 1980 Mercedes 240D, get it registered, cleaned up, and kept the ball in play, so to speak. Without having built this car to it's then current aesthetic standard (Matt's since taken it further, will talk about next post), I doubt I'd have sold the car in stock condition for the 700 bucks I bought the Benz for. And I needed all of it to really continue rolling, so I can consider it an investment in the end result.

If I hadn't been a fool with my money, I wouldn't have had any money to take care of practical business...ain't that a bitch?

Matt's intention was to daily drive the Roadie and keep from putting excess miles on his SS, which is working - he now says he likes the SS better, at least in the 'cool car' sense!

That's as good of a compliment as I can ask for. You heard it here - after all that 'it's an SS in a business suit' talk, it's confirmed by a guy who has a really nice example of the target car.

You know what to do.

The new owner has been doing this car up right.

Final thoughts? The 94-96 Buick Roadmaster is a great car in it's own right, in stock form. It also happens to have the ability to be be all things to all people. Need loads of storage? 20 cubic foot trunk. Got kids, lots of friends? Seats six. Got toys? Tows 5500lbs. Love American style? This car is classic American automotive panache for the working man - as only we can do it. Love American V8 power? LT1 powerplant is 260hp and 330lb-ft worth of Small Block Chevy lover's dream factory 350, with a great exhaust note. Want it to handle? Give it Impala SS spec bolt on parts and it does. Efficiency? 15city, 23 highway, 18 combined. You'd be surprised at how many vehicles that can't do much of the above get that mileage - or worse.

The car has a huge, outsized personality - big roar from the exhaust when pushed, a cool burble when cruising. Big, flashy, lots of chrome, stainless, and machined finishes on the ROH wheels, which really are a cut above the usual aftermarket stuff. It all goes together like it was factory designed to do so - because it was.

If you never thought you could love a full sized, automatic transmission equipped American 'luxo barge' because you're too much of a 'cool driver car guy', you might want to think again. Just don't build one of these if you don't want everyone in the neighborhood - every bum, every old lady, geek, yuppie, gang member, OG, car guy, cop, kid, etc to tell you that you have a nice ride.

Because they will.

There are some who might say 'that's all well and good, but I'll bet, say, a late model Mini S Turbo would take the overweight pig out.'

Thank you, sir, because what's a performance build without a kill story? 

Heading out on Elizabeth Lake Road, or more appropriately, where it changes to that name from Palmdale Blvd, I was pulled up to the light up in front. A silver Mini S pulls up into the lane next to me. He checks the car out, which isn't anything new to me, so when the light turned green, I took off like a normal human being going somewhere, not a hyperactive kid out to prove something on a boring Friday night in the Antelope Valley. 

The kid hears a little note from the pipes and just jumps on the gas. I look over and he's BRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMing by me, and I saw the S badge on the fender. 

"Good. I won't feel bad about this."

I hit the big chrome foot and all 5000 lbs of man, dog, car, and trunkload of crap take off like a bat out of hell. The 350 roars, a rarely heard but great sound. No worries, rolling start, nothing to hook up here, just pure power and gearing. Put the foot down and the 4L60E takes care of the rest. The Roadie's sole two specs that are off from those of the SS are no rear discs, and 2.93:1 gears instead of 3.08. The SS is a 15 second car in the quarter. The Mini S is right there, similar trap speed and elapsed time. 

Only, this LT1 has been breathed on just a bit. By my estimations enough mods have been done to facilitate roughly a 25hp increase over stock, to 285. 

This car should do low 15s or better with the mods I've done. Now, granted, it's not a Motor Trend style instrumented test, but it is a bogey. The Mini S is faster than most of it's four cylinder brethren. No worries about getting shown up by any average or better four banger in this big, bad Buick. 

I watched the guy try, hard, to keep up, but by the time we got to the bottleneck, his front bumper was barely ahead of my back bumper. He lifted (had to, I wasn't and another advantage of a fast but huge car - you don't get pushed around by much), and I looked down at the speedo. 108mph and I lifted, a whole mph away from hitting the factory limiter. 

Not bad - a sound drubbing even though frankly the race was already 'on' by the time I knew I was a member of it. 

Eat it, Chapman fans. And this car cost less to build than a ratted out, rattle canned, salvage title Civic or similar condition Miata. And while it's possible a Miata will get you laid, you're not getting laid in one. 

Admit it - you only got into little four bangers anyway because you thought you couldn't afford a car like this. Look back over my financial figures - this car was nothing if not cheap, even without the insurance windfall. 

Turns out the Big Three were putting out some good cars all along. They might certainly not be BMWs, but then, do they have to be? Do we all have the same tastes? Can you picture Billy Gibbons stepping out of a 328i? There's a certain thing about being American, and we get it best and do it best. This is an example of that, and the same DNA is in the Impala SS, a car I've seen enthusiasts import to Japan, import to Sweden and other places it was never sold - because they got nothin' like it. 

