Buick GNX -- damn!!! 360lb/ft and 265hp!!!!

[mAdD INDIAN]

Damn..the Buick GNX is one fast car!!! The 1988 model has a 3.8L Turbocharged V6 pushing 360lb/ft and 265hp!! That's some crazy torque!! How come they don't have cars like that anymore?? Also how is the handling of the GNX and the reliablity??


btw, I got all this from Speedvision, they had a special show on the car.

Damn...never thought a Buick could be that fast! This is coming from a person who doesn't really like newer Domestic cars!

<btw, I'm not trying to start a flame war or anything>

 

[Viper GTS]

That much from a 3.8L 6? Cool... Wonder if I could do that to my mom's Taurus...



Viper GTS

 

[mAdD INDIAN]

I don't think you would want to do that to your Taurus!! hehe...

 

[yakko]

Wow! That is almost as powerful as the VW Motorsport 1.9 liter turbo-diesel.

 

[squirrel dog]

Its a beast,heavy though.Like my Impala super sport(1995)way to heavy.Top speed for both is 150+

 

[mAdD INDIAN]

yeah..but the Buick GNX does 0-60 in 5 seconds!!! That's crazy! And it maintains a 20mpg fuel consumption..

I don't know how an Impala compares. I know the new ones are garbage...(the ones with the 200hp 3.8L V6).

 

[Cable God]

<< yeah..but the Buick GNX does 0-60 in 5 seconds!!! That's crazy! And it maintains a 20mpg fuel consumption.. >>



Yea, my 2001 SS Z28 does about 4.5 0-60 with 475hp/585 ft./lbs (vortech 12psi sc)and runs 11.20's in the 1/4. All american small block chevy baby For a V-6, that's awesome in that buick lead-sled

 

[Whitedog]

hehehehehe..... LMAO.. I thought Buick was making that car agian when I read the topic, until I opened this thread up..

Damn, that cars been around for like, ever. You just now seeing it?

I think they sound funny.

Cablegod, you serious? SS Z28 has those stats? you're kidding my totally!?!!? 585 pounds of Torch???

BUUUUULLLLLLLL SHEEEEEEET!!!! Stock, Factory?

I wonder how many teenagers with rich parents will end up Dead in one of those... probably a Lot.

 

[NFS4]

Yeah, but it's still a Buick.

 

[PCAddict]

The word is that those things go through turbochargers on a pretty frequent basis, like the Syclones and Typhoons which share the same SFI turbo 3.8 V6. They are still pretty cool though.

 

[BeHeMOTH]

GN's are sweet cars!! They had the Buick Grand Nationals here in Kentucky this year and I swear I saw over 100 of them ripping up corvetts on the strip. Which is sad considering this is the home of corvetts. Also that same setup was in an 89 TransAm pacecar but much more faster. They are really sweet cars for their age, and I haven't seen to many cars hang with them stock even the Acura Type R.

As for Impala's god the 94-96 are so sweet, I just wish they wouldn't have made anymore, the new ones are just pure junk.

 

[WetSprocket]

My best friend has a Grand National. This thing is sweet. It's not made for going around curves but in a straight line this thing will give you whiplash. And no they dont go through turbos that often. The best thing is that they can be tweaked very easy. A comp chip and an adjustable waste gate can boost the turbo to around 17lbs with no effect on drivability or 21lbs for warp 10 takeoff. &quot;If you have the means I highly recommend picking one up.&quot; The car can get 21mph and still whip up on a vette at the track.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I remember when these came out, the FBI invested in several of them in standard Regal trim, making for a nifty Q-ship.

 

[Russ]

Yep, a lot of mid-eighties Vette owners found out the hard way about the GNX. < before NFS4 jumps in and asks > Including me.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Sluggo]

The GNX was a special edition of the Grand National. Actually the fastest production car (1/4 mile and 0-60 if I remember right) for a couple of years running. They were really hard to get, kinda like getting a PT cruiser. They are easily indentified by big black fender flares, and as they were called at the time &quot;gatorback tires&quot; and black center BBS type wheels. They also featured dual turbos, the same motor set-up was featured in the Pace Car Trans-Am.

