Project: BUICK Grand National
 "Perseverance is the key to innovation's endless possibilities and varieties locked within each of us." -Donald R. Wang |
If you've had the chance to drive a Buick Grand National or T-type, especially during the 80's when performance cars were thought to be a thing of the past, it was hard not to become attached to the wonders of this turbocharged powerplant. I became hooked around 1988 when I took a customer's car for a test drive to check on the operation of a transmission I had just rebuilt for the car. It was a blue T-type. At the time that really didn't mean much to me. During the 80's there were a lot of turbocharged cars out in the market, and to be frank, none of them really did much to turn me on. Well, after a thorough test drive, I was hooked. It was a truly unique ride that changed my perspective on high performance cars forever. After that test drive I had become a Buick fan. The strides that Buick's performance division, and a hand full of special people devoted to the Buick V6 project made during that period was phenomenal. A David and Goliath story. What this forced other divisions of GM, car manufacturers and aftermarket manufacturers to do then was to step up their product and politically squash Buick's performance strides to make the embarrassment stop. Buick did much to show the world during that time that performance was not dead.
Project Summary
A quick description of our shop project that started in the late 1990s. The project started out with the intention of creating an efficiently run, and truly unique turbocharged Buick V6 using methanol as the sole fuel. The project would be restricted to a pair of first generation M&A heads that were the first aftermarket heads available for the Buick V6. They're based on production style heads and are known as a Stage One style head. Porting work would be the only modification done to the heads. These heads are not known for netting good flow numbers on a test flow bench, compared to the aftermarket heads that are now available, but they're what I had purchased for the project long ago before better heads were available. The challenge was to see what could be done with camshaft, intake and exhaust specifications to get the most out of these heads.With the help of engine analyzing software, I came up with camshaft, intake and exhaust manifold specifications. The projected horsepower level was 800 horsepower. I was aware that a large, single turbocharger that would allow such a horsepower level would be slow to spool with the small displacement that was part of the planned configuration for the engine. The use of nitrous oxide injection would help with that issue. I was going to be doing something different with the nitrous system though. I would be pairing up the nitrous system with methanol, not gasoline as is more common.
Using nitrous with methanol can net more or less power depending greatly on the temperature of the mixture during the compression cycle. Nitrous oxide used together with methanol yields a super cool intake charge. Since nitrous oxide must reach a certain temperature before it will dissociate into oxygen and nitrogen so that the oxygen can be used to burn fuel, if during the compression stroke some of the nitrous oxide has not dissociated, it will dissociate during the combustion process. Since the dissociation in itself absorbs heat, some of the combustion process heat will be absorbed affecting the resulting power level. The same holds true for the methanol fuel. There must be enough heat during the compression stroke to vaporize the methanol before the spark ignition event. I had read that some that had used methanol with nitrous experienced a horsepower level of about half of what the system was rated at, so I went with that assumption. I created a port injected nitrous system with a rating of 190 horsepower using the nitrous oxide jets as a reference. I have found that less than traditional ignition retard, while the nitrous system is activated, will have a great affect on the resulting power level. Possibly caused by creating more heat during the combustion process to overcome the heat lost by some of the nitrous oxide that is still dissociating during the combustion process.
The first engine, build v1.0 had a rather early demise by pre-ignition caused by too lean of a fuel mixture. The price of burning methanol fuel for the first time. Lesson well learned.
The second engine, build v2.0, had it a little better than the first engine. It was boost limited though, because of a rather high static compression ratio I had decided to try out. All my calculations put a safe pre-ignition limit for the fuel at 22 psi with a 11.27 to one static compression ratio. I was pretty close. The engine blew at 28 psi due to a short boost spike at the launch, just when the tune-up was starting to come around. I would also later realize that even though the fuel mixture was richer than it was with the first engine, there was room for more.
The present build is v3.1.5. It was configured much safer than the previous builds with a static compression ratio of 9.21 to one, and a boost limit of 45+ psi.
The fuel system I ended up with is a combination of electronic fuel injection and mechanical fuel injection. The electronic side of it allows precise tuning at idle and low loads, while the addition of the mechanical system, located inside the intake plenum, feeds the extra fuel required at high loads.
The latest calculated horsepower figure to date is somewhere around 935 bhp at 31-32 psi manifold boost pressure. I've calculated that there's as much as 300 horsepower more in her, but the turbocharger I'm presently using has been pushed to the limit of its capacity.
