.

the car junkie daily magazine.

.

Buford T Justice, Our 1987 9C1 Chevy Caprice Goes Through Final Testing Before the Upgrades Begin!

Jul 18, 2012BangShift Projects, Buford - 9C1 Caprice8

Buford T Justice, Our 1987 9C1 Chevy Caprice Goes Through Final Testing Before the Upgrades Begin!

(Photos by Dave Nutting) – Take a good long look at this wallowing sad sack. It is the last time you’ll see ol’ Buford T Justice, our 1987 9C1 Caprice in stock form. Because we are going to attack the ride and handling aspects of the car first, we wanted to establish some baseline performance standards with which to judge the improvements that we’re going to see from the Hotchkis Suspension components, AFCO bushings, Cragar wheels, and Mickey Thompson tires. Unlike our trip to the drags which yielded results we were not expecting, our runs through the slalom, braking exercises, and general thrashing of the 9C1 Caprice went as anyone with half a brain would have thought. The underpinnings of this car were cutting edge for 1987, but after 200,000 miles, they’re all tired and ready to be replaced and upgraded. Read on to see just how Buford did.

[divider]

What may look like assorted parking lots, access roads, and side streets are actually the top secret BangShift proving grounds. Those other things you are seeing are some of the elaborate sets that we create around here to make it feel like we’re out there with “regular people” getting things done. It is all business in the halls of BangShift. Absolutely no fun was had during any of the below photographed exercises.

Test 1 – Slalom 

Running a car through the slalom is an excellent way to test for body roll, grip, suspension travel, and agility. As it turns out, we didn’t have that much body roll, nor did we have that much grip, or agility. We attacked the course at around 30 mph in these photos and put the thing through its paces pretty well. We were not surprised by the total lack of grip provided by our junkyard sourced Touring T/A tires produced up front and even less so by the Pep Boys rubber on the rear. The GM quick ratio box in the 9C1 Caprice made it fun to work the wheel through the cones. While the body roll we experienced was certainly not what anyone would consider OK for a modern performance car, it was pretty good (in our eyes anyway) for a 25 year old car that was probably beaten on pretty badly during its life in the hands of law enforcement.

(The plug hanging down was from the previous 700R4 transmission…we know  it is there)

On to the photos!

Here we are at the top secret test facility. We made several runs though the cone slalom and about 30mph was all we could do to maintain some level of control of the car while cranking the wheel.

We killed the Hell out of that cone..several times.

While the car is showing some body roll, the big factory sway bars are keeping it from being totally horrifying. If this were a civilian Caprice, these photos would be more dramatic. Also, if the tires provided more grip, the body roll would be more pronounced.

With about 3800lbs to both support and keep planted to the ground, the car did an admirable job. It would have been something to do these tests in 1987 when the car was new. Completely wasted shocks, bushings that are old, cracked, and certainly deflecting in these photos, rear control arms that are weak stamped steel and hating live, and springs that have bashed and thrashed for 200,000 miles get you this.

That driver side front tire was cursing the day it was born!

Obviously the larger than normal rear sway bar also helped to keep the car planted, but as is visible here, we had some "gangsta" lean happening.

As we mentioned earlier, the rubber on the car is really bottom of the barrel stuff. We're going to be fixing that with larger 17x9 Cragar Soft 8 wheels and Mickey Thompson Street Comp tires. There will be 275/40/17 meats on all four corners.

By the time we made our last run, Buford was not really happy. The transmission was not staying in third gear, and the car smelled hot. With the temp gauge non-functional, we had to go by our nose. No matter, we forged ahead.

[divider]

The next thing we wanted to illustrate was how the car acted while braking. With the Hotchkis suspension system going on the car, we’re expecting huge a improvement in the car’s nose-diving, and with the addition of the high performance tires we’re expecting that the stopping distances will be improved as well. The 9C1 Caprices were equipped with 12″ rotors up front (instead of 11″ for civilian cars) and larger rear drums in the back. As we discovered, the car will instantly lock the rear brakes in a “panic stop” situation. The car absolutely nosedives when the pedal is hit hard, taking all the weight off the rear end and allowing the rear tires to lock lots easier. The old springs and shocks on the corners aren’t helping matters either.