Yeah newer cars can run circles around it in terms of horsepower and such, but you have to remember this was coming off the early-mid 80's dog days of GM. The days of 305 cu in. Z-28's and Trans-Ams, when F-bodies was getting dogged big time by the 5.0 Mustang GT. Fuel Injection was just coming back from a long drought, and manufacturers were just beginning to realize that they could work around emissions standards, and still make plenty of horsepower. In a nutshell, the renaissance of the muscle car.

Not all Grand Nationals are GNX's...dont let people BS you.

 

[PCAddict]

And no they dont go through turbos that often.

I based my statement on info provided by a friend of mine who is an ASE Master tech at the local GMC &amp; Buick dealer who said he's replaced more of those turbos than he can remember. The only reason he told me this was because I was looking at buying a Typhoon a few years back. Maybe he is wrong.

 

[WetSprocket]

I was only speaking of my experience with the Grand National(turbos). And the difference between a Grand National and a GNX, The GNX has twin ceramic turbos(I think) and they had a modified rear ladder type suspension plus a few body mods mentioned before. They are very expensive and nearly impossible to find. Just one thing too I thought that '87 was the last year for these cars?

 

[BenSkywalker]

NFS4-

&quot;Yeah, but it's still a Buick.&quot;

The best part of the car IMHO. With the exception of the brief run of Impala SSs, it is the last of the real muscle cars(no, the Camaro/Firebird and Mustang are all pony cars).

&quot;Also that same setup was in an 89 TransAm pacecar&quot;

20th Anniversary Turbo edition, fastest &quot;official&quot; TransAm ever produced, including the latest(there were some big block ram air TAs that went out the &quot;back door&quot; of GM that were running low 10s in the early 70s).

&quot;like the Syclones and Typhoons which share the same SFI turbo 3.8 V6&quot;

&quot;I based my statement on info provided by a friend of mine who is an ASE Master tech at the local GMC &amp; Buick dealer who said he's replaced more of those turbos than he can remember. The only reason he told me this was because I was looking at buying a Typhoon a few years back. Maybe he is wrong.&quot;

He is wrong The Syclone and the Typhoon use a Chevrolet 4.3L V6 which is a 350 with two cylinders chopped off(4.00&quot; bore, 3.48&quot; stroke). The GNX uses the Buick 3.8L V6(there was also a Chevrolet 3.8L V6 which was comparitively very poor). The 3.8L Buick V6 is considered to be one if, if not the, most durable gasoline engines ever made.

The turbos used on the car are also of exceptional quality. Besides there highly respected stock performance and durability, they were also built to be very easy to modify and allow for you to quickly &quot;tune&quot; your car to run low 12s high 11s with a simple chip switch. This was back in the mid-late eighties when Vettes were considered to be extremely quick running mid 14s on a good day(several years before the LT1 debuted).

Whitedog-

&quot;Cablegod, you serious? SS Z28 has those stats? you're kidding my totally!?!!? 585 pounds of Torch???

BUUUUULLLLLLLL SHEEEEEEET!!!! Stock, Factory?&quot;

His unedited post-

&quot;Yea, my 2001 SS Z28 does about 4.5 0-60 with 475hp/585 ft./lbs (vortech 12psi sc)and runs 11.20's in the 1/4.&quot;

Sounds like the proper rating for a 12lb kit on a LS1 motor to me.

 

[PCAddict]

You are right, the GMC's are 4.3's and the Buick is a 3.8. But it's apparently the same turbocharger. The big deal when GMC developed the Typhoon and the Syclone was that they used existing off-the-shelf parts to build them which kept manufacturing costs down. The AWD drivetrain comonents are from the AWD Astro minivan. I remember reading all of the big writeups in Hot Rod, Car Craft, and the various other magazines back when they came out.

