Updates At Bottom

Once I got interested in making the car a little more performance oriented than it had been before, I started looking into what I do do to make the car faster, without spending a lot of money or effort (as I was in Georgia, far from home, and I have no mechanical skills, plus finals were creeping up fast). The thing I found, that pretty much seemed to be almost everybody's first mod, was an aftermarket intake. Of course, other owner's of Buick's will know, K&N does not offer anything in their catalog in the way of cold air intakes for these cars. So, it was going to have to be custom.

Well, against the wishes of others on forums, I went ahead and bought a kit from an E-bay seller. Wasn't too bad of a deal – the pipe was a good length, was almost curved right, came with all the hardware, and even a small K&N cone filter, all for $50. I installed that in May of 2005, and I was really enjoying it.

Later, I decided to cut the pipe a little to move it away from the upper radiator hose, and get a bigger cone. I bought a 9 inch K&N X-stream cone filter. That sucker is huge. I then wrapped the pipe in a thermal jacket, and built a custom box out of cardboard and reflective metal ducting tape.

On the left is the cone, and below are a couple shots of the crappy box:

Older intake setups can be found on page 13.

Also, below, I have a picture of the transmission cooler, that the previous owner requested be installed at the dealership before he bought the car:

Well, in June of 2005, I noticed that my factory (also original) muffler was starting to rust out. The car was getting louder, and I noticed a few small holes in the bottom of the muffler (and later found a giant hole in the top). Well, I figured this would be a good time to get a new muffler, and I thought, why not something interesting. So, my brother pointed out this Edelbrock muffler he saw in his Edelbrock catalog, that he thought would be great for my car.

So, I called up Summit Racing, and I got the muffler special ordered. It was known as a Sound Deflection Technology (SDT) muffler, with a single 2.5 inch inlet, dual 2.5 inch outlet. Since the mufflers were new to that year, it took almost a month to get it shipped directly from the manufacturer. I was extremely excited the day it finally arrived, right at the beginning of August '05:

Not long after I got the muffler installed, I purchased a high-flow catalytic converter. I thought that maybe my old one was getting clogged, so I wanted to install a new one. So my brother and I completely removed the exhaust, replaced the catalytic converter, and also removed the resonator. That all added together to bring up the decibels of the exhaust even more. Install pics can be found on page 12.

To make a long story short, the exhaust on this car with through many repairs and exhaust tips, before it finally got to where it is today. After many different tips – and originally wanting a set of twin tips from Borla, but didn't want to pay the $120 a piece for them – I found a set of Camaro style tips that I really liked:

Stories and pictures of previous exhaust setups can be found on page 13, but here are pictures focusing on what the exhaust looks like today:

Also, on this page, I am adding any performance work that I have done to the engine, since I feel it fits on this page.

First thing, was, sometime back, after the exhaust and intake work, I put in a 180 degree thermostat, to help the engine run cooler during those hot months of summer.

And speaking of summer, one day in July '06, I started tearing the engine apart - I have no idea why. I had gotten the throttle body off when my brother came home. Within minutes, he was helping me tear the engine apart. We managed to take the upper and lower intake manifolds off. I figured while they were off, I would clean them and replace the lower intake gaskets. I soaked the parts while I went to go get gaskets.

Then, my brother suggest that while we had the top end apart, we could port the intakes. I said "sure, why not". So we prepped the engine and spent the next few hours porting. Below is a picture of the lower intake manifold and the top end of the engine torn apart:

We did that until about one in the morning, when his girlfriend finally came home and forced him to quit. I finished up and put everything back together, but I had to get up early the next morning to get oil and a filter, because earlier the day before, when we took the lower intake manifold off, coolant spilled into the engine, and we had to drain the oil. I also had to change it quickly cuz later that morning I needed to go out of town for a 3 day LAN party, and I sure as hell wasn't going to miss that!!

But, I got that all done, and I could feel a bit more power from the ported intakes, which was nice to enjoy (it was also more then, cuz the car was lighter from having a lot of the interior torn out).

As I add more, or do more to the engine, I will be adding it here. For planned performance and engine work for the future, though, check out page 10.

-- NEW UPDATE BELOW --

This is something I have been doing for almost a year now, but never got around to actually talk about. Now, this really isn't a 'performance' mod, but I have noticed that it can be really helpful on these hot summer days. The mod is actually taking out the driver's side headlight, as shown below:

As seen in the first picture, I'm actually using part of a headlight housing. When I first did this, I just took out the headlight, and left the turn-signal bulbs just dangle there. Well, I eventually wanted a cleaner look, so I grabbed an extra headlight from the junkyard, and just removed the glass and back panel, and left the lower housing for the turn-signal bulbs.

When the days get hot, I usually put that in. It doesn't bother me what people think when they see that (I've had that hole in the fender for almost 2 years now). I tell ya though, it allows more direct air to the filter, and can help boost performance just a tiny bit (I've gotten the car to do a few wheel spins only this way, unless it's extremely cold out). Notice though, as far as I know, this will only work with the 1992-1996 LeSabre (1991-1996 Park Avenue) body style; in the later body styles, you have to take out the entire headlight housing, since the turn-signals are in the bumper (but in those bodies, you can easily install a fender well intake).

So I thought I would post this for everyone to see, to maybe help them get a little more pep out of their car.

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Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – Stock
Page 3 – Performance Mods
Page 4 – Exterior Mods
Page 5 – Interior Mods
Page 6 – Sound Setup
Page 7 – Exterior Lighting
Page 8 – Videos
Page 9 – Location Shoots
Page 10 – Future Modifications
Page 11 – Damage Information
Page 12 – Installation Information
Page 13 – Old Mods - Coming Soon!