Here's what we're talking about with the nosediving of the Caprice. See how the rear tires are totally unloaded and the front bumper is looking all "low rider"? That's not good.

We're not doing a burnout here..well we kind of are except it is because the rear tires are locked up like Fort Knox.

 

In time, we're going to upgrade the brakes, but the heavy duty factory stoppers on the car right now will hold us over, especially with the chassis, suspension, and tire upgrades. All of those factors combine to determine how effective your brakes will be.

Here's a side illustration of the diving.

 

With the rears locked, the car would go into some fun slides.

[divider]

While our results are far more visual than scientific, we think you get the idea. We’re going to change the whole dynamic of this car with wheels, tires, bushings, and a set of matched suspension components from Hotchkis that are designed to work together. We’ve had fun driving the car as is, but we cannot wait to get after it with the new parts installed.

We made an attempt to get some quantifiable numbers for this story by using an interesting iPhone app called “Dynolicious”. This $12.99 app uses the accelerometers in the phone to measure acceleration, braking, and lateral g-forces. It can also simulate quarter mile runs and do all kinds of neat stuff. We have seen examples tested on the drag strip and it has been accurate to within several hundredths of an actual time slip. It was either operator error or some thing else, but we didn’t feel as though the numbers generated were accurate enough to publish and stand behind. For instance, it measured lateral forces of .87G during the slalom and that struck us as extremely high, given the car and circumstances. We plan on continuing to mess with the unit and if/when we get it dialed in, we’ll let you know our true thoughts on it.

The zip tie was our own custom mounting addition.

[divider]

So we’ll be back early next week with an installment highlighting the car’s current problems and the actual components we’re using to improve them. We’re stoked to be finally in the improvement stages of this car and to be moving on from just beating on it in stock form.

By the end of the evening, the car was pretty pissed off at us. In fact, it wouldn’t even muster a burnout to close this item out with a gratuitous smoke show. The car really had its tongue hanging out, so we just cruised home, happy nothing broke off it while under heavy braking or on the slalom!

Stay tuned! We’ll be back next week with sexy parts and the beginnings of Buford’s transformation from sad rad!

Riding off into the sunset!

 

 

  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0
Slap Fight: Brian Vs Chad - We Insult Each Other Over Turbos and Nitrous

8 thoughts on “Buford T Justice, Our 1987 9C1 Chevy Caprice Goes Through Final Testing Before the Upgrades Begin!”

  2. Speedy

    No match for the ’03-’04 Marauder yet (Even HRD editor Dave Wallace, Jr.’s somewhat slow Marauder has it beat . . . Speedy’s quicker ’04 would totally cover it).

    Maybe after the upgrades Buford will be closer . . . . 😉

  3. ls7gto

    Speedy, your post once again is irrelevant. Comparing a 03/04 marauder to a used up 87 coprice Makes about as much sense as comparing a model t to a 49 merc. See I was nice and put it in ford terms so you would understand.

    1. Speedy

      Wrong! Both are full-size, body-on-frame,four door, V8 RWD used cars.

      I’d compare the Marauder to the full-size RWD ’03-’04 Chevy sedan . . . except that “Government Motors” admitted defeat and bailed out of the segment in 1996.

      Besides, it’ll give Lohnes something to shoot for.

  4. sbg

    Did you set money aside for a child psychologist? After all, you totally destroyed their soccer cones.

  7. ls7gto

    Speedster, like there was no technology changes in 20 years…. and funny you avoid putting a police package 87 cr. vic against it. As a 20+ year Ferd tech….I know which one is a better car, and it wasnt wearing a blue oval. Your bias slant is getting old .

Comments are closed.