To elaborate further, my friend feels that they didn't do enough work to the lubrication system to make the turbo hold up better. Either way, they are damn cool vehicles.

 

[Pacfanweb]

<<20th Anniversary Turbo edition, fastest &quot;official&quot; TransAm ever produced>>
I'd like to see a comparison of the 20th Anniversary T/A vs. a 73-74 Super Duty T/A, or a 69 Ram Air IV T/A. Put some modern rubber on either of those cars and I'll take you on in either one.

<<(there were some big block ram air TAs that went out the &quot;back door&quot; of GM that were running low 10s in the early 70s).>>

Nope. All Pontiac V-8 blocks are exactly the same size externally, so there is no such thing as a &quot;big block&quot; Pontiac, not like a big block or small block Chevy or Ford.
Plus, no way an early 70's model Firebird could run 10's with factory parts, even the most exotic parts. They just weren't capable, then or now, of the kind of horsepower you could get out of a Chevy. You can get the parts to get that kind of power from a Pontiac engine now, but not then, at least not in a body that heavy.
An interesting side note: Until the decade of the 90's, the 1965 (poss. '63) Pontiac Catalina with a SD 421 and 4-speed held Car and Driver's fastest recorded 0-60 time at 3.9 seconds.
Think about that. 3.9 seconds on those old-timey, skinny, bias-ply tires. Wonder what one of those is worth now......

<<&quot;I based my statement on info provided by a friend of mine who is an ASE Master tech >>

An absolutely worthless certification. Any Jiffy lube grease monkey could get ASE certified with minimal studying and no experience.

Regarding the GN's and GNX's....I've seen them give both Rustangs and Camaros fits at the dragstrip. The key is to keep the engine as cold as possible, they lose lots of power when hot.
I used to see this one guy at a local track here who had a GN, modified quite a bit, that ran 5.60's in the 1/8 mile. (that's 8.90's in the 1/4). The car was street legal, running on street legal slicks. Awesome. Left the line with the front wheels about a foot in the air.

 

[mAdD INDIAN]

Oh man...that's crazy!! Too bad they would suck in Canadian weather...!

NFS4: Who cares if it's a Buick. I don't care about the badging..I care about the performance, reliability, and appearance. Hell...it could be a Yugo for all I care!

(no offense to any Yugo owners)

 

[DABANSHEE]

The only problem is its front wheel drive.

Have you ever heard of 'torque steer', the simple fact is front wheen drive is fuked as far as engines bigger than about 3 litres are concerned, especially supercharged or turbo-charged ones.

You can get a car that's 10 times better with the same engine, the Holden S, which has a locally made Buick 3.8L supercharged V6 of 171KW (about 220BHP, which is about 255HP SAE)

The reason why its 10 times better is that the Holden (including the ones from about 10 years ago) are lighter &amp; have a better chassis which also has a rack 'n pinion strut front-end &amp; a independent semi-trailing arm rear-end (&amp; the latest ones are multi-link), plus its rear wheel drive (mounted north/south not east/west) &amp; comes with a Getrag 5 speed gearbox, (yes that Getrag of BMW M3 fame &amp; 'Super touring' racing car fame).

 

[Pacfanweb]

<<The only problem is its front wheel drive.>>

No, the Buick GN's were all rear wheel drive.

 

[SuperGroove]

Man...Black GNX(was black the only color they came in) EXTREMELY BAD ASS. My friend's dad had a '80 Monte Carlo with a few mods. I thought that thing hauled ass, but the GNX...ooo mama like!

However, fact of the matter is, I prayed for my life everytime my friend's dad took a turn at 40mph. What a freaky ass car. Fast...but freaky ass.

Paul

 

[DABANSHEE]

Yeh, I think I may have got them mixed up with another model Buick that came with a FWD east/west 3.8L supercharged engine &amp; only automatic gearboxes.