JWBerk94Z

I do have KR but I just fixed a nasty exhaust leak from a crappy gasket and haven't had a chance to scan it yet. I would bet it is a lot better. From what I have read there is not a lot of difference in the 3.5 and the 3.4 maybe 5 horse or so??? Also, if you plan on doing the dhp, from what I have been told, that should pretty much take care of my KR. I don't know about that before. But with my exhaust leak fixed I bet it will take care of what is left. Who knows, it may not be pulling any timing now. The leak was pretty bad and it was right at the end of the manifolds, under the hood. I should be able to scan it again, I will let you know what it is doing now.

I don't know about 275 horse with a pulley. Your car is a 96?? I don't know what horsepower you are starting with. Is it still 240? Maybe you mean 275 after a CAI, pulley, and DP.

Pullies are about the same price everywhere. I bought mine frome zzperformance.com. You may also go to 3800performance.com. They will sell or rent you a pulley puller. Pulleys seem to run $65-70 about anywhere. As for the puller, YES YOU NEED ONE. I can't stress that enough. I didn't think that my pulley was ever going to come off. I would offer my tool but I bought it used and I think I may have done it in pretty good. If you use anything other than a purpose built tool for this you will most definately ruin something. I think the one site I listed charges $40 to rent one. To get one in good shape would be well worth it. The only reason I bought mine was so I could switch the pulley back if I needed to (car is still under warranty). I didn't want to have to rent a tool twice if I had to put the stocker back on. I don't know what you mean by pulley/seal.

Have you bought this car yet or are you still deciding?

Man, it feels wierd posting GP stuff on this board.


By the way, here is a link to some different 3800 exhaust sound clips. http://www.unclesamsforms.com/rich/exhaustsounds.html

fireman

I went with a "Dial-Ur-Boost" pulley system, known as a DUB. With the DUB, you can swap pulleys in a few minutes without using a puller. The backing plate stays on the shaft and it just takes 4 allen head machine screws to hold the pulley to it. You can switch pulleys easily at track or wherever.
I purchased mine from Motorsportsperformance for $250 installed on my car with a 3.4 pulley. I picked up a 3.25 a week later and put it on myself in a few minutes.

JWBerk94Z

Yeah, DUB setups are great. The only reason I didn't get one is I wanted my car to look stock just in case I took it in for a none engine related problem. Once my warranty is up and I do a few more things to my car I will probablly step up to a DUB system with a 3.25 and maybe a 3.0 for the track. You don't have to worry about whether it looks stock or not, unlike me. So if you think that you may eventually want to chage pulleys again, that is the way to go.

TireMarx723

They make a 2.75 aluminum pully also. That has to be good for some more horse over the 3.4 even

canbaufo

JWberk, I was talking about flywheel HP and yes, it has 240 to start with. From a link I looked at it appeared on a dyno graph that simply switching to a 3.5 pulley was worth around 40 HP and even more torque. That's where I got the 275 guess, couldn't quite see the graph. So does that sound realistic at the flywheel with the 3.5 and nothing else? Fireman said his buddy runs consistent low 14's at nearly 100 MPH with 3.4, DHP, CAI and stock exhaust......to me that says about 310 flywheel HP given the weight of the car and the fact that it's an automatic. So to think I could get 35 less with just the 3.5 sounds realistic to me. Anyway, if the dhp reduces knock (how though?) and gets rid of speed limiter and firms tranny up it's a given to get that. If you can run 3.4 pulley with no knock with that it sounds like the way to go to me, jeez when Fireman's buddy adds downpipe and high flow cat he should be over 100 MPH and around 14 flat or better with some simple *** mods!

Thanks for the info about the puller, I bet my mechanic already has one but we'll see. You may as well say I'm going to buy the car ......I'm just kind of playing cat and mouse with the seller right now. I have a hunch he may give it to me for $2,900 if I stay after him! About $1K in fixes and another $1K in mods.......awesome stealthy-fast-luxury daily driver for ~ $5K ! I think it's a must it's just a matter of time, maybe another week or two.

fireman

Actually, he ran a best of 13.990 @99mph.
Check out our Arizona GP site www.azwbc.com
The guy if referring to is known as Scott anderson on that board.

JWBerk94Z

Sounds good to me. They rate my 3.4 at 25-30 hp. From what you are saying, I guess that is at the wheels. Don't know. I don't count numbers much. If it feels faster that does it for me. As for the DHP the link I gave you to the article at ZZPerformance explains it in pretty good detail. I think it took until the last or next to last page until they talked about the DHP though.

By the way, what track do you guys from Charleston run? Kanawha Valley is the only one close that I am aware of.

canbaufo

KV is the only one I've been to but there's another one near Beckley/Summersville and some of the others have been to the 1/4 mile track at Clay City Kentucky which isn't too far away, like two hours from Huntington I think. Man o' man, does WV need a 1/4 mile or what.....someone at the track a couple weeks ago was talking about how someone is trying to work out yet another 1/8 mile strip somewhere . To me the 1/8 mile mark is right where it's starting to get fun @ 90 MPH ....that extra 660 feet would mean a lot to me, ~115 MPH legally ...yes!

