Grandma Fresh's 1988 GPSE!!!!!

[1994KlrWhaleOlds]

Nice...

[AWeb80]

that thing is HUGE..

nice!!!!


you better have some DECENT numbers w/ that snail

[3XTurboAgain]

how many psi is that wastegate?

[CobraCDR]

how many psi is that wastegate?

10 psi, I'm running 12 with my mbc

[Rhedalert]

[CobraCDR]

UPDATE: Ok we have been doing a lot of tuning and this thing is getting fast as hell now! I surprised myself earlier today when I powershifted 1-2 and the thing spun the front tires. I'm sure you guys are like yeah big deal......well the tires on the car are cooper zeon zpt's 245/50/16! Thats a big chunk of tire to break free!

Anyways I fixed the exhaust leak, turned out to be the rear crossover ball and socket joint was warped from years of use so I got some of this stuff below called thermosteel from autozone for like $6.99. I loosened the joint, stuffed the goopy mixture in there, tightened it up, smeared some around the outside and let it sit overnight. Start the car up and let it idle for a few minutes to finish the cure and no more leaky crossover I had tried to tighten the rear flange to make it stop leaking, even tried copper shims, I tightened it so much I broke the damn stud off the rear exhaust manifold. Luckly I had a spare rear manifold for a turbo grand prix in the garage with good studs and it only cost me 1.5 hours work to change it and put in a new gasket.

Otherwise I have been busy tidying up the engine compartment. I made a EGR blockooff plate out of some 300 series stainless at work and used a copper flare pipe cap to block off the crossover pipe where the egr pipe was. I just won and auction on ebay for a combo EGT/Boost gauge and I'm going to mount the thermocouple for the EGP where this cap is.

I have also been doing a lot of heat shielding. Let me tell you thermotech works! That reflective wrap really cut down the charge pipe temp and the header wrap around the turbo and downpipe really helped as well. Enough talk enjoy the pics at the park near my house and of the updates!















Ken

[CobraCDR]

Well Larry (GPSE3400) and I hit Island Dragway in NJ today! What a great day for it, since it rained all day Saturday they were only running cars with street tires since water was creeping out of the cracks in the track. So unlimited runs ( I got like 9 in a 4 hour period) and no wait. So here are the results, mods in my sig. Yeah the car is silent! I'm running a stock 88 SE exhaust still, I'm getting an exhaust built this weekend for it. I'm running like 12 psi on a semi DIY tune that Flybynite and I made.


This guy trailered in this camaro, he beat me but I think his pride was hurt a bit by this launch )
Best Run: 14.556 @ 93.75 MPH




This was against a turbo civic with no interior, he said he was running 14s but I saw him run a 13.85 so I knew what to expect, needless to say he was surprised by the TGPSE with full interior and a full tank of gas! He did not catch me until after the 1/8 mile. He gave lots of respect to the "grandma car" as he called it

Second Best Run: 14.6 Flat @ 93.43 MPH



Most of the sixty foots were in the 2.12 -2.13 range. Not bad for the first time in the 1/4 with this car, oh yeah it is only a little 2.8

Ken

[AWeb80]

awesome Ken.....just awesome

great times too.

I hope to see some better times w/ better exhaust...

[oldscsc]

WOW! Nice job, I bet that's quite the sleeper!

[CobraCDR]

Thanks guys for the positive responses! Yeah the car is quite the sleeper. Problems are afoot though.

I have noticed for quite sometime that when I make left hand turns the oil pressure drops.....I installed a new sending unit the other day and it did the same thing. Here all this time I thought it was the crappy sender but all a long I had a problem. Well I drained the oil last night and stuck my magnet into the drain hole and it caught the pickup tube. Needless to say the pickup tube and screen are laying in the bottom of the pan. That is the bad news.

The good news is I did not break anything yet and this probably is part of the reason my original turbo crapped out. I checked my new turbo and it is good, probably because I have not been getting on it hard on left turns just in case I had an oil problem.