The Big Three had some gems. Maybe even they didn't know it - GM certainly bunted on what could have been the 90's equivalent of the GNX for Buick. But that's ok, that's why they're cheap and they get such a reaction - you're in on a secret. You don't have to buy a car made in America in the last ten years to get an American car that's solid, well built, reliable, decently economical, and a hoot to drive. 

As far as project cars go, this one was an unqualified success. As far as cars that I've built and owned go, this is my favorite. So far...

"Comin' to save the MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY, yeah!"

Project Buick Roadmaster, Part 7: Impala SS-ify Me!

Sorry for the wait. Not everyone has the option of being punctual whilst hot rodding the car they're sleeping in, and since the last post I've suffered the losses of my camera and laptop, and are only now finding a computer available to read my old memory card, etc. Thanks for waiting, all two of you.

There's a certain fear in hot rodding - the idea that you're going to buy Car X, mod it in various (and often expensive) ways, and for all of your effort, you're going to end up with what ends up being know as "Oh - THAT car."

Somehow, someone didn't see the local Cruise Night Crew guffawing at your 'Pintomino', no matter the rare 13" alloy wheels and other bits from the Mustang II bin. The car below? An examplar of taste compared to the 'Pinto-mino' my cousin ran around in while converting his 2.3l Mustang to the proper 5 liters. Missing? Oh, I don't know, the twin Cherry Bombs (complete with flappers) that were supposed to add a 'big rig' air to the little Pinto. No, it wasn't even a stick. I'll see if he'll send me some 'blackmail' photos later, but this isn't far away!

"Dude, it's all custom...it's gonna get me LAID, for SURE!!!"

Such was my personal nightmare; after being 're-dyed in the wool' as an Import Geek, I just wasn't capable of shutting the Bench Racer in my head up; "The chassis dates to 1958, it's not even a unibody, 4200lbs(!) of steel, no one but drag race guys seem to build them. You're going to end up with a medium fast in a straight line car with wheels that make it look like it should be faster that it is. Lame." Granted, I was more going for 'fastest RV I can afford to live out of', thus sheer capacity was more import than curb weight. But the nagging little small bore fanatic in me essentially voted for keeping it stock.

Yeah, right. Never seems to work out that way...

Basically, I'd been brow beaten to the effect that any car that didn't show 'Miata-ness' in it's stock configuration was simply beyond help, even though such luminous examples of import righteousness as the RX7, Supra, CRX and other Honda Si models, etc, rarely attain any kind of 'dominance' at the track unless modified in the first place. Don't bother sinking money into a pig, is the thought. And, of course, there's the "I got my info from [Blank] Performance Magazine" syndrome, where you'll rarely find worse information for the grassroots builder, even online. The schlubs online at least only have their own shortcomings to deal with - they're not actively trying to sell you automotive snake oil with inflated claims of power gains.

You know the one - "Yeah, this exhaust is worth 20hp on this car - granted, that was on a motor that had custom porting, custom ground cams, and oh yeah, it's turbocharged." Gains without said work? Take a guess, but I was warned by Mike Kojima himself online when I had my SE-R that the stock exhaust was fine up until ~180hp had been achieved - in other words, a more or less fully built NA motor or a Turbo version. Said 500 dollar cat back exhaust's actual worth to folks more interested in going fast than impressing 'net geeks they'll never meet? Almost nothing unless you've already exhausted pretty much every other modification.

So when I set out to modify the Roadie, I was skeptical. "Oh, this thing handles great now" never seemed to be backed up by skidpad tests and usually was uttered by a real Impala SS owner - in other words, guys with money to buy badges that match VIN numbers, not my game personally. Also, it tended to be uttered by folks more interested in quarter mile times than autocross dominance. "Handles great" to me sounded like it was coming from a guy who thought it was 'great' compared to the '65 Impala he used to have, or 'better than when I was driving to work on Big N Littles!'

However, I got my last big check in the mail, and the idea had been obsessing me to the point of idiocy anyway. I cashed the check, got online, and smashed headlong into a brick wall. Oops - no SS wheels for sale. Unlike last week, when I was checkless and three sets where going for ~350 bucks with tires.

To the forum! For some odd reason there was a set waaaaay out in Pomona that didn't show up in my search, but after posting a wanted ad over at http://www.impalassforum.com/, I ended up with a lead. I scored a good set of OE SS wheels, sans center caps, for 250.

Next I had to find tires, and turns out many forum members buy their 17" and up tires from as far away as Hawaii used a few exits down from where I stay. Atlantis Tire takes advantage of a local condition - that of having lots and lots of new BMWs and Porsches in the hands of owners that want to distinguish themselves from the 12 other BMW or Porsche owners currently bellied up to the bar at the Viper Room. Or wherever it is they hang out at. These are good sets of tires, inspected for flaws, for a decent price - 200 bucks for a set of Continental Conti-Sport CS2s in 245-45-17.

