OK, Veeky Forums. I need your help

OK, Veeky Forums. I need your help.

I'm writing a story. The main character is a 'car guy' who rebuilt and heavily modded a classic muscle car. That's cool. The character makes extra money on the side in illegal street races, so the car itself is integral to the story. But what I know about car modifications and muscle cars is exactly 'Jack' and 'Shit'. I do *NOT* want to sound like an idiot. So, I need you to give me a crash course. Here are my primary questions:

1: Pic related. A 1970 Buick Grand Sport. That's the base car my character started with. What are the 'standard' modifications people use to get better speed, horsepower, and performance out of one of these?

2: Addendum to 1, what modifications do you think a dedicated hot-rodder concerned with performance would make to a 1970 Buick GS?

3: What is the difference between a 'turbocharger' and a 'supercharger'?

4: What else do I need to know, as a writer, to not sound like a retard?

Thanks in advance, Veeky Forums.

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1: Pic related. A 1970 Buick Grand Sport. That's the base car my character started with. What are the 'standard' modifications people use to get better speed, horsepower, and performance out of one of these?
Say he had the engine rebuilt by a speed shop with strong internal components, aftermarket cylinder heads, Holley carburetors, headers, a supercharger, and a 3" dual exhaust.
2: Addendum to 1, what modifications do you think a dedicated hot-rodder concerned with performance would make to a 1970 Buick GS?
A modern T56 magnum manual transmission and lower rear axle gears to accelerate better. Aftermarket suspension components to bring handling up to modern standards. A 4 wheel disk brake conversion. Wide wheels and tires with grippy rubber, but small wheel diameter like 16" max to reduce rotating mass.
3: What is the difference between a 'turbocharger' and a 'supercharger'?
Turbo = exhaust driven, super = belt driven. Both cram more air into the engine. A "roots" or "twin screw" supercharger that sits on top of the engine is tradition for old muscle cars.
4: What else do I need to know, as a writer, to not sound like a retard?
Driver matters more than the car. Tires are huge for cornering performance, launching, and braking. It won't handle as well as a modern sports car even with modifications.

>1970 Buick Grand Sport
First.
Gran Sport. Not Grand.
Fix that.
> I do *NOT* want to sound like an idiot.
That's good, thanks for actually doing research, random author. More authors should do more of that shit.
>What else do I need to know, as a writer, to not sound like a retard?
I'd avoid getting ludicrously technical, just make sure what you are writing can be justified from a technical standpoint. There are too many technical details to effectively write about.

If you don't know jack shit, you need a proper course, but I'll answer your questions.

This is honestly better than my post. Im sure someone here can pick apart the "build" I listed out, and they're just names of components, OP isn't going to know what does what.

Assuming he uses mostly period aftermarket, a supercharger, aftermarket carb, and a shaker scoop.

Probably not much on the suspension because they didn't do too much with that, but maybe a new set of springs and/or lowered a bit.

Race compound tires, and maybe widened rear tires. Actually, DEFINITELY widened rears, and MAYBE race compound, got that backwards

>story about a car guy
>written by a guy who (to his credit I guess) knows nothing about cars besides a bunch of random aftermarket brand-names

DELET THIS

bump, good luck mate

Thanks user.
>What are the 'standard' modifications people use...
>Addendum to 1, ...
That car (The second gen skylark-based GS ) has a really obscure engine, The Buick 455 big block, with limited aftermarket support, but you can do stuff to it. More to come on that.
As far as the car itself, like most cars from that era the suspension is woefully insufficient for competing with modern cars, but the weight and power aren't that far off.
If somebody gave me one and said "race it" I wouldn't shoot for unicorn power out of the engine, rather, I'd focus on making it handle... But it depends on the type of racing and the setting, so you're gonna have to clarify your questions.

