Have always loved Buicks,īut didn't think they had anything to hot these days. Motor let loose at 39K ( Ford took care of me ) and the Lightning Races that I can remember, but easily kept up with an LT-1 'birdĪnd a twin turbo stealth. Mods, but the best thing I did was replace the 2.73's with 3.55's. Want a practical family/luxury sedan with spice/the ultimate way to make a ricer owner feel bad nuff to trade in their buzzy 4-bangers? Get the Buick Regal GS or Grand Prix GTP. Do you want a poor man's 8-series BMW/gentleman's Mustang? Get the Thunderbird SC. Yeah, it's not a clear-cut victory either way.

The rear end is a standard Ford 8.8 which is very upgradable. And the manual trans as in many cases should be able to take gobs more engine output provided the shifts are not abusive and a higher capacity clutch is used. I think the Ford 3.8L is mated to a tougher or at least commonly upgradable automatic trans. The 4L60E and 4L65Es on the FWD GM cars are at their limit with these Series II