My son has found an older lady that has been wanting to get rid of a 73 Lesabre 455 4 door. He is going to offer sweat in trade, yard work etc. we are thinking of building it up. Show daddys boys in there 5.0s a thing or too. What would be the best way to wake up that motor, it is said to been rebuilt. Tim
Tim, Although this isn't the motor, lower gears (higher numerically) are one of the best seat of the pants differences you can make. If it already has gears close to 3.42, you wouldn't want to bother. But if it is in the high 2's or around 3.08, you may want to consider something in the mid to high 3's. 3.42's are a good all around gear, but you could go something like 3.73 and offset with a taller tire if need be. Beyond that, headers are a good bang for the buck upgrade. Maybe someone knows if long tubes like the TA's will bolt in with little to no modification. Once you've done that, hook it up with a quality 2.5" mandrel bent exhaust system. You could also swap the intake although that won't give you a huge difference. It will drop some weight from the those though. Having the Qjet rebuilt by someone like John Osborne seems to come highly recommended too. I'd wait until anything else has been done first though. Other than those "simple" bolt-on's, then you're going into the motor. You can do other things to reduce weight and drag on the motor, such as an electric fan setup. There have been some discussions on the board about these. There isn't going to be any aftermarket fiberglass pieces for it, so you have to decide how much you remove you can live with. Once you start pulling inner fenders, carpet underlayment and jute padding, etc... you start to diminish the driveability. If you're going to go into the motor, heads are the key. Bolt on some of those TA aluminums that are on special, a mild cam, and away you go. You may also be able to find a deal on iron heads. The prices have dropped drastically lately!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that someone will have to let you know about the availability of gears (and posi's) for that rear. I have no idea what it uses.
Gook luck with finding a posi. It took me a year to find one for my car. You can start looking under 71-73 Rivs, Electras, Estate Wagons for starters. Headers & X Pipe, HEI conversion & Recurve from Dave Ray, John Osborne Qjet, Stage1 conversion on the heads with minor port work, aluminum intake, cam, convertor, (possible ST400 tranny conversion)... Just some ideas..
HEHEHEHEHE I used to run NOS on a junkyard motor (455)that came out of a 73 lasabre or Electra. My Regal had 2.14 gears ( yes. 2.14, counted ten times ) the car ran a 12.04 @ 115mph on radials. The 250 hp shot never really hurt the motor except a couple head gaskets popping due to dentonation. Oh yeah, it was reallllllllllll fun to drive on the street. Kelly.
