TheSilverBuick's 1977 Skylark

Discussion in 'The "X" bodies' started by TheSilverBuick, Jul 5, 2010.

  1. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Day 4 at Cordova. It was threating rain the whole time there, but it held off long enough to get down the track. Though the 60ft and final ET times don't reflect it, it sure looked and felt like it could of been my best run of the week.

    https://youtu.be/9bpVtcJKrYo?t=1h33m56s
     
  2. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    And rounding out Day 5. I ran twice this day with the last run being my quickest and fastest though watching the run it doesn't look like it.

    The first pass of the day. I sat at the light so long the camera left me, lol. Ran a 12.69, but thought I could do better so got back in line for the later open session.
    https://youtu.be/MJDPhigABIY?t=1h32m35s

    My second pass of the day, which I did do better, though by just a small amount, it was the quickest and fastest I've got the car to go, 12.55 at 112mph and a nice way to end the week. :beers2:
    https://youtu.be/MJDPhigABIY?t=3h58m19s

    Here is a short blurb where Brian and DF talk about being towed from the return road. They mention how in earlier in the week it came up (*cough* cough*) and it was decided it wasn't planned and going back to the pits is acceptable.
    https://youtu.be/MJDPhigABIY?t=2h13m50s"]https://youtu.be/MJDPhigABIY?t=2h13m50s

    Overall I'm pretty happy with how the car ran during the week and it's performance. I'd like to try a set of lighter weight rims all the way around the car. I'm not sure what these OE big Buick rims weigh, but they are pretty hefty, and I'd like to unbolt my sway arm to see if it'd help the weight transfer to the rear and let me launch a bit more aggressively. I may convert my car back down to the 4.75" bolt pattern and simply use the lighter weight rims that are on the Firebird for the lighter rims. With that, I want to get the 2-step rev limiter dialed in so I don't need to sit at the tree so long to set my launch rpm, just pedal and pedal to the floor and go.

    My shifting leaves plenty of room for improvement as well. With the 2-step I want to work on dialing in the flat shift settings, where I can leave the gas pedal planted and just whisper on the clutch and the EFI will cut spark (and fuel if needed) to drop the rpm to revv match the next gear. With that, I may work on wiring in a vehicle speed sensor to the front right wheel and go as far as utilizing some electronic traction control. Much to do, but plenty of time to do it in and to recap, the car drove out there, ran 5 days of racing, and drove home for a total of 4,321 miles in 13 days. :TU:
     
  3. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    A couple pictures from Indianapolis :)

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  4. SteeveeDee

    SteeveeDee Orange Acres

    Do I see air under that left front tire? :beer
     
  5. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    I really want to run the car down the track with a set of light weight rims and have the sway bar disconnected to see if it could, along with getting the tire pressure and launch rpm more dialed in.

    Some friends of mine had some fun with this photo :3gears: :laugh:

    [​IMG]
     
  6. SteeveeDee

    SteeveeDee Orange Acres

    I personally wouldn't want to loft the front end unless I had wheelie bars. I'm not interested in trashing any components, or losing steering control. Though I do like that photoshopped (or whatever) pic. You've done a great job of representing Buick on the hot rod tour, lemme tell you! :beer
     
  7. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    *cough* Drag Week *cough* :)

    I just want enough air to show it does it :cool:
     
  8. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Finally did some maintenance and repairs to the car this last weekend. Had a bunch of miles on the oil, which I changed right before Drag Week, so finally got some fresh, and thinner oil in the car since it's getting quite cold out now. Got the cooling system anti-freezed up for -40F days, then swapped on a new throttle position sensor finally and reset all the MegaSquirt settings to honor the throttle position sensor again, though I have to say I got it running dang good off the vacuum signal.

    The rear seal on the TKO-600 had started leaking right before Drag Week, and I figured it being on there for ~80,000-90,000+ miles and then me installing and removing the drive shaft four or five times in a month when I was having the rear main seal leak issue had damaged it. Sure enough, there was about a 1/8th inch tear in the seal when I popped the old one out. It was more a pain in the rear to get a new seal than it should have been. Getting a tremec seal, while not impossible, isn't common, plus it wouldn't cross reference to any other seal number (it was a Tremec number). My gut instinct said to try a C6 rear seal since the yoke is a C6 piece, but a few places on the great "internet" said its the same seal as Mustangs with manual transmissions used after 1996. So I got one of those first and it was very very close, but definitely not right. So I went back to NAPA and got a C6 seal from a late 80's truck and it seems to have done the trick. Unfortunately my NAPA doesn't seem to carry syncromesh fluid anymore, so I got a couple quarts of the latest synthetic Dextron fluid since Tremec recommends either Dextron or syncromesh.

    The parking brake had starting giving me trouble as well, or rather not really holding. So I pulled the calipers off and checked them out, and double checked the adjustment lever on them. It seems to be working quite well again.

