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This page will contain information about one of my hobbies. There will be useful technical information, and links as well as info about some projects that I have completed, projects that I am working on, and projects planned for the future.
Previous Projects:
Current Projects
Future Projects
Previous Projects
This was my first restoration project. I really didn't know what I was doing at the time but the car looked good from a few feet back back. This is my favorte year and make of car.
Download cool .avi of transformation of field car to finished product.
57.zip
This car had a hosed V-6 in it when I got it. I didn't have another V-6 to put back in it but I did have a 76 Cadillac with a 500" motor. I had to do a considerable amount of minor fabrication to make it fit.
The cad had a front sump pan but it had to be a rear sump to fit in the regal. I couldn't locate the correct Elderado rear sump pan, so I fabricated one by sectioning the pan and rewelding it back together. I also had to shorten the oil pickup tube. After the pan fit, I fabricated motor mounts and bolted the motor in place. The heater box had to be modified slightly to clear the valve covers. The heater hose return line went into the radiator in the Cad but the new 4 core Regal radiator had no provision for this so I fabricated a T for the lower radiator hose. The oil filter hit the sway bar so the sway bar was lowered 1" by installing spacers under the sway bar mount.
The massive torque (compared to the V-6) would smoke the hides at will. The weight of the engine totally bottomed out the front of the car. Ford wagon springs were put in the rear of the car and the front coils were replaced with springs for a diesel air conditioned regal. This certainly took care of the problem .
I never took the car to the track but the person I sold it to did. He said it ran low 15s.
Future Projects
I brought this car back from Texas. The body is rust free except for the floor pans. There are also a few minor dents in the body. I'm not sure what to do with this car yet. I have replaced the floor pan on the passanger side but not the drivers side yet. I don't know whether to restore it to original, make it into a daily driven rod, or pro street it. I would like to put a hopped up fuel injected 350 and overdrive transmission in it. I would like respectable power and decent gas mileage.
This is a project car that me and a friend thrashed on for an entire winter (weeknights and weekends). It started out as a 56 Chevy 4dr station wagon. I put a motor in it fixed the brakes and drove it around town for a couple of weeks. I then decided that I wanted to just patch it up and paint it and drive it as it was. I enlisted a friend to help. We were working on it one night and wondered what it would look like as a sedan delivery. I rounded up some chevy magazines and found one. It was cooler than a 4dr wagon so we decided to do it. A few nights later, after welding up one of the rear doors, we wondered what it would look like if it was chopped. I took the magazine picture and chopped it. It certainly looked cool, so we decided to do it. With a borrowed handheld bandsaw in hand we went at it. I started by taking 4 inches out of the hight. This was not enough so I took out another inch, and then another inch - thats just right. The area where the rear side windows were was filled in and braced.
A cage was then fabricated for the front clip so it could be tiped as a single unit. A power steering box and tilt wheel was installed. There rear two piece tailgate was chopped and welded together because sedan deliveries had a one piece tailgate. I then took a cracked windshield to a glass specialist friend to experiment. We were able to get the windshield to fit very good with only a 1/4" gap at the corners. The metal will have to be reworked to make it fit properly. The door handles were also shaved.
The metal work is 90% done but I lost interest in the project. I have it stored inside and it is awaiting my free time to work on it again.
This is perhaps my most ambitious project.
Other Links
Turbo Reagal Web Site
"The Buick Turbo Cars from 1978-1987 are some of the finest looking and best running cars to come out of Michigan in many a year. The Grand Nationals from 1984 and up, have out ran just about everything at the dragstrip, in almost any class. Up until these Grand Nationals, big block power reigned supreme on the streets and the strip. The Grand Nationals have opened a few eyes to V6 Turbo Power."