Around the corner to a local tire shop and I was in business! (For an extra 50 bucks.)

So, 500 bucks for a set of Impala SS wheels with Porsche tires. Not bad - all 'known quantities', no issues with fitment, bolt them on and go. I wasn't going to have such luck in the aftermarket. Besides which, though it's an 'obvious' mod, the ROH wheels that came stock on the SS are fairly iconic for a reason, are OE tough (nice when you're controlling two tons of steel driven by a lunatic), and are even easy to clean. They might not have the cache of other wheels, but think about it - transport yourself back to 93 and being, like a few folks, a little underwhelmed at the 'Shamu' styling of the Caprice. A little black paint, chopped police springs and these wheels later, you're standing in line, cash in hand.

Nice wheels.

My original plan was to get the rolling stock changed out for minimal cash. This involved selling the OE Buick wheels and tires for ~150 bucks, reducing my investment to 350 bucks. However, a forum member came out of the blue with an offer: "I've got a set of Hotchkis springs here with 8 miles on them. Wanna trade? Huh, huh?"

Let me look at the car with just the wheels on again...

Buick Roadmaster, now apparently with 4 wheel drive...

Dammit, man, you KNOW I wanna trade. Sigh...looks like I'm heading back to Peanut Butter Sandwich-ville faster than I thought...

A trip out to the desert to my secret underground garage facility and many knuck busting, ball joint splitting hours later...

Well, actually, two trips later. I spent the first trip out lowering just the front, which was less than ideal in a few ways - handling, one, and two, approaching driveways and dips, as the higher back end tipped the front even closer to the pavement.

After getting both ends on, we have this result...

Sweeeeeeeeet!!!

Not only is the stance pretty amazing, the handling is now up to par with my other modified vehicles of recent ownership. I'd regularly go after 35mph rated corners, and see how hard it was to double the posted limit. That was pretty hairy with the stock configuration as the 75 series sidewalls were just not cooperating. After the Hotchkis springs and SS wheels/Contisports went on, suddenly it just went through the corner. No drama, and we're talking a 4200lb car when it's got an empty trunk. I was running it with a quite full one. 

The results convinced me that with the SS wheels, good tires, and lowering springs (stock Impala SS items probably would be nearly as good with better ground clearance), the 'Grandpa' Buick is all of a sudden willing to play when the road gets twisty. I can now see why the SS's and other B bodies do so well in motor sports despite their gargantuan size. 

I think a mildly modded motor, SS wheels/tires, springs, shocks, and rear lower control arms are all this car really needs to get down. The potential was already evident even without 'appropriate' shocks (just used the stock items), not even an alignment. This is a good driver's car, and seeing SS's giving 'real' track hardware sweats at auto crosses doesn't seem weird to me at all anymore. 

Pimpest Ride on Skid Rose. Woo not included.

WARNING!!!!

Run these tires on a heavy car like this for a few months without taking care of the camber gain WILL result in having about an inch of steel belt looking at you from the inside edge of the tire. I pulled four different 1/4" shims out of the upper A arm mounts to put it 'eyeball' correct after seeing this, and it did mitigate the wear some, but still, message to the wise - if you LOWER a car, ALIGN it ASAP! Cheaper than a new (used) set of tires. 

****

I never got to finish this piece before my laptop crashed last year, so this isn't the promised wrap-up, just finishing what was to be the last installment on the car while I still owned it. 

Stay tuned for the wrap up and the story on the 240D buildup that came after - aka the 'Easiest Hot Rod In The World'. 

- CID

Small Engine, Big Efficiency? Why Bigger Can Be Better.

Small Engine, Big Efficiency? Why Bigger Can Be Better.

Or,

How to NOT waste your used car budget on something you'll hate.

As mentioned last post I've been crunching date looking to get the most out of my budget for my next car. While there are any number of tasty rides available for under 3k - I was looking about 6 months ago back when a lady was telling me she'd help me buy a 'cleaner' ride than my Benz Diesel, as she was apparently Compression Ignition Phobic - most of the truly cool ones are either too small (got a dog and crap, need space), too expensive to keep up, or too fuel thirsty. Some are all three.

Some, like the Family Truckster here, only come in
Metallic Pea.

BTW, real Craigslist find while on my search..

It started out years ago when I started looking for a 'fuel efficient midsize SUV'. I looked at various 4 cylinder models - Isuzu Troopers and the like - and came to a conclusion - mostly all a four offered at that level was less power than a six. While there were some fuel efficiency gains, we're still talking dismal mileage.

So how does one avoid having four cylinder passing power with eight cylinder mileage?

I've been using www.fueleconomy.gov extensively lately, and I can't recommend it enough for those of you buying a new or used car. Like a lot of people I hear 'four cylinder' and immediately think two things: 'low power' and '30mpg' or something along those lines. Sadly, though, there are a LOT of four cylinder cars and trucks out there that, depending on your driving style and whether you're mostly a city or highway driver, might not only be slower than your current ride, or the 'ride you want', but less efficient and economical as well. Not to mention, less capable...

For instance, last year I was getting a little bit of an 'enthusiast sales pitch' from a guy who likes the Toyota Previa minivans. They're pretty cool for what they are, bland styling for sure (I remember thinking of them as 'eggs on wheels' in junior high), but I was looking at something that would absolutely blend into modern traffic but be old enough to be cheap. Huge amount of room for music gear and/or living space. I saw a 2.2l Toyota four specified and thought it was a good match - it HAD to get better mileage than my 2 ton plus 5.7l V8 Buick, right?

Well, kinda. 

As you can see here, (http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=11063&id=11404&id=27947&id=11432) the Previa gets 17 city mpg, 21 highway,  for a combined 18 mpg. 

The Roadie got 15mpg city, 23 highway, and 18 combined.

So if you had a 50/50 mix of highway and city driving the result is a wash. Go with what moves you - for me, that was 5.7 liters of roaring tailpipe music in a car that literally got me mistaken for a pimp - by a real pimp. 

If you're mostly driving in town, the Previa has a 2mpg edge, and if you're driving mostly highway, the same 2mpg edge goes to the Buick.

If I could easily swallow the monetary difference, the Previa looks outmatched by quite a bit. Would keep me from going bonkers thinking about engine swaps, though, because the Previa is pretty much foolproof in that regard - the factory that built it decided it was just easier to supercharge the stock motor. Makes a shadetree guy like me think of greener pastures...

You'd think a 5.7l, 260+hp American OHV V8 and a 2.2l DOHC Japanese I-4 would get wildly different results in the mileage department. I think it's best expressed as 'Overall Efficiency - Work Demanded = Actual Efficiency'. If the four didn't have to work so hard to move those 3500lbs of van, it would get better mileage. The V8 can lope around at lower rpm and do the same work in a relaxed manner. I don't doubt the LT1 would probably match or better the stock 2.2l powerplant if a swap were possible - after all, while the aerodynamics might suffer a bit, the Previa is 700lbs lighter too.

Reminds me of the old C5 Z06 vs BMW M3 reviews. I recall that the NA I-6 of the BMW put out less torque at peak than the LS6 did - at idle. Remember, torque = work, and out of horsepower or torque, the latter is the only one directly measured, rather than extrapolated by a formula (torque x RPM/5252 = HP). The less you have available, the higher the motor has to spin, and the more fuel consumed. 

Pictured: Efficiency. No, seriously...stop laughing!

It's a path to fast, and a path to efficient, apparently. Comparing more apples to apples motors, in a way, I recently got into a bit of a spat on YouTube with a Lexus fan dissing GM cars. Looking up the LFA specs, I noted that not only does the 3300lb, 550hp V10 'supercar' barely beat the ZL1 Camaro around the Nordschlieffe by 3 seconds over 13 miles, the 6.2l, Supercharged, 638hp LS9 in the ZR1 get's better mileage than the 550hp 4.8l Lexus V10. Not by a few, either - a base 6.2l Vette will turn in city mpg similar to the LFA's hwy mpg. 

Overall, the 'huge' engines, 6.2l, 7.0l, and 6.2SC, all turned in better mileage by about 5mpg average. 

(Vette Lineup VS Lexus LFA MPGs here - http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=31326&id=31328&id=31327&id=31089. Left to Right - 'Base' Vette, Z06, ZR1, LFA)

Not bad considering the ZR1 is a third of the price of the 'base' LFA. Not a bad comparision, either, as both cars are obviously designed with high performance in mind and have similar curb weights. Drag coefficients are as follows: 'Base' Vette, 0.28, Z06 0.34, ZR1 0.36, and LFA 0.31. Even the 'porky' Camaro ZL1's average MPG is 16 - which is the LFA's highway rating. That's with a .35 cD and an extra 700 lbs or so to push around. (http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=32161&id=31089)

Looks like a lot of engineering misapplied in a vain attempt to give a 'halo' effect to a bland product line. Or an example of how low end torque can be used for work, play, AND efficiency - but that's no news to diesel heads. 

Pictured: $375k worth of slower than a Vette and less
MPG than a Supercharged 6.2l Camaro.

Also pictured - why 'Hot Rod Black' should only applied to,
you know, hot rods.

But it also illustrates that, down here in the real world, not everything is cut and dried as it seems. 'Smaller motor = more efficiency' doesn't always compute. Not that one should just as blindly buy any old V8 engine and assume it'll be efficient for your particular use, either. 

So, for instance, if I were to truly put down roots here in Venice and want to stay, a Previa makes slightly better sense - who gets to cruise in overdrive in LA during anything but the wee morning hours? Almost entirely used in the city, over 10k miles, the Buick would consume 666 gallons (hee!) and the Previa only 588, a difference of 78 gallons and 351 dollars in a typical owner's year. That's about 30 bucks a month. Of course the same 2mpg difference in an all highway scenario would be the same, and for someone who could care less about the 30 bucks a month, well, I've got plenty of blog space devoted to the big B body. 

But, as I'm planning on going to New Orleans soon and have 2000 miles or so of highway driving, a Roadie would actually save me gas money, as well as being the cooler ride. When I lived in the Desert and you'd be in overdrive by the time you passed your neighbor's house, there would be no question - more power AND more MPG, please, all in a ride fit for a prince - or, at least, a pimp from Pomona...

Ok, so mine wasn't Magenta. Otherwise, I was a little embarrassed...

Oh, and I don't do decals, so NYAAH.

(From 'Bloom County' comic strip, published June 15th 1982)

Comparisons like this illustrate the finer details of choosing a ride, especially on a pretty limited budget. I, personally, wouldn't want to pay more or the same amount to get less of what I want out of my purchase. 

So at the time I also compared the Chevy Astro 2wd passenger van, a solid workhorse that's become practically legion as you literally see them all the time in LA. And I considered another Mercedes 300D Turbo in a pursuit of efficiency. Both were being weighed against the Previa and Roadmaster.

The Astro, despite a similar curb weight, almost identical transmission, and a 4.3l V6, gets worse mileage than the Buick. Without going into all the other reasons, this shit-canned the Astro pretty quickly in my eyes, though I'd consider one as a secondary vehicle. To be fair, the parts availability of the Astro is great (it's all S10/G Body parts and other standard GM RWD stuff), the Previa will never take to engine swaps, and Toyota's solution to having adequate power in a Previa, the S/C supercharged model, turns in similar MPG to an Astro. The Astro, however, would take to any number of engine swaps in search of more power or economy.

FWIW, the differences between the 4.3l V6 Astro, especially in MPFI trim (190hp, 260lb-ft), and the Previa LE S/C (160hp, 200lb-ft), considering the 1mpg difference city/hwy, are pretty much obvious. A low production high tech engine that was only made for one generation (plus the funky configuration, accessory drive, etc) vs. a 6 cylinder version of the venerated SBC in production for two decades -  are semi negligible - until one gets to the tow rating. The Astro? 5500lbs, same as the Roadie. The Previa? 3600lbs. If you want to tow, you know where to look. If goofy, one-time only arrangements and 'mid engine' minivans are your thing, well, best of luck with that. 

The Mercedes W123 body 300D was an interesting story as it's a 21mpg city, 23hwy, 22 combined car. So I'd gain quite a bit in town - more than most cars in the price segment that aren't 4 cylinder compacts with sub 2.0l engines - but no more highway mpg than my Buick. The city mpg was where I wasn't happy, and in that regard the 300D had better 'city manners', such as parking (GREAT turn radius/steering angle) and creamed the Big Bad Buford by 6mpg in the city. But... 

Then the gear head came into play.

"You know, the LT1 in the Buick's already been breathed on a bit, should be 285hp or more, probably stockish 330lb ft. The OM617a in the 300D has a mere 123hp and 170lb-ft, and while it can make more, it's a 2500 dollar Myna pump and a serious turbo upgrade away from any impressive numbers..."

Plus, yeah, I'm trading THIS for a Previa? Riiiight.....

That sealed it. I kept the Buick for another year after this initial run down. I still kind of regret selling it, to be honest - the car was a bonafide G-ride, and even a local character - an Inuit orphan who we all know as 'Pirate Darren' due to his ever-present leather Tri-Corner Hat, aka one of the least 'gangster' people I know - called my ride 'Gangster As Fuck'. Hard to show up a few days later in a car that looks like I knocked up a broad after hearing that a few dozen times...

So I kept the Buick for another year. I don't regret it, in a car guy way, in a 'practical guy' way I kinda do though. Really, the better option than both was the 300D and it's probably going to be my next ride, as these Benz built-to-a-standard-not-a-price-point tanks are still, in my opinion, the automotive deal of the century, and the 300D's average mpg is Accord/Altima like (http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=27947&id=11108&id=11827), but I don't have to drive a frumpy mid 90's midsize FWD sedan. Granted, they're faster, and rated at better mpgs highway. But the 300D also has been reported reliably to get upper 20s highway if you're not driving 80 the whole way, too. 

Something to be said about getting into a Benz for the same price as an Accord and getting similar affordability and efficiency. Not to mention, this:

Choose wisely.

We're Back, And Twice As Annoying

Sadly, this was the last view I had...Now I know how the
driver in the other lane often felt.

Hello all,

Sorry for the delay but I was sans laptop for a good long time there, and while I could get my business done online via other computers, doing the whole thing was a bit much so I had to back-burner it.

Things have changed quite a bit. I'm no longer rocking the Roadmaster, having sold it for a small profit and moved onto an even bigger project, another Mercedes 240D manual trans. I'll do a wrap-up on the B-body soon and even see if I can dredge up the new owner's email for some updates.