JWBerk94Z

Well, I have been kind of lazy and I haven't scanned the car since I fixed my exhaust leak.

I did however take the car to KVR last night. I am planning on running my Z next month when I am off work so I took the GTP last night. I took Friday off to do some things and couldn't. So at the last minute I decided to go to test and tune.

I was very happy. Ran consistant 9.30's with a 9.301 as my fastest pass. Man, there were two Mustang GT's up there last night and they were both running high 9's to low 10's. I thought it was kind of funny. If it would have been cooler out and/or had I had a fan switch I think I could have made it into the 9.20's easy. Man, my fastest pass in my Z (stock on bad tires) was 9.22. I am real curious what it will run now. I know it is a lot faster than my GTP.

I guess I will find out soon enough.

Did you buy that car yet?

canbaufo

Well, the guy's being really stubborn on the price and will not go below $3,400 (for about a month now). I guess that's a fair price anyway....about 2K in mods and fixes and the car will be in really nice overall condition for $5,400. This will be a great sleeper car being a luxurious Buick that doesn't look all that sporty (looks good anyway though), super comfortable and super well equiped with moonroof, leather, and all options available. I think it's worth it and will probably give him the 3.4K if that's what he must have. I'm going to offer 3,200 and have cash to show him and take it from there hoping he'll take that. Not sure when I'll do it 'cause my uncle just passed away and I may have to get out of town soon for the funeral.

Well, don't you all think a loaded SC 96 Buick Riviera that needs 2K worth of work is worth 3.4K? (books for $6,200 in the shape it would be in after fixing hail damage, sunroof, A/C. I may be able to buy it, fix everything and mod it some within a total cost of 5K if my luck is good. It could also use a new keyless entry and owner's manual, I think the manual is cheap but getting keyless entry replaced (operates anit theft too) may be a bit pricey (optional at least). Should I go for it or not?

JWBerk94Z

Man, sorry to hear about your Uncle.




I would say that the car sounds like a good investment from what you have described. Nice, luxurious, comfortable, and a definite sleeper. I used to have an old front drive Cadillac for a daily driver. It got good gas milage. It was comfortable. It didn't look too bad. It was even a V8, but it didn't run very good. Don't get me wrong, it was very reliable. It was also very slow. The V8 was a 4.1L I think, something tiny. Now my daily driver today has a little snap to it when you hit the gas, plus leather, gas milage, comfort, good looks, and reliablity. These SC 3.8's are the best of both worlds in my opinion.

By the way, what times are you running in the 1/8th? How many pounds of boost are you running?

I am planning on doing a SC or Turbo on my Z in the distant future and everyone on here seems to list 1/4 mile times. I am just curious what your car runs.

canbaufo

Hmmm, I never got an e-mail notification from the last post and have noticed I no longer get e-mail notifications to responses in other threads as well....something's not right.

Anyway, it was good to meet you last night at the track Jason ....your ride looks really nice and runs about right for the mods you have. I look forward to seeing your GTP run too....I bet that kind of shocks people when you run low 9's with it I think I told you last night my best so far is an 8.30 @ 90 MPH.....IMO could be improved to ~7.8 @ 91 ~ 92 MPH if there was decent traction. Usually the MPH is actually lower with good traction but in my case I couldn't even hit WOT till about half track in 3rd gear ....so I feel there's more MPH in it as well.

Really sucks what happened last night (for those who weren't there; they shut it down at like 7:30 instead of the usual 9:30 or later due to an unrelenting traction problem near the end of the track from an accident early in the evening). I paid $10.00 just to drive in with my Bronco II and watch the races and had to leave just a little over an hour later ......not so cool. I think I'm going to keep my ticket and show it to them the next time just in case they're willing to give a discount for the inconvenience. I felt bad for people just rolling in as the track was closing....almost everyone commutes an hour or more just to get to this track (in the middle of BFE).

Well, back to the original topic. I checked last night and the Riviera is still there.....maybe this guy will finally go for my $2,900 offer. If not I will offer $3,200 and say that's firm. If he won't take that in a couple of weeks I think I'll finally buckle and just give him the $3,400. I've been reading the Ad Bulletin for damn near 8 months trying to find a suitable replacement for the Bronco and can't seem to find anything better than this Riv. I did however find a 98 GTP with 62K in exc cond for $7,900 OBO ....this I am considering as well since the Riv could set me back nearly that much in total by the time all fixes are done and a tranny rebuild comes along. I think the Riv is definitely the more unique car that is even more of a sleeper though....plus the luxury and look is awesome IMO.

I'll shoot you an e-mail sometime man.....hopefully the Z will be patched up within a week or so and I'll run it on Thursday in a couple or three weeks.

Later ... Charlie