Short term plans for the project are to replace the turbocharger with one that will not be the horsepower governor for the engine. This will make the cylinder head flow capacity the ultimate horsepower limiter. The new calculated horsepower target is 1,234hp.
The horsepower per cubic inch displacement of this project was 4.18. This would be the equivalent of a 600 cubic inch displacement V8 producing over 2,500 horsepower.
The car is presently going through a turbocharger upgrade. The new goal for this project is: 5.52hp/cid.
General Specifications:
Much time has been spent researching for the best components to use on this project. In the following specifications of my project you will find links to some of these suppliers. You're welcome to use this page for quick referencing to some of the best suppliers out there.
Car Model: 1984 Buick Regal Grand National
Engine: Single turbocharged 224 cubic inch displacement, Stage I BUICK V6 configured and built by DRW. Current build v3.1.5.
Block: Aluminum by TA Performance Products.
Crankshaft: Moldex Crankshaft Co. Billet. 3.06" stroke. Internally balanced, 50% factor.
Rods: Oliver Racing Parts. Billet. 6.5" length. Wide journal.
Bearings: Federal Mogul. Supplied by TA Performance Products.
Fasteners: ARP (Automotive Racing Products).
Pistons: JE Pistons. 9.21 CR.
Piston Pins: Titanium. Supplied by Stealth Engineering Technologies.
Piston Rings: Total Seal Gapless top ring, low tension, metric sizes.
Heads: 1st generation casting by M&A Performance Products. Valve sizes; int. 1.835", exh. 1.500".
Head Port Work: Mike Mendenhal. Who, to this day, can't believe these are the heads he ported and flowed long ago. Good job Mike.
Valves: Titanium intake and exhaust. Supplied by Stealth Engineering Technologies.
Rocker Assembly: Shaft mounted 1.7 ratio. Jesel Valvetrain Innovation.
Intake and Throttle Body: Custom fabrication by DRW. 100mm throttle blade. Large plenum, short runner. Some components supplied by Kinsler Fuel Injection.
Exhaust: Custom fabrication by DRW using Burns Stainless components. 304 Stainless material. Equal length, single stepped primaries with turbo double slip, merge style collectors. Turbine exhaust piping is 5" diameter, exiting in front of right side front tire. Exhaust back pressure to intake boost pressure ratio at 24 psi intake boost pressure is 1.58 to one.
Wastegate: HKS GTII 60mm with 2" piping exiting in front of right side front tire.
Redline: 7,800 rpm. 7,500 rpm shift points.
Oiling System: 3 stage drysump. Components supplied by ARE (Armstrong Racing Engineering).
Engine Oil: Generally, Pennzoil 25-50 racing. Redline straight 50 synthetic for record setting runs.
Oil Filters: Canton Racing Products Super Filter on the pressure line to the block. Dual Pennzoil PZ-1 on the scavenge line to the drysump tank. A small Peterson Fluid Systems inline filter to the turbo.
Water Pump: Divorced. Supplied by Meziere Enterprises.
Flexplate: SFI approved. Supplied by J.W. Performance Transmissions. Lightened model.
Damper: SFI approved. Supplied by ATI Performance Products.
Plumbing: XRP fittings.
Crankcase Evacuation Pump: Moroso 4 vane.
Turbo: Turbonetics single ceramic ball bearing T76, Q trim, .96 AR turbine housing. This project has stretched the limits of this turbocharger. It is begging for something larger. Waiting to be installed is a new FI91X turbo from Forced Inductions, with a 1.15 a/r turbine housing. Horsepower capacity: 1,650.
Boost Level: Max 31-32 psi. 24 psi and less in bracket and index racing tune. Limited only by the size of the turbocharger that we're presently using. Future max boost levels using the new FI91X turbocharger will be 40 to 45 psi.
Boost Controller: MSBC-1. NLR Systems AMS-1000 in the works.
Fuel: Methanol. BSFC: 1.18. WOT a/f ratio: 4.5 - 4.75 to one. For a forced induction, methanol fueled application, these values are fairly lean. Oil contamination from fuel is relatively low. The use of a liquid/air charge air aftercooler helps allow this with less chance of fuel mixture detonation.
Nitrous system: DRW custom built port nitrous oxide injection system used for initial turbo spooling up to 16 psi. The horsepower rating of the nitrous system is approximately 195. Nitrous to methanol ratio: 2.4 to one. Some NOS components used.
