Few pics of todays project. Put in newly rebuilt 3.73 10bolt rear (thanks Ken G) along with UMI Perfromance tubular upper & lower control arms and their rear sway bar. All went in nicely! Was my first time swaping in a rear and it went smooth. Hooked up new brakes on one side only so far need to do other side as well as hang new stainless brake lines on rear and bleed brakes. The UMI stuff is REALLY nice and made In USA. Hopefully a WOT video to come soon.:3gears:
Nice job on the set up! I'm hoping to get my 3:08 drum to drum posi rear swapped in during this Spring along with some boxed control arms and a rear sway bar.
Thanks guys. For sure Larry! Since I have not done this before(install rear or check pinion angle), I know I still need to get tires on and tighten everything up once car is on ground. is there a special tool or sequence you use to check th angle? Never had any vibrations or wheel hop before with the 8.2 in this car so hope it stays that way. This is just street car for cruising and the light to light beat downs.
Take a look at this article on George's site. http://www.buickperformance.com/Pinion.htm I can tell you this. When I went from my 8.2 10 bolt to my 8.5, I had to adjust my upper control arms quite a bit because the angle had changed. My GV overdrive install included a reworked cross member. The drive line angle(back of the trans) was negative 4. I tilted the front of pinion up positive 2 for a negative 2 pinion angle. It seems there was quite a difference for me when I changed rears. You need to check this, and if it is off, you will need adjustable uppers to fix it. The wrong pinion angle can wipe out the tail shaft bushing and could eventually damage a drive shaft. I also have TA No Hop bars, so that may explain why my angle changed so much when I switched rears. It's easy to check. Just get an inexpensive angle finder from Sears. Good luck.
Let us know how they ride on the street. I have been thinking about using the UMI setup, but I'm concerned the lowers might make the suspension too stiff since it has poly bushings on both ends. Looks like you kept the rubber buhings on the uppers - that should help keep it comfortable.
Hi Mike, I am going to 373s also, There is a 70 skylark being parted out in Mt Laurel, close to rt 73. if you are interested P.M. me and I will pass his # to you. Jim
little update: got ro drive my car yesterday for a good bit with the above mentioned setup. replaced rear brake hardware as well as put in new stainless rear axel brake lines from Inline Tube and there were perfect! car has a much different feel for sure. the 3.73 is a huge blast to drive the car with. It is working much better with the whole cars setup. No-Traction at all on street tires:3gears: .. The UMI setup holds the car straight on the hard street launches and has a REALLY nice ride quality to it, plus the stuff looks nice and is well made. Hope to post a nasty burnout video soon. Was pretty fun doing 25-30mph rolling start burnouts as well as the slow rolling starts gotta love 455 trq! took the old man for a whirl and i think i just shortened his life span a little more. he nerver had a Buick like this one:grin:
I see a lot of guys like 3.73's. Do you guys drive these on the freeway much? Maybe it's a loose 10" convertor, but my 3.55's spin 2700 rpm at 60 mph, I can't even think about going on the Interstae and trying to run 70 30 miles to work Gear Vendor set up this spring maybe :laugh:
not a lot of open freeway around hear. mostly street in-town driving with shorter hwy runs. i don't drive it to work, it was built to pound the local streets now and then. never really drove it above 60 with the 3.23's in there either. was worth it for me the way the car feels now:3gears: who knows maybe and OD trans in the future???
I have 4.10s in mine and drive it as I want . A little more RPM than I would prefer but built the motor solid so I feel OK with the RPMs
This is an area that is not familar but interesting. I swaped my ST300 for a 200r4 so seems I have room for steeper gears. My diff is an 8.2 BOP, with 3.23. I was told that was max I could go with this diff unless I was ready to pay huge $ for Richmond Gears (and carrier??). Not really excited about swaping diff as I just restored last year (Just the esthetics so have elbow grease invested.). If I recall I was quoted around 1800 parts and labour.
I hear ya' there, I spent two years in the Toms River area many years ago and ran around with 4.56's. p Longest drive we did was to Englishtown on Sundays.
wanted to add update since i got some PM's. I have a couple more hours with the new rear setup including this morning in the car and I am VERY impressed with ride quality and gear setup. Its more firm but by no means harsh. Also wanted to post a couple more pics to show the stance although on an incline in my driveway you can see its sits very level and was not changed with the addition of the UMI tublar upper and lowers (diddn't think it would since I didn't change springs). running KYB's. I reused same springs that were in car which were originally from a Skylark wagon I was told. Have had no wheel hop on hard launches in any gear!
Hi Mike, Congrats on the gear and suspension upgrade. I sometimes wish I had gone with the 3.73 instead of the 3.42. Anything was an improvement over the peg leg 2.93!! I have a suspension upgrade in my future as well. Just curious, did you contemplate an HR bar (anti-roll)? I have heard nothing but really positive results from the addition of these (straight and level launches). Looking good !!
Scotty, Thanks I did think about HR bar and there complete setup (uppers&lowers) but went with UMI for a couple reasons. One was that I did hear good things on the UMI stuff both hear on board and from friends hear in NJ that have used there stuff. Another was that my car is not and will not be a track car its just a street car/take the kids for a ride etc car although I would like to race it once a year. (I bought a 70 Skylark to build into a race car) If I was racing this one more I might have gone with the HR setup. Another reason was cost, Uppers, Lowers, sway bar and all hardware from UMI was to my door in 2 days for like $420 or something close to that which was a great deal in my opinion and its nice stuff and it works. And yes 3.73 is a ALOT of fun around town:3gears:
