Too good to be true....my GS is really only a Custom

[mikedunbar]

DOH!

 

I should have known when I took the test drive. But I had only ever driven Gen 1 3.8L Regal gs's before. So the gen II I bought seemed quick enough, and it was badged correctly. Even the online VIN decoder called it a GS.

 

I got thirty two miles per gallon driving it back from Chicago. That should have told me,. too. My two previous GS Regals never got more than twenty-six.

 

This is the car I replaced all the sub frame bushings on,. and the sway bar bushings. No wonder I had only a one and an eighth inch sway bar.

 

Now I finally got the service manual. It was a Custom, ordered with the painted grille, sport bumpers, sport wheels, FE3 suspension. Since I bought it from the second owner who had bought it for his teenager, I doubt he tried to rip me off. Probably the dealer took off the Custom stick-on emblems, and put on the GS ones.

 

The main difference, the one that's making me hurt inside, ( not really, just a car), is the final drive ratio. three point oh six. SlOOOOw.

 

I see that is possible for me, of limited skills and tools, to remove the final drive assembly from the transaxle. Now I go to search the interwebs to find out if there is somehow to change it to the FW9 option, 3.43.

 

Thank Goodness I didn't take it to a Buick Club meet yet. Those guys laugh you out of town if your lug nuts are the wrong type.

 

There's an '88 Regal Limited for sale around here for a grand. Maybe I'll hot-rod that one, and keep this one for trips. It really is quite smooth and quiet with all the new bushings, and the new hubs in the rear.

 

If anybody wants, I have a 1996 Service Manual for W-body's, both volumes, and would be happy to share option decoding or anything else.

[Crazy K]

and.... I think you are crying over nothing.... It is likely a GS in sprite of what you claim.... what year car are you talking about? You aren't clear....

[Euro]

Is it one of the cars in your sig? I'm also slightly confused.

[mikedunbar]

It's the 1996, sorry if that wasn't clear. I guess it's a GS if I call it one, I suppose. But it has the option trim code Z7T, model comversion Buick Regal Custom, instead of the Z13, model conversion Buick Regal Gran Sport. And it has the taller final drive, which is what bugs me, and makes me cry.

[Crazy K]

It's the 1996, sorry if that wasn't clear. I guess it's a GS if I call it one, I suppose. But it has the option trim code Z7T, model comversion Buick Regal Custom, instead of the Z13, model conversion Buick Regal Gran Sport. And it has the taller final drive, which is what bugs me, and makes me cry.

 

Whatever possessed you to complain about having a proper 3.06 gear ratio with a 3800 needs to stop right now. Have you never had a 3800 before? they don't need a 3.33 like a 3.1 or 2.8 would have had. You can modify it to run with a 3.33 if you desire, but remember to utter the phrase 'becuz racecar" once you do... and then also realize you will need a custom tune to do that, too, cause your PCM will leave the trans inoperable when it sees a wrong ratio transaxle.

 

I am skeptical that the same code they may have used in earlier years would mean the same for ALL years. It is probably a GS under the terms of the model year is was made. find another 96 GS and get it';s spid codes and see if it is the same of not.

[White93z34]

Post some pictures.

[mikedunbar]

I did more research, and found out that the 96 GS was supposed to come with the taller gears, and the skinnier front sway bar. So, it is in fact a GS.

 

I didn't realize the PCM could tell the difference between the 4T60E with the tall gears, and the 4T60E with the shorter gears, though. So, I guess I'll leave it alone. Although, I watched some videos on

, and it seems that the spiders with the shorter gears are much beefier, with four cams instead of three.

 

My 93 GS, with the series 1 3800, was a lot quicker off the line. but it didn't get thirty mpg, either.

 

I'm still looking for the thicker front sway bar when I visit the only pick and pay jy near me.