    I've removed the car computer that ran my digital dash as well. I opened it up and don't see any visibly burnt or damaged components, so the next step is to drag a car battery into the house and hook up the computer to the TV (my only monitor..) to check its software settings and troubleshoot the USB ports from the software side. The USB ports provide power to the things plugged into it, but none of them seem to transmit any data. In the mean time, since I don't have an external temperature gauge in the car I've set the two LED "shift" lights up to give me a low and high coolant temperature indication. The orange one is on below 130F and the red one comes on above 205F, so I'll know when I can turn the blower fan on for some warm air, or if I do run into an overheating situation. I've also maintained their shift light function too :grin: I shouldn't be revving the engine high when its cold for the orange light, and the red one shouldn't come on for temperature unless something is quite wrong :)

    [video=youtube;3DybLnGYSIU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DybLnGYSIU[/video]

    Driving the car to work lately has resulted in quite the muddy mess.
    [​IMG]
     
  9. moleary

    moleary GOD Bless America

    :TU::beer
     
  10. DanielBoone

    DanielBoone New Member

    I'd like to know what size tire and wheels you have on your Silver Buick? I have the standard 14x6. I have the standard 2057514 both from and rear on my '75 Buick Skylark.
     
  11. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    My rim are 15x6 large car rims. I'm going off memory so could be a bit off on the tire size but I think the rears are 235/60R15 and the fronts 215/65R15's. I know I have the same overall diameter tires front and back, but the rear's are wider. I ran 235/60R15 drag radial's during Drag Week.

    If I could find some 15" steelie rims and a way to get my old 14" hubcaps to stick to them, I'd be very tempted to go back to the hubcap look from time to time.
     
  12. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Not going to be driving the car for a while....

    We started to get some snow yesterday afternoon right before my drive home from work....
    [​IMG]

    And this morning :( The Skylark is in the garage.
    [​IMG]
     
  13. sean Buick 76

    sean Buick 76 Buick Nut

    Thanks for keeping us updated on your car adventures. I like seeing you drive it so much and your technical upgrades are always functional.
     
  14. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    No problem :TU: I drive the Skylark and my Firebird so much that I don't spend a ton of time actually working on them except for what I consider "annual upgrade" time when I run through some big'ish changes and then proceed to drive the car when ever the weather is good enough. A little rain and snow don't frighten me, as long as the salt trucks aren't running I'll drive them. Fortunately where I live is still considered a desert so the "weather" is tolerably infrequent.

    I have my Thunderbird in the shop/barn right now. I need to go through the brakes as it lost all its brake fluid recently (I think its a rear wheel cylinder..), but I'm thinking I want to drive it for a good chunk of this winter. I need to fix/solve the digital dash issue on the Skylark but otherwise it's in good shape, and I'm building a new intake manifold for the Firebird as well as need to install the digital display panel where an OE clock would go. Then maybe some other odds and ends there. Automotive A.D.D. at its finest, but from what I've seen, you know how that goes too!
     
  15. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Finally got around to troubleshooting the computer that runs the digital display and it appears the solid state hard drive quit. I finally plugged it into a regular monitor and the bios came up and then reported no bootable device. I pulled a hard drive out of an old laptop and plugged it in and it booted up. So it looks like I need a new hard drive. Looking on Amazon there is a SanDisk one that has twice the memory and a SATA III (higher speed than this SATA II one) for $39. I'll check on it tomorrow to see if it's further discounted, and order it.
     
  16. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Today I ordered a new hard drive. No special deals going on one and went with the SanDisk one. Should be here in a couple days.

    In the mean time I messed with the launch control settings some more and got it to go up on the 2-step without making an excessive amount of noise. Pulling just enough fuel out to quiet up. I turned on the traction control and flat shift too, maybe I'll give them a test out this week. I tried the traction control on the snow behind the barn but it didn't seem to do anything, so I either need to adjust the settings or just have to set wrong.

    I have the 2-step set to 3,000rpm.
    [video]http://vid42.photobucket.com/albums/e313/TheSilverBuick/Skylark%204/VID_20151130_145904916_zpsp81qu29e.mp4[/video]
     
  17. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Finally got around to installing the hard drive, software, etc and getting all the settings back to where they were. Instead of using Window's Remote Desktop (which requires a hack in Windows 7) I decided to try VNC desktop sharing and it works really well. The nice thing about the VNC is both computers share the same screen, interactions, etc. Unlike Remote Desktop where my laptop just got its own desktop on the car computer. This allows me to adjust the gauge layouts on my laptop screen remotely while instantaneously viewing how they look on the dash.

    I think I also got the boot sequence to be a bit shorter, but haven't timed it yet. Its a faster hard drive and I trimmed some wait time off the startup sequence. I also added a "boot from USB" priority to the system, and hope to make a bootable "emergency" thumbdrive for down the road if the hard drive toasts itself again I can just stick the thumb drive in and it'll work.

    [video=youtube;65UJ9YdHOE8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65UJ9YdHOE8[/video]
     
  18. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Frosty morning drive today.

    The intake air temps were below 10F for a bit, showing 13F here after the radiator and engine bay heat. Burr.

    [​IMG]
     
  19. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Nothing new, just driving it and driving it on any day the roads are clear.

    [​IMG]
     
  20. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    After almost ten years worth of stickers piling on, it was time to scrap some of them off. Kind of like DMV archeology, lol.

    [​IMG]
     

Share This Page