The twin turbo Skylark is coming together! This car was a mess when I got it for $1500. I should have bought a $8,000 car and re-done it but hindsight is 20/20. We added new quarters, glass removed and rust fixed, a front clip off another car, etc etc. Mark Burton put SO many hours into this car and it shows! I had a HUGE holdup waiting for the paint shop to paint it. Eventually I just pulled the car out and going to get it on the road first then deal with pant. The colour will be 1970 GM Shadow grey, what a nice paint it is! Leanne my better half picked it out off a car at a car show. For now the primer will do, I will make the car earn a paint job by pulling a wheelie! Ignore the rear bumper, I have a re-chromed one to swap on. I came up with a nice little 355 cubic inch engine. It made 398 HP at 5600 RPM with a Poston 114 cam. I have since added better rods, better pistons, better ported heads from Sonny Seal (they ran low 11s NA with high compression), better single plane intake so it should be about 30+ HP more. I am using custom tube headers from Burton machine, T3/T4 hybrid turbos with dual 3 exhaust. The camshaft is a mild street cam (Poston 114), later I will add a custom roller cam. I will add engine pics once it is ready! Diamond custom pistons put me at 8.5:1 They are 555 grams, that is about 150 grams lighter than stock! Times that by 8! That is a lot less stress on the crank and rods! The rods are also about 100 grams lighter than stock and also forged. THIS IS NOT MY ENGINE, it is Mark Burton's (the guy who built my car) but mine will look almost the same when I get it done in the next few months. The interior is almost done, it features camaro bucket seats, new black carpet, replaced the dashpad (thanks Cole), custom gauges etc. Notice the custom 6 point roll cage really matches the lines of the car! I am really happy with how it turned out! I do not really have a goal for the HP, I have a goal for 10.70 in the quarter with this all steel street car. I project it will make about 600 HP without too much boost.... I think it is capable of hitting 750 HP at about 18 PSI however not sure I want to push it that hard. The turbos are sized so the car will make lots of boost quickly as this is a street car not a race only car. For torque, that is the key! Even at a paltry 600-650 HP the torque should be massive from about 3200 RPM on up. I expect the car to have great mid range torque alowing me to run my goals and keep the RPM under 6000. I know a guy with a 355 inch chevy running high tens at 12 PSI of boost using the same turbos. He is using heads that flow about the same so it gives me a good idea how it will react. He leaves the line at 2000 RPM with no trans brake and his datalogging tells him he gets from 0 PSI at the line to 12 PSI in 1.2 seconds. I will be leaving the line off the trans brake so I should be able to make about 6 PSI at the line. I am buying another set of the same rear 15X10 wheels so I can mount 27X11-15 drag radials, on the street I will run these 11" wide 31" tall BFG tires. With the 3.42 gear the RPM on the highway with the tall tires is exactly the same as the original tires and highway gear were. At the track the shorter tire will help my gearing... This was my way to get the gearing I want at the track and the RPM on the highway where I wanted it without overdrive. The 2004R is a great trans but massive torque kills them.... I stuck with the tried and true Th400 with all the goodies and a nice tight converter (2800 stall but good quality so low amount of slip)
Love those wheels! Glad to hear it is comming together. I would love to get a bunch of the boosted buicks together one day during the summer and see what they all can due.
Nice project and build Plan Sean, We have heard about this project for a couple years now and it will be nice to finally see some pictures of the progress and some real world results. enjoy yourself. Bob
Thanks! I think it will look very good once it is painted! Do you like flat hood hiding the twin turbos??? Here is the car that inspired the paint this car is getting: I will not post the engine pics till it is all pretty, but it should look a bit like this: These are custom made Hershe rods that should be safe to about 850 HP with my nice light pistons, I save about 100 grams EACH vs stock:<o></o> <o></o> <o></o> Diamond custom pistons put me at 8.5:1 They are 555 grams, that is about 150 grams lighter than stock! Times that by 8! That is a lot less stress on the crank and rods! <o></o> <o></o> The interior is almost done, it features camaro bucket seats, new black carpet, replaced the dashpad (thanks Cole), custom gauges etc. Notice the custom 6 point roll cage really matches the lines of the car! <o></o> I am really happy with how it turned out!
Thanks, I love the wheels too!!! I need to order another set of the rear 15X10 wheels and some 12" wide drag radials for the track! I would love to see your kick ass car in person too!!!