I'm in an interesting space, waiting for the California Voluntary Advanced Vehicle Retirement program to get back to me. The 240D is quite beat - I tried to 'rescue' it from it's former life as an LA desert Mexican high-schooler's lowrider project, and kind of succeeded. I might be jinxing myself but I just think I picked a bad one this time and, considering that the state will give me 1500 bucks to junk it, I'd be better off getting something else with the proceeds rather than sink more of my limited funds into it.

I'm wading through Used Car Buying Circa 2012, seeing what's changed and what hasn't. I'm still 'urban camping' in my vehicle at the moment, so I can't go too gonzo on my next ride looking for G force induced thrills. But there are some pretty decent choices available in LA for 1500 bones and it's been interesting going through the elimination process to see what I'll end up with. Looking to see what I can get for the money, I've been investigating everything from cop cars (GM and Ford), small wagons, trucks, diesels, F-bodies and Supercharged Buicks.

So the Roadie all-rounder wasn't to be, and now I have a rat rodded 240D as my mobile palace/whip. More to come on that, the State of the Used Car Address, a wrap up on Grandpa's Revenge/Project Pig-Sticker and an introduction to Project Dead Meat, aka the doomed 240D. Stay tuned.

Project: Buick Roadmaster, Part Six - Stage One, "All The Mods 50 Bucks Will Buy", Part II

While turning the previously sedate Roadmaster into a brooding muscle sedan was a matter of taste (some would rather have the quiet than the power or sound I was going for), the LT1's intake system as delivered on the B-Bodies are chock full of ways to unlock power without letting the neighbors in on the fun. Most of the built-in restrictions to the factor system were aimed at drive-by noise standards and a competitive luxury market where the LT1's bad boy intake growl was a detriment rather than an attribute. So diving into the intake system offers up many places to make improvements without breaking the bank.

Porting The Stock Air Filter Housing


Cost: Free

The ported air box after 6k miles of desert travel - the Spectre
filter keeps the intake air very clean. Other cheap filters of the
type, even K&Ns, tend to let fine particulates through. On the
bottom and far left you can see where I've opened it up.

The stock air filter housing offers up opportunities to up flow rates without spending a lot of cash nor even any obvious visual cues. The front and driver's side walls of the lower portion of the box can be opened up for more flow, but avoid 'swiss cheesing' the box as you don't want to pull air directly off of the top of the PCU's heat sink, which, as you might have guessed, is there to slough off heat.

Also something to look at while the Dremel is out is porting the frame of the driver's side headlight. Anything to ensure air can move unimpeded to the factory airbox location.

Obviously, you don't want to compromise the integrity of the mount itself, but there was room for improvement here. Honestly, I'm sure most folks will skip this step; I don't for sure know if any actual effect is being produced here, but again, while the Dremel was out...though, take a look at the photo below and you can see the path to the stock airbox location behind the headlight.

The following 'porting' (whatever you might want to call it) might fall in the same category, might not. I cut two vents into the factory aero work under the driver's headlight, behind the lower part of the bumper cover. The idea is to 'scoop' air at speed and direct it to the same cavity that the above 'ports' feed.

Looking down from behind the DS headlight.

Of the two, I think this one is likely to be more effective. The good thing is that these, and the cold air source in the fender left by the factory, offer many paths for cold air to reach the the factory airbox location and thus make it less necessary for it to suck in hot engine compartment air.

The factory skirt and airflow at speed should direct more cool air
to the cavity that the factory airbox feeds from. 

"Home Plate" and "First Base" Removal


Cost: 10 bucks, if you haven't got a hockey puck lying around. 

This is a REAL redneck's car - who else but white people
would have a hockey puck just hanging around? ;-)

'Home Plate' and 'First Base' are the forum names for the factory intake silencers, the former being the big piece of plastic cockblocking your eye from all of that 'Vette Engine' visual goodness, the second the square-ish piece that goes from the MAF to the above pictured elbow in the factory setup.

Home plate is easy. I've used two items in the past - a peanut butter jar lid (glass jar, metal lid) and the classic hockey puck. I happened to have a hockey puck laying around when I got the car so that's what I went with. Ideally you'll position it inside the opening in the elbow with it off of the car, and try to make it as flush inside as possible (reducing interior turbulence/resistance) and then clamp it in place with the factory clamp.

First base, counterintuitively enough, is harder to fix. I went to Home Despot, bought two 3" 45˚ bends like the forum said, and it came to 8 bucks and tax. Just for the two bends, not the cement or the straight pipe needed to connect them, and there were no scrap pieces around at the time. If I'd have bought these, the "8 dollar intake" would have been closer to 20. I figured that the better investment of the two might be to just drop the Spectre in and call it a day, after all those panels are usually good for 5hp or so and it was only 20 bucks from Amazon.

