1995 Olds Achieva-the quest continues

[Robert Swartz]

Been my usual kind of year. Try to get some car work done and life continues to get in the way. My wife decided to semi-retire this year. Racing has taken a back burner, I have been working on my other cars.

That brings us back to the Achieva. I really thought as of April of this year, the car was going to be siezed by the Feds and sold at auction. It was my step sons car. He's now residing as a Federal guest in the state of Arkansas. Now that the car is officially mine, I've begun it's (hopefully) next phase of life.

I put the tach and temperature gage back into it. Cleaned up some of the wiring. Next thing we did, remove the AC compressor, condensor and some of the AC lines. Put back a new belt, new alternator and put an AC delete bracket on it. I want to eventually eliminate that altogether. I'll have study that a bit more, find some way to mount an adjustable bracket for the alternator onto the front of the engine. Then find a shorter belt.

I also eliminated the power steering pump. These engines run the PS off the intake cam. We had to make a plate to cover the hole where the pump once resided. Then I simply looped the lines of the PS. I could convert this car to a manual rack. There weren't a lot of cars made with manual steering, so finding a donor is the biggest problem. I'll just have to live with this for now. The way it steers now, reminds me of an old 65 F-100 truck I owned 30-35 years ago.

I have acquired a set of Moroso 7.10's and am waiting on a set of 15x3 Centerline wheels. When I get those put together, going to pull the rear hubs and redrill both them and the brake drums for a Chevy pattern, add long studs. I'll have a set of skinnys on the rear.

The crown jewel of all this. Hooked up with Ron Seibenek Saturday evening at ORP. He brought me down a header and a Flowmaster collector. We discussed both our cars and batted around a few ideas for future upgrades. He feels the combination has some potential but it also has some issues that will be difficult to overcome. The 95 computer being the "tweener", up to 94 the cars were OBD1, 96 and later were OBD2. The 95 is the b@$!ard, it's OBD1.5. That's a big limiting factor to this combo.

All that aside, it's what I have. Going to continue to tinker with it. In the end, I have removed another 25lbs from the car. I need to find another 25-30lbs to get this car near it's minimum for EF/SA,which is a 19lb break at 150hp, which is 3020lbs. Last year at an Indianapolis Raceway Park (yes, it will always be that to me) T&T, the car with me in it, and a half tank of gas, weighed 3080lbs. Removing another 25lbs puts me at, roughly 3055lbs. It still has a radio, heater core and the factory carpeting, so, still some easy weight to be found.

Another thing I need to do is plumb a fuel sample valve. Then start running some real racing gas thru the thing, get the system purged. Get all these changes done, I'm getting real curious to see what results I get. So far the best the car has done is 16.88 in the 1/4 and 10.69 in the 1/8. The EF/SA index(s) are 15.90/9.85. I'm a long ways off.

With the addition of the header, as well as removing some of the power robbing accessories. Also with a further reduction in the cars weight, just starting to get real curious as to what the potential gains may be.

[Joe Toller]

Looks good, I'm excited to see how it does.

[Marty Knox]

Looks good Robert. Best of luck with it. I am playing with a 92 Grand Am with the SOHC 138 for NHRA E/FS.

[Robert Swartz]

Originally Posted by Marty Knox

Looks good Robert. Best of luck with it. I am playing with a 92 Grand Am with the SOHC 138 for NHRA E/FS.

Marty,

With yours and now Ron's, that makes 2 SOHC's in Div 3. Getting close to having an E/FS shootout. Ron ran 17.2's with his at Indy earlier in the year. That's what he stated last Saturday evening.

My car is a natural C/FS in NHRA. Better fit in D, that index is 15.60. I want to see how close the old 120K used car engine can get to the E automatic IHRA index first. I know I'm going to need a good short block, a head and some legal cams to really run. Another problem, there are some really good NHRA D cars out there. Just not real sure I can ever run NHRA events again. I can't in my wildest dreams envision getting this car to run a second under. Anything less than that for NHRA, why bother.

This car may never be a "real" stocker in the truest sense of the word. Even though it's slow as watching paint dry, I enjoy the experience of working with it. As a friend of mine expressed it, this car requires you to think things through to find speed. Not always in the motor.

Oh well, numbers and a class designation don't make it a race car. It makes me feel better about it when I'm out thrashing on it.

[Marty Knox]

Robert, I don't know how much time and money I will invest in the Grand Am. I was frustrated not getting my V/Stock El Camino on the track for Stanton, so I bought the GA a week before. I was thinking Stanton had a test and tune Weds night, but they didn't. My only pass, Saturday at the points meet, the low coolant light came on just as they called me to stage. Instead of being smart and shutting down, I made the pass anyway. Missed the tree by quite a bit, ran a 19.1 and puked antifreeze on the track - far from a stellar performance! To top it off I flunked gas and was 15 lbs light. I was able to get gas to check okay and put enough stuff back in to scale 25 lbs over, but couldn't get the cooling system light to go out, so I never qualified.
Now my wife says to put plates on it and use it as a beater.

[Robert Swartz]

Originally Posted by Marty Knox

Robert, I don't know how much time and money I will invest in the Grand Am. I was frustrated not getting my V/Stock El Camino on the track for Stanton, so I bought the GA a week before. I was thinking Stanton had a test and tune Weds night, but they didn't. My only pass, Saturday at the points meet, the low coolant light came on just as they called me to stage. Instead of being smart and shutting down, I made the pass anyway. Missed the tree by quite a bit, ran a 19.1 and puked antifreeze on the track - far from a stellar performance! To top it off I flunked gas and was 15 lbs light. I was able to get gas to check okay and put enough stuff back in to scale 25 lbs over, but couldn't get the cooling system light to go out, so I never qualified.
Now my wife says to put plates on it and use it as a beater.

