78 Buick Riviera --turbo?

[JOES66FURY]

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/nph/cto/3627481208.html

I am digging this boat....

[Bamfster]

Me too!!!.... I see a super-sized GN ...

[Beagle]

78 would have been a Quadrabog draw thru... EWW. How about a 400 Buick in there? That'd be different!

[CTX-SLPR]

That's a LeSabre SportsCoupe. Same B-body platform as the Riviera that year (last of the RWD Rivs) and that carries all the way through to the 96 Impala/Caprice with not a whole lot of changes.

The draw through was not a very good system and that early on it still had some teething issues as well. Additionally the Buick V6 at that point used low port heads and lacked a lot of the potential of the later engines. IF you want to get serious about making it perform like a turbo instead just get good mileage like Buick designed it. You'd need to get a 79+ engine for the better heads and either convert it to blow through (which I'm doing something similar with S//NP) or one of the two EFI setups. Hot Air which is unintercooled 84-85 and the LC2 which is the intercooled 86-87 setup. Very cool cars either way.

[antmnte]

Thats really cool,cheap too probably dosent do too bad on gas.

[Beagle]

probably doesn't do that good either.I had one of those in an 1980 MC and it was pathetic. No o/d.

The junker rebuilt 350 SBC I put in there got better gas mileage, probably because I didn't have it floored all the time to get somewhere and I went from 205/70-14's to 235/60-15's so the gearing went a lot longer... still ran better and got better economy.

I was thinking about it and I had a 78 Impala 305 2v that did about the same as the 231 did - when I think about it , it tickled me. These things measured turbo lag in blocks. The EFI blow through cars were neat. For what they were at the time, these were okay. I guess. THey were notorious for eating themselves in 50k increments. I think the gas / turbine seal leaking probably caused some issue, and tuning the QJ was more than most shops could handle at the time. I shouldn't blame the car as much as myself, I didn't know anything about them. My dad has always been "Good enough is good enough" stock parts replacement only, and my buddies were all stoners at the time. It's a wonder it ran at all.

If I can find it the next time I'm at my dad's I'll get a picture of the turbo / intake manifolding , it will explain a lot.

[CTX-SLPR]

Here's a whole website devoted to the Buick (and related Pontiac) draw through turbo:

http://www.beforeblack.net/

[Beagle]

that was a wayback trip!

We were able to log more than 4000 miles on each of the Buicks and found a significant difference in fuel consumption: 13.5 mpg for the V-8 and 16.5 for the V-6." R&T concluded by saying "Overall, the turbocharged Buick V-6 engine works quite well, providing acceptable performance with improved fuel economy."

huh. My Impala did better than either of them, they must really have been beating the hell out of them. I beg to differ with "acceptable" however.