Initially I taped the two bends together as seen in the first photo, left the MAF in the stock location, and drove it like that to New Orleans and back. It wasn't bad but it was a little shorter than ideal, I got it to fit by not fixing the air box to the stock mounts and just left it loose. It worked and since it was covered at the time by a sealed 'box' of windshield blocker (foil covered heat insulator) no one was the wiser.

Then I realized I could use the factory grommets and clamps to clamp the 'big' ends of the 45˚ bends to the MAF in the middle, which the factory wiring accommodates. The big ends will squeeze into the grommets, you put them over the MAF flange and clamp it all down. The bitch is that there's no flex in the ABS elbows so there's no clamping force on these. A good stomp of the gas and the engine rolls over, pulling them off. Not good.

So I have it covered up in this:

Duct Tape Of The GODS.

Gaff Tape's adhesive is very versatile, strong, yet doesn't leave the same residue duct tape does and is much, much stronger. It's used for, um, Gaffing - i.e. the hanging of lighting and/or sound rigs for live performances and filming. This tape suspends lighting assemblies weighing hundreds of pounds over the heads of paying customers and valuable talent the world over. To say it's 'trusted' is an understatement.

The adhesive is heat/friction activated, so when the engine compartment gets hot, the tape's adhesive wants to work stronger. Because we're dealing with a naturally aspirated engine, small leaks are pulled shut by the intake vacuum. If put together right, it's just as safe as clamps and hoses. Keep a roll in the trunk in case you get an SES light and have to repair on the roadside, but I haven't had this happen to me even though I've reconfigured the intake a few times and thus increased my chances of screwing something up.

In order to make this work, I also had to tape small end of the intake side elbow into the airbox. It'll squeeze into the factory hole with a little filing on the outside and a half round file can open up the ID of the air box a little. From the inside it'd look like this:

As you can see, while it's going to provide a sturdy connection to the air box, it could flow a bit better. This is one of the reasons I went to the "MAF in the Middle" configuration, as these sudden step downs in ID cause turbulence in the intake path. With the 'big ends' of the elbows in the grommets around the MAF flanges, those are more or less taken care of. The exit step opens out into a larger pipe, so no flow loss there really. I had the half round file out, so I took a few minutes and ended up with an intake pipe that a smooth transition:

While the ABS elbows aren't exactly 'car show' material there are advantages to it's use - workability of the material being one. Most forum members claim this mod is good for 5 hp, and while it might not prove to produce more power, I believe I have improved the standard design slightly here.

After getting everything just right, I sealed it all up with Gaff Tape and made sure there was enough tension created to keep the elbows on the MAF sensor. The SES light will come on if the seal between the MAF and Throttle Body is compromised, and if it's compromised downstream you'll have dirty air - but both connections are easy to seal up.

Spectre Drop In Panel Filter


Cost: 20 bucks

I topped off all of this with a Spectre drop in panel filter. These are usually regarded as 'cheap K&N knock offs', but K&N's specs haven't changed much since the 80s when they debuted. Spectre's filter has so far outperformed both the 'other cheap brands' and K&N in one regard; zero fine particulate in the intake so far. I used a new K&N cone filter on my SE-R's SR20DE and later found fine particulate in it, and that was on the comparatively less dusty east coast. So far, so good, and if nothing else, the Spectre and K&N are at least equivalent - which means I saved about 50% even if the Spectre is 'only as good' as the K&N setup.

The results are thus:

Adding It Up: The Sum Of It's Parts

So let's go down the list; throttle body bypass; home plate delete; first base delete; ported airbox and surrounds; better flowing air filter than stock. Let's just say, that when combined with each other, each is good for 5hp. I'd say my exhaust is good for better than that, but just for the sake of speculation:

   Stock engine:              260hp
+ TB bypass                    
+ Muff Delete                  
+ HP Delete
+ FB Delete
+ Air Filter                      25hp
------------------------------------------
=                                   285hp

That's the factory rating for the F Body LT1s. While many try to swap in a Camaro cam or this or that - much more work and expense even using used parts - in the pursuit of 'higher spec' horsepower could work, the F Body cam was designed to work with the F Body and Vette. The B-Body's cam was designed to work well with the extra half ton of weight that a Roadmaster Estate would be saddled with vs. the lighter sports cars. Even if the cam magically gave you the 25hp without changing anything else, you might not actually make the car 25hp faster. The torque curve is very important in any vehicle, but the more that vehicle needs that torque - i.e., the heavier it is or the more the application requires - the more important it becomes. Trading the luxury car type torque delivery for high end pull and power is a good idea in a 3500lb Vette or Camaro; in a 4200lb Roadmaster it's not a good idea.

For instance...

My former boss, Carl, had worked on a Hummer for Arnold Schwarzenegger at one point. He'd been driving a client's Lamborghini LM002 and happened to see Arnie's then über-rare Hummer in the parking lot and parked next to him. Arnie came out, he and Carl got to talking and then his experience at Callaway Turbo came up. Having wrenched on the famed Sledgehammer, Arnie thought he'd be ideal for modifying a Hummer for 400hp. Arnie loved the 6.2l (6.5l?) Detroit Diesel's off road performance, but on the highway the Hummer was a slug.