The even better news is since I carpool I don't need the car everyday and I have a week to fix it.......so I'm pulling the motor this week and fixing the oil pump obviously (tack welding it in place this time) and putting in that turbo cam I have sitting around the garage along with new lifters (also sitting in a box) and new timing set.

I'm sure I will have some fine tuning to do but that will be ok since I know how to do it this time and the tune I have now is pretty spot on . The cam is made by Engle and specs are:

(valve lift: in .458, ex .440) (Duration: in 260, ex 256)(cam lift: in 305, ex 295)(Duration at .050: in 216, ex 210)(Lobe center 114)

Should help with the top end seeing this motor has none

I'll update when I get new numbers

Ken

[Rhedalert]

Wow, nice numbers!!! Good luck with the install of the cam and getting that pickup tube fixed up. How will that cam be with the turbo application? Even though you're flat tappet, our cam specs are very similar, and my cam profile has a LOT of valve overlap. I always thought that is usually avoided or at least needs to be minimized on FI motors.

[CobraCDR]

Wow, nice numbers!!! Good luck with the install of the cam and getting that pickup tube fixed up. How will that cam be with the turbo application? Even though you're flat tappet, our cam specs are very similar, and my cam profile has a LOT of valve overlap. I always thought that is usually avoided or at least needs to be minimized on FI motors.

I called Engle and they said this is a brand new cam custom ground for a turbo application for the 60 degree v6. They said it will give the engine more HP from idle to 5k how much is unsure. They said it would work with stock programming so I imagine it won't require to much more tuning.

Bad thing is the combination of lack of oil due to the pickup being in the bottom of the pan, confirmed today, and the detonation from the fuggin icm spazing out at wot under max boost wore out the conn. rod bearings. So I'm basically rebuilding the engine this weekend.......all but piston rings.

I'll post pictures when I'm done.

Ken

[pontiacjeff]

Hey man! I like what you have done to the car. Very impressive. The only other 88 SE 5-speed I have ever seen is one I bought at a salvage auction in TN. I parted it out for the 5-speed swap for my 90 TGP, what a coincidence! I hope you get that engine running good again. The 3.1T with that turbo should put out about 300hp on 12-15psi. I have alot of experience with those cars, too. I just built a 3400/3.1T hybrid. If your bottom end it toast, that's something you might consider. I picked up 40whp on the same tune and LESS boost (7psi down to 4psi) going to the 3400 roller cam engine with all the stock 3.T top end. it was a farily easy swap, too. I wrote about it here, maybe I can find the thread for you. That engine now is set up to make 250-275whp on 10psi. (it's a std T3 turbo with the .63 turbine hsg. which is about as good as the upgraded T25 you have.

[CobraCDR]

Hey man! I like what you have done to the car. Very impressive. The only other 88 SE 5-speed I have ever seen is one I bought at a salvage auction in TN. I parted it out for the 5-speed swap for my 90 TGP, what a coincidence! I hope you get that engine running good again. The 3.1T with that turbo should put out about 300hp on 12-15psi. I have alot of experience with those cars, too. I just built a 3400/3.1T hybrid. If your bottom end it toast, that's something you might consider. I picked up 40whp on the same tune and LESS boost (7psi down to 4psi) going to the 3400 roller cam engine with all the stock 3.T top end. it was a farily easy swap, too. I wrote about it here, maybe I can find the thread for you. That engine now is set up to make 250-275whp on 10psi. (it's a std T3 turbo with the .63 turbine hsg. which is about as good as the upgraded T25 you have.

Thanks Jeff. I agree with the numbers, I want to do a top end swap but it will have to wait for a bit. This is my DD afterall I had it down all last week for the rebuild. I'll post pictures of the rebuild soon, the mains were bad too but the crank was good so I just rebuilt the sucker.

Post up the link to the top end swap. I know it is in my future just not for a bit since I just did all this work, I think what I would like to do is build and engine offline this winter and swap it in next summer.

Ken

[CobraCDR]

engine rebuild pictures

Well here are the pictures, she is running great right now! Gotta break her in before going back to the track!
















































Ken