 

I'm going to try and find a less rusty rear subframe, too. I have been reading the thread about putting adjustable gen II lateral links on. I think I could get the front ones shortened for less than the price of buying two sets of correct ones. With adjustable rear laterals, I can push out the inside bottoms of the rear tires a little, which will help. I also hear that a strut brace does make a difference in the rear.

 

I don't understand how to do that for the front tires, though. How do you add negative camber there? Keep in mind, please, that I can barely comprehend this article: EDIT: I found some nice looking camber adjustment mounts Here, at overkill engineering.

WHAT IS CAMBER?

 

Camber is the angle of the wheel relative to vertical, as viewed from the front or the rear of the car. If the wheel leans in towards the chassis, it has negative camber; if it leans away from the car, it has positive camber (see next page). The cornering force that a tire can develop is highly dependent on its angle relative to the road surface, and so wheel camber has a major effect on the road holding of a car. It's interesting to note that a tire develops its maximum cornering force at a small negative camber angle, typically around neg. 1/2 degree. This fact is due to the contribution of camber thrust, which is an additional lateral force generated by elastic deformation as the tread rubber pulls through the tire/road interface (the contact patch).

To optimize a tire's performance in a corner, it's the job of the suspension designer to assume that the tire is always operating at a slightly negative camber angle. This can be a very difficult task, since, as the chassis rolls in a corner, the suspension must deflect vertically some distance. Since the wheel is connected to the chassis by several links which must rotate to allow for the wheel deflection, the wheel can be subject to large camber changes as the suspension moves up and down. For this reason, the more the wheel must deflect from its static position, the more difficult it is to maintain an ideal camber angle. Thus, the relatively large wheel travel and soft roll stiffness needed to provide a smooth ride in passenger cars presents a difficult design challenge, while the small wheel travel and high roll stiffness inherent in racing cars reduces the engineer's headaches.

It's important to draw the distinction between camber relative to the road, and camber relative to the chassis. To maintain the ideal camber relative to the road, the suspension must be designed so that wheel camber relative to the chassis becomes increasingly negative as the suspension deflects upward. The illustration on the bottom of page 46 shows why this is so. If the suspension were designed so as to maintain no camber change relative to the chassis, then body roll would induce positive camber of the wheel relative to the road. Thus, to negate the effect of body roll, the suspension must be designed so that it pulls in the top of the wheel (i.e., gains negative camber) as it is deflected upwards.

While maintaining the ideal camber angle throughout the suspension travel assures that the tire is operating at peak efficiency, designers often configure the front suspensions of passenger cars so that the wheels gain positive camber as they are deflected upward. The purpose of such a design is to reduce the cornering power of the front end relative to the rear end, so that the car will understeer in steadily greater amounts up to the limit of adhesion. Understeer is inherently a much safer and more stable condition than oversteer, and thus is preferable for cars intended for the public.

Since most independent suspensions are designed so that the camber varies as the wheel moves up and down relative to the chassis, the camber angle that we set when we align the car is not typically what is seen when the car is in a corner. Nevertheless, it's really the only reference we have to make camber adjustments. For competition, it's necessary to set the camber under the static condition, test the car, then alter the static setting in the direction that is indicated by the test results.

The best way to determine the proper camber for competition is to measure the temperature profile across the tire tread immediately after completing some hot laps. In general, it's desirable to have the inboard edge of the tire slightly hotter than the outboard edge. However, it's far more important to ensure that the tire is up to its proper operating temperature than it is to have an "ideal" temperature profile. Thus, it may be advantageous to run extra negative camber to work the tires up to temperature.

 

 

.

 

First, I have to replace the rusty gas tank and straps, and the rusty fuel filler.

 

I want to use this GS for autocross, so acceleration is kind of more important than gas mileage. There are two supercharged Buicks in the jy, so I could cheaply get the heads and chargers. Kind of seems like an awful lot of work for another forty horses, though. I wish I could afford the $3500 turbo and intercooler from Canada.

 

thanks for answering....

Edited December 9, 2012 by mikedunbar
answered own question