>1. and 2.
Don't worry about getting too specific, saying it's running a real rowdy/radical/nasty cam generally gets the message across. If it's drag racing, make a point of say, somebody noticing he's running "a lot of rubber underneath the damn thing." Most actual street racers hold their cards close to their chest but enjoy a bit of humblebragging. So say your guy is getting sized up for a race and is asked "what he's running" a very hot rodder response would be something along the lines of "It's just your grandma's kinda Buick with a lotta spray, nothing special." (spray being nitrous oxide, very common drag racing power-adder).

>3.
Turbo is an exhaust driven compressor, supercharger is a crankshaft driven compressor (the big scoop sticking out of the hood in Mad Max). No hot rodder calls a supercharger a supercharger though, it's a blower to them.

>4.
Just don't try to overcompensate for a lack of knowledge or overcomplicate things, guys who actually know their shit don't. If you wanna say something sounds bad to the fucking bone sitting on the line just kinda be offhand about it, "it sounded like a real healthy powerplant- A lot of cubes and a lot of compression breathing through a set of mufflers that might as well have not been there at all as much as they were softening the auditory assault." Shit like that.

>Probably not much on the suspension
> Actually, DEFINITELY widened rears,
This is why you people can't win street races.
This is why I mop Corvette fags on 305 r-comp rears ... with 255 street tires ... and they can't understand why...
You don't know how to set up a car to race.

B-but I don't break traction

Story is set today. 2017. He bought it on the cheap at a police auction and rebuilt/modified it himself. He's a "If you want it done right..." kind of guy.

Would it be plausible/realistic to say the modified car in question could outrun a police interceptor?

>Would it be plausible/realistic to say the modified car in question could outrun a police interceptor?
Easily, but you have to be creative to do that.
Outrunning them is not hard on surface streets. It's nearly impossible on the highway. sure, you can out-accelerate them, but you can't sustain speeds above their governed top speeds due to practical considerations like traffic and fuel consumption, which means you can't break line of sight in that critical first 3-5 minutes.

What type of racing are you talking about user?

Mostly drag, though occasionally 'get from C-street to Peterson Blvd. First one there gets the title to the loser's car', the setting being Detroit.

I read recently that the top speed of the latest generation of police interceptor is 150 mph. Is that accurate? I know that's pretty fast, but for a car designed specifically to run down fleeing criminals that seems like a low-ball.

>Is that accurate?
More or less. 145 - 155 governed depending on the model. Older cars are slower.
>that seems like a low-ball.
In the game of internet numbers, it seems that way.
In the real world, it's a fucking lot of speed. Raw speed will usually not get you away from the cops unless you're on a mostly empty interstate and the cop running the speed trap was stopped.
In most departments it's against policy to chase at triple digit speeds for traffic violations but senior guys bust that policy all the time, also if they think they can push the excuse "they thought another crime was going on" past their supervisor, they'll give chase... Or if their supervisor DGAF.

Sustaining speeds on the plus side of 150 is not easy. Especially with a 70's muscle brick with an OHV engine that drinks fuel like it's free as soon as you crack the throttle, and leans like a battleship under basic straight-line road handling at normal people speed.

I'll answer the suspension question next.

Most cars barely do 120, not to mention they have speed limiters installed to protect drivetrain components like the driveshaft from shitting themselves due to imbalance.
If he has prep time, have him run two sets of tires and have adjustable suspension. A more balanced set of supersport tires and wheels for point a to point b, and the fattest set of rear "drag radial" tires he can fit under the car. These require a burnout before a race to heat them and make them sticky, but they're better than anything road-legal. They also have no tread and are extremely dangerous in rain.

>adjustable suspension
I know as much about suspension systems as I know about the language of ancient Egypt. What kind of suspension would you install on such a car if you had a virtually unlimited budget?


Also: What is better for high-performance racing? Front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, four wheel drive, or some complicated system to switch between the three?

>Mostly drag, though occasionally 'get from C-street to Peterson Blvd. First one there gets the title to the loser's car'
Well, let's chat about drag racing then
Most people have a ton of power, but can't get the car to hook up and don't understand why. So, they'll sit and spin off a launch while a non-idiot leaves them in the dust...
That's the easy one. The total idiot.
Moving on...