Fuel Additives: Klotz Synthetic Lubricants Uplon Fuel Lube.
Fuel Pump: Model 2345-A Weldon pump, supplied by Kinsler Fuel Injection. Running fuel pressure set at 44 psi.
Fuel Pressure Regulator: Model 12104 supplied by Kinsler Fuel Injection. One to one boost referenced.
Fuel Pump Booster: Voltage booster supplied by Kinsler Fuel Injection.
Fuel Injectors: 160 lb/hr Bosch supplied by Kinsler Fuel Injection.
Fuel Nozzles: Flowed at 97.4 lb/hr @ 30 psi. Rated using gasoline. Aerated mechanical injection nozzles located inside the plenum, aimed down the middle of each intake port entry. Supplied by Kinsler Fuel Injection.
Fuel Filters: Peterson Fluid Systems . Kinsler Fuel Injection.
Engine Management System: Electromotive TEC3r.
Ignition Wires: Magnecor R-100, 10mm racing wires.
Delay Boxes: MSD.
Cold Start Priming System: Ron's Fuel Injection Systems.
Alternator: 200 amp. Supplied by Powermaster.
Wide Band O2: Supplied by Performance Trends Inc.
Camshaft: Special DRW Spec custom grind by Crower Cams and Equipment with .903" diameter Crower mechanical roller tappets.
Camshaft drive: Milodon geardrive.
Pushrods: Manton Pushrods. 3/8" to 7/16" single tapered.
Transmission: General Motors Turbo Hydra-matic 475 by DRW with Hughes Performance manual valve body, electric trans-brake, and special max duty intermediate sprag assembly from Mike's Transmission.
Intercooler: Core supplied by ARE (Aluminum Radiators and Engineering Pty Ltd).
Torque Converter Stall: 2,500 rpm @ 0 boost. Neal Chance Racing Converters bolt together 10" Pro Mod with mechanical diode.
Shifter: Precision Performance Products.
Suspension: Stock configuration with poly bushings in the rear. Currie upper control arms. Boxed lower control arms. ATR rear sway bar.
Shocks: Gabriel's in the rear. Adjustable Competition Engineering 90/10s in the front.
Rear tire: Mickey Thompson Tires, 28x10.5-15. 29.5x10.5-15Ws in the works.
Wheels: Weld Racing Wheels Aluma Stars.
Brakes: Front, stock. Rear, Wilwood Dynalite Pro Series rear axle disc kit.
Rear Axle Ratio: 4.11 Pro gears with spool in a Moser Engineering 12 bolt axle housing. 33 spline Moser axles. 3.73s with new turbocharger.
Driveshaft: 3.5" x .083" DOM steel, 1350 U-joints, Spicer yoke. Critical speed 8,566 rpm. Shaft built by East County Driveshaft of San Diego County.
Chassis: Roll cage by Bryant Hibbs of B-BAR-H Unlimited. Custom fabricated X-frame member by DRW.
Fiberglass Doors: Supplied by GLASSTEK.
Vehicle Weight: Currently 3,146 lbs. with driver.
Calculated Horsepower Level: 935 @ 6300 rpm Brake Horsepower with T76 turbo.
Simulation Software: Engine Analyzer Pro, Cam Analyzer, Drag Racing Analyzer Pro, and Practice Tree. All provided by Performance Trends Inc. This project would not have been as successful as it turned out without the feedback from these simulators.
Supplier of misc. components: Jegs. CV Products. Total Performance of Santee, CA.
Waterjet Services: Cal Waterjet.
Plumbing Fittings, etc.: Good Vibrations Motorsports. Mike Clancy's Hose Specialties in Santee, CA.
Engine Machining Services: Total Performance of Santee, CA. ARCE Enterprises.
Alignment Services: Roger Daniel's Alignment of Santee, CA.
Metal Supplier: Competitive Metals.
Best 1/4 mile Performance to Date:
November 29th, 2007. Accomplished with an early state of tune.
Track: Speedworld Raceway in Arizona.
Vehicle weight at the time: 3,146 lbs. with driver.
Density altitude: ?
60' 1.305
330 3.766
1/8 5.837
MPH 117.551
1000 7.599
1/4 9.191
MPH 145.491
Best 1/8 mile Performance to Date:
January 1st, 2008. Final state of tune with build version 3.1.5.
Track: Barona Drag Strip in San Diego County.
Vehicle weight: 3,146 lbs. with driver.
Density altitude: ?
60' 1.289
330 3.704
MPH 94.772
1/8 5.732
MPH 122.145 Support Your Local Drag Strip
Latest Pictures of Alky Buick V6 version 3.1.5:
There are many more pictures that follow the history of the project located in our scrapbook.
DRW/Buick Grand National at Barona January 2008
Videos:
Some of the videos below are the same as the ones in the You Tube viewer above, but are better quality.
Sights and sounds of Alky Buick V6 ver.2.0. This was the first daytime visit to the track with build v2.0, late in 2004. Video by Don and Chad Wang.
Early test run. One of the first passes with the car late in 2004 with build v2.0. Initial testing with the car did not include nitrous oxide injection to spool the turbo. I was still finalizing the mapping of the volumetric efficiency table and was testing the THM200C transmission for high horsepower use. Shift points were around 6,600 rpm and the max boost was set at 18 psi using a T70 Turbonetics turbocharger at the time. CRANK IT UP! Video by Chad Wang.
Las Vegas 2005, run 4. Build v2.0. Darn, short shifted 3rd! Special thanks to XxDARKSIDExX for the clip. This particular weekend was the first time where aggressive use of nitrous oxide injection to spool up the turbo at the launch was used by us. It was actually the first weekend that the tune-up was being bumped up before a planned PM of the engine. A boost spike problem ended the weekend prematurely. Although build version 3.x.x is greatly detuned to provide better protection against a stray boost spike, initial calculations and test runs show that after the engine management is dialed in, the new build should, at the very least, match the best performance of the previous engine build.
WCN at Speedworld 2007. We made a trip to Speedworld Raceway in Arizona for the Buick Grand National group's, annual West Coast Nationals. I don't think things could have gone any better for us that weekend. It truly was a bunch load of fun for us. Sunday, the tune-up finally came around for us and clearly showed me that all the time and effort put into the project was well worth it. My whole configuration is completely contrary to popular opinion and to have things work out so well turned out to be very rewarding. I hope others can learn something from what I've done with my project to further their own.
Start with a dream, back it up with a lot of research, practice and hard work, and anything is possible. It doesn't have to follow what everyone else is doing. It's OK to make it your own. Video by Chad Wang.
http://drugg.net/BuickTurboSprayed2_0001.wmv. A video of the car I found on the web, taken in August of 2005 according to the site. Judging by the launch, I don't think this run included nitrous oxide for turbo spooling assist.
Hangover Nationals at Barona 2008. I put together this video to showcase the effectiveness of using nitrous oxide injection to quickly spool a turbo. Notice how the car launches more as if it had a naturally aspirated engine powering it. Video by Chad Wang.
Testing at Barona, Jan. 12th, 2008. Minor tune-up tweaking on this day. Tuning up my driving skills too. Video by Chad Wang.
Track Rental at Auto Club Dragway, March 2008. First time back at the track after correcting an exhaust blockage problem. From starting line to about the 50 foot mark, more tuning work needs to be done. There's an excessively rich spot in the midrange that I'll start leaning out to smooth the launch. All other areas of the fuel map are done. Video by Chad Wang.
Barona Test and Tune, April 5th, 2008: Leaning in the midrange which entails the first 50 feet of the launch. The results are promising. Time to dust off and install the wheelie bars. Video by Chad Wang.
L.A. Invasion at Auto Club Dragway, May 26th.2008. New delay box being used to control nitrous and transbrake release. It worked out very well. On this day, we were using a 24 psi boost tune-up. Later in the day, I broke out of my bracket with a 9.28 ET on 24 psi boost. This engine never ceases to amaze me.
GN Project slide shows:
To view these slide shows, you must first download and install a free version of Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.2.
Warning: These slide shows are FULL SCREEN and will take awhile to download. Save to desktop, then click to run.
These slide shows include many detailed views of the engine.
GN slide show #2 - Engine build ver.3.1.0. Photos by Don Wang.
GN slide show #3 - Engine build ver.3.1.0. Photos by Don Wang.
DRW Transmission Specialties, Inc. 10728 Kenney St. Ste. B, Santee, CA 92071
Office phone: (619) 258-4240 Fax: (619) 258-9105
Copyright 1998-2008 DRW Transmission Specialties, Inc. All rights reserved.