Carl built up the then-new LT1, 'the Vette motor' at the time, and over 50 grand later (keep in mind, the LT4 hadn't bowed yet and when you're pioneering mods on the 'new Vette motor', you pay out the nose for the privilege), he had the envy of the Hummer meet...up until he actually got out of the parking lot and went to the first part of the trail you had to crawl up.

Because getting an extra 100hp out of the LT1 caused the torque peak to move up, and even stock doubtless it was fairly stratospheric compared to the NA diesel V8, the Hummer was stuck on the first rock of the trail, and one hopes Arnie passed enough people on the way home to feel better about the experience.

The above mods should be good for the F-Body LT1's 285hp without changing the cam characteristics. Thus, not only is it the 'poor man's solution', it's also the smart man's. 50 bucks and a lazy weekend later the Roadmaster is something of a genuine, if mild, hot rod.

Chassis Horsepower! FREE!


Sure, straight line power is fine and all, but much like when I trained to fight, when you're already powerful, adding more power without some agility to be able to put it to good use is futile. The Roadmaster already has great acceleration from the factory for what it is, but the handling isn't quite as laudable.

Part of the reason for this is the tires; there's little to be done with those big balonies. However, fixing that's going to take some cash, and this is Cheapville we're living in for the time being.

The 9C1 Caprices have long been rumored to have a 'special frame' compared to the rest of the B-Body line; even the Impala SS didn't feel as buttoned down as the 9C1s did according to many owners of both models.

Googling around, I found out that that's because the factory, in their infinite wisdom - er, cheapness - decided that no B-Body cars besides the 9C1 would be delivered with all 14 body to frame mounts installed. The first 3 mounts on each side - from the radiator support to under the A pillar - are simply bolts that don't allow the flex to exceed 1". Jack the car up at the wrong spot and you can see the gap form between the frame and body.

So, you go and buy mounts and install them, right? Well, the pioneer of this mod/observation recommends replacing all of the mounts with better spec ones, driving the cost to about 75 bucks to do the whole car.

Mostly I'm concerned with the first mounts, which connect the frame to the radiator support and thus the rest of the front of the car. These are the front corners of the box; if they're not connected, the whole front is going to be sloppy. However, when I was getting a wild hair (hare? Neither one sounds pleasant) up my ass to do something about this, I was rather, um, broke. Seriously, unless I was going to be able to buy new mounts with food stamps, this just wasn't happening. Then something dawned upon me.

What's better than nothing to provide a mount to the body?

Anything. Anything at all.

So I remembered that friend had been using a hole saw on his drill to attempt to lighten a board my street performer friend uses for his show. I remembered the cast off 'discs' created by that. Hmm...

2" around, 3/4" thick. How thick were those recommended mounts again? 7/8"? Close enough. Given that the wood won't give as much as even hard durometer rubber, the 1/8" margin for error seems fine by me. I installed the pucks (after enlarging the center hole to fit over the bolts) and viola - instantly noticeable improvement in the front end's feel.

Yeah, yeah, Captain Hack, but how long is this shade-tree mod going to last in the real world?

The photo below was taken today, and those pucks have been down there for going on six months, and I've had some spirited runs on my chosen driving roads to put them to the test. A) They work, and B), they haven't failed yet. The real beauty of it? Even if they did, the car's configuring defaults to 'stock' by definition. Even a broken mount is probably better than air.

So there you go - new gauze air filter, low restriction intake system, hot rod exhaust, even a legit chassis mod - all for under 50 bucks. Car Craft, Grassroots Motorsport, and 24 Hours of Lemons, take note.

Total Cost Involved

Speaking of Car Craft, I like something they do - they pride themselves on actually publishing the cost of the mods they do. It keeps you objective, especially if you have other things going on in your life than impressing other insecure car guys with your ride's awesomeness. Besides, it's the name of the game here. So in that spirit...

Used LT1 Roadmaster                     $1000

2 Mobil One oil changes                        70

Spectre Air Filter                                    20

Rear diff fluid, gasket, LSD additive      25

2 3" ABS elbows, 45˚                             8

Exhaust clamps and adapters                 10

2 window rollers from HELP                14

__________________________________

Total                                                 $1147

Minus 1450 paid for accident            -1450

Total invested:                                   -$303

That, my friend, is modern hot rodding done right. While we can't all have a nearly 1500 dollar windfall land in our lap, it's a good reason to buy a car that's actually worth something, if only on the books. I am seriously curious as to how the $2012 Challenge rules would view this list. Even at 1147 bucks, I'd have over 800 dollars worth of mods to be done. I'd have to spend $303 to break even on the car at this point...how am I going to do that? Come back for Part 7, Where do we go from here? Or, Impala SS-ify Me!