>B-but I don't break traction
This guy sits quietly in his driver's seat after the race, brow furrowed in thought, and wonders why he lost anyway... He had more power and he didn't spin...
>Why did I lose?
People learn to launch their setup without spinning...
Others like to band-aid their problems with aftermarket traction and launch control.
This helps to tame their losing setup, and helps them launch without spinning, but their maximum launch traction is so low that they still launch slow as fuck, spinning or not, even assisted, and lose to cars with less power and less tire... And they wonder why.

You don't really switch between the three in a car. It's a huge mechanical difference. 4x4 is somewhat an exception but that's for trucks more than cars, and wouldn't be in a hot rod. Just saying he messed with suspension and changed tires is enough. There's a dozen things he could have with adjustability.

Continued...
>adjustable suspension
>I know as much about suspension systems as I know about the language of ancient Egypt. What kind of suspension would you install on such a car if you had a virtually unlimited budget?

Let's chat about the suspension then. The front and rear suspension are both very important for launch, traction, handling, etc. If you don't understand a term, look it up and read until you do.
Many people, particularly on rwd cars, ignore the front suspension, and wonder why they get left...

With an unlimited budget, you can ruin the car just as easy as you can make it win. The stock '70 Buick has a decent rear setup to begin with.
Go look up 3-link, 4-link, and leaf spring rear axles. That will help you understand what we are talking about.
It's a solid rear axle with a 4-link. The lower links transmit the power to the chassis, the upper links locate the axle laterally (by forming the third side of a triangle with the lower link and axle) and they prevent axle wrap. Wrap, not warp.. That's when the axle tilts upward in relation to the car, as a reaction to applied torque. Leaf sprung setups get this the worst. youtube Tacoma axle wrap. You'll see what I mean.

An unlimited-budgeteer would just weld in a tube rear with a different 4-link and a Ford 9" axle. A good hotrodder would weld reinforcement to the stock mountings, lower the rear lower link mounting points at the axle, get linear-rate springs, and 3-way adjustable dampers.... And keep the stock axle.

The only serious deficiency in the stock suspension is the massive body roll, and the fact that the roll center is so low. You need to go crazy with anti-roll bar rates to tame it, which creates problems with front to rear weight transfer under cornering, unless you're smart about the rates relative to one another.

You don't have the knowledge to write this story unless you intend to aim it at morons

OK, no switching. But which is better? Front, rear, or all four? I (knowing nothing but highschool physics) would assume 4, since it lets you translate more energy from the car to the road. Please correct me if I'm retarded.

Speaking of retarded... The idea of four-wheel steering. Is it just a gimmick or can it be convenient/useful? I've read up on it and know what it is, I just have no idea if it would be a benefit to a modified frankenstein of a muscle car, or a dangerous hindrance that only got in the way, or a complete non-issue that only mattered when trying to parallel park.

Lowering the back of the rear lower links (which angles them upward) helps the car to squat less when launched, or when you hit the gas. It's a geometry thing. Since the lower links transfer the power, the more of an upward angle they have, the more leverage they will have to push the rear upward when power is applied. Natural weight transfer will push the rear downward. Opposing forces = less squat.

Weight transfer is a function of CG and will happen no matter what. It is a good thing. What the suspension does when weight transfers will affect available traction... So you alter the geometry to give you a mechanical advantage opposing the weight transfer, and the better you execute this, the faster the weight will transfer. The faster and more directly the weight transfers to the axle, the less you have to depend on the shocks and springs to transfer the load. This is good, because the axle load is not only the weight transferred. It's the weight times the acceleration. That's physics.

The available traction is the friction coefficient between the tire and the road, times the applied weight.

SO with better geometry, your instantaneous traction limit is MUCH higher than someone who has to wait for his shocks and springs to load up, first with the transferred weight, and then with the increase in load due to acceleration.

Just don't even get bogged down in the specifics of the modifications unless it's integral to the story. There's being descriptive and there's being overly descriptive and specifically calling out the mods will fall under the overly descriptive category. Few things are more boring than reading a bunch of shit you really don't need to know to understand the story. Concentrate on setting the scene rather than the exact composition of some background item.

>OK, no switching. But which is better? Front, rear, or all four?
Rear. End of story.
AWD street cars tend to have a better launch from the factory, but that advantage is GONE GONE GONE by time time 1/4 ET's are below 10 seconds.

Ever wonder why all the record-setting setups have always been rwd and not awd or fwd?

Thank you.

And thanks to everyone else who gave me the gift of knowledge. I have to go to my shitty day-job now, but I'll be back in like 7 hours. feel free to drop any and all pertinent information you think I might need while I'm away. (I would like an answer on that steering question).

Thanks again, Veeky Forums.

Out of all cars why a 70 buick? Just curious

Replacing body panels with fiberglass to shave off weight is popular. Tuning a carb to perfection is also one of the things that is super important for any old car.

If you have the time watch "two lane blacktop" it will give you an idea about Actual hot rods not any of that Velocity channel shit.
If you are serious I suggest getting in contact with a few of the people that run FAST, they have a facebook page and are all veterans of the community
fastdrags.com/

4 wheel steering was phased out long ago and was only prominent for 90s jap cars. He wouldn't use it, pretty much nobody would.

>(I would like an answer on that steering question)
4 Wheel Steering.
>On a solid rear axle car.

Solid
Rear
Axle
>4
>Wheel
>Steering

what time does the story take place cuz you can make these irs

just to ruin homeboys fun

I can't... Anymore... In good conscience...
Your technical knowledge is literally zero, isn't it?
My god, kid.
If you don't know how or why you'd win a street race beyond a car being "heavily modified" with parts you know nothing about
Then you won't write interesting or relevant things about street racing.
Might as well give the car magic powers

You are correct. If you have money to waste, You could do that to any a-body car...

>Out of all cars why a 70 buick? Just curious
Because A-bodies that aren't the Chevelle are fucking cool, probably.

But the GTO and Cutlass exist

>first one there gets the title of the losers car.

'Racing for pinks' is the street term and it is exceptionally rare. Unheard of rare. It never happens outside of fast and furious or a ricer who doesn't know what he's doing.

Ever seen this show user...

That's all staged dude.

Detroit drag scene is dead, Mid Michigan still has some races but it's slowly dying.

its happened in the past and Im sure it still goes on

but yeah out of every story Ive heard from people with hotrodding bullshittery to tell going back to the 1950s there was only one pink slip race from the early 60s that I heard of

definitely wouldnt make it a common occurrence in a story

TX is still going strong!

holley 850 dubble bubble, chrome valve covers and glass packs,

Googled a list of top classic muscle cars. Picked one at random. Decided to make a go of it.

That's literally the entire backstory on why he drives that particular car.
OK, I also liked how it looked in the pic and thought 'Why can't modern companies build with that kind of style?'

... Last week. It's a modern guy in modern Detroit driving a lovingly frankensteined classic car.

just say something like

"the car had been modernized with new suspension engine and drivetrain. it was closer to a modern high end sports car than a classic muscle car"

if you dont wanna get all detailed

if you want specifics

LS9 swap a 640hp supercharged V8 from a Corvette ZR1 with something like a Lingenfelter blower upgrade that makes the car put out over 700hp

an entire custom chassis with multilink IRS with giant brakes or if you want to throw in names just say its an Art Morrison chassis or something

>The character makes extra money on the side in illegal street races
Are you writing science fiction or fantasy?

You could even have him pull the engine out of a junkyard vette headed for the crusher if you wanna be dramatic.

Well, an important part of the story is when he mocks an idiot who butchered an Audi without knowing what he was doing, and expected to win races with it. I wrote the part about what that car was like before asking you all for help on what a car modified by someone who isn't an idiot would look like. I'm primarily trying to highlight differences in what an idiot with too much money would do, compared to what a serious junkyard-engineer would do with a metal shop and a lot of know-how.