Marty,

I can give you some perspective on this based on my own experience. Your index, E/FS is 17.45 (1/4 mile). You went 19.1, your 1.65 off the index. My first pass with my Achieva was 11.8 (1/8 mile). My index was 9.85, I was 1.95 off. Now nothing really major was done to the car, other than hacking off the exhaust, putting in fresh coil packs and plugs, I did add a set of drag radials and stiffened the rear springs. I've only had the car on a 1/4 mile track once, it went 16.88@80mph, on a 15.90 index, .98 off (1 second). In the 1/8, it has gone 10.69@66mph, .84 off.

Yes, I'm a ton off. The car has improved. You just have to approach it from a Stock Class mentality. These slow cars will react to things you do to them. You have to search for time in places other than the engine. One thing I did was have the car weighed. To make the class minimum, I need to weigh 3020lbs. With a half tanki of gas and me in it, it weighed 3080lbs. That was after I put it on a diet. I've removed a few more things, estimate I've reduced the weight another 25lbs or so. Anything you remove, you weigh. Of course anything you put back, you factor that back in, too.


BTW, the "add coolant lite" comes on on my Achieva too. I have a temp gage on mine, it doesn't get that hot. It will run 180-190 degrees. I keep water in it, don't really get excited about it. As well, these cars are more sensitive to weather than a car with HP. On a real warm, muggy day, my Achieva will slow down 2-3 tenths. I think you could shove it off a cliff and it wouldn't hit the ground.

Another point to ponder. How much blood, sweat and tears (time & money) you want to invest in a combo. I probably have $14-1500 wrapped up in mine to this point. It has diverted a small amount of funds away from other cars. I often kid my partner, "this one runs"! I can occasionally take it to the track. Sometimes a car just isn't worth messing with. If YOU don't think the car can run, the best time to move on is before you have a lot invested in a project.

My car, with what little has been done to it, so far. Has been a pleasant surprise. Thus far every prediction I've made, ends up being wrong, the car reponds. Wherever it lands after this last slew of changes is where it will be. After these changes, I will need to decide if I want to do serious work to the car.

If your other car is what's most important to you. I would concentrate on finishing it. You could do as your wife says, make it a daily driver/beater. Or use as a bracket car to let off some steam from time to time. The local track a few miles from my house, those guys hated it when we brought the Achieva out. I can't cut a decent lite at all but they hated it worse, chasing the little ba$^@rd down.

[Robert Swartz]

In the FWIW categorey. Took another look at the headers/collector. May do some more cobbling. Might have hit on an idea that will allow me to use the Flowmax collector. In addition, I weighed my Moroso tire/Centerline wheels compared to the steel wheels/street tires presently on the rear.

That change alone, not just being weight but centrifugal force should be worth something. The stock wheels and tires together are 80lbs. The racing tires combo is only 46lbs. That nets me 34lbs. I was looking for 30! With the approximate 1/2 tank of fuel I had when the car was last weighed puts me roughly at my minimum of 3020lbs! I still haven't touched the interior.

[Robert Swartz]

While everyone else is out running their race cars. Still working on one of mine.

About two weeks ago, I pulled the rear hubs. A suck job in and of itself. Old crusty and rusty torx bolts are no fun. I am now a true believer in Kroil! Even at that, after soaking the bolts and backing nuts. I will conservitively say I had 15-20 minutes or more removing each of these bolts. There were eight of them. With torx, an impact driver is your best friend.

After removing the hubs. I took them to a friend with a big Enco mill. We indexed and drilled all the holes to a Chevy pattern. After installing the long Moroso studs. I decided to put a tack weld in about 3 places on the backside of the studs. Then a fun odessey began. I wanted to replace the old hub bolts with stainless bolts and nuts. The only place that could find them was Fastenal. Minimum order was 50 bolts. So, it was off to my Chevy parts guy and Genuine GM replacements. Those took a few days to get. Car sat on stands for a week waiting on pieces.

Once the parts arrived. It didn't take long to put it back together. In fact this was the opposite of normal reworks. Usually the disassembly is quick and putting the project together is the pain. The hubs went back together realitively easy. bolted the wheels up, thought I was home free. Went to move the car, no brakes. Crawled under car, found brake fluid on the driver side rear.

One of the ancient lines decided to give up. Simple job but took the better part of a Saturday to get everything busted loose. Had to get a new rubber hose from GM. Plumb in a new line, replace a buggered brake bleeder screw. Rebleed the brakes.

Tires and wheels are back on. Car is mobile again. Now to finish the header and get the 4-2-1 collector mounted to it. Need to make mounting tabs and figure out where I want to put my O2 bung. For the heated O2 sensor. After that, mount the fuel sample valve. Getting closer.

[nickh]

Robert many of us get a kick out of your and Billy's build keep the updates coming.

[Robert Swartz]

Originally Posted by nickh

Robert many of us get a kick out of your and Billy's build keep the updates coming.

Thanks Nick.

Honestly, Billy's build is a "real" stocker. I'm just a hack taking a 120K used car, trying to see if we can coax enough out of it to sniff an IHRA index. Billy Nees knows what he's doing. That's what Stock "used to be about", doing the simple things. Trying to get a car to run with what it came with from the factory. To me guys like Nees, Yac, Shaw and Southerland are the real heros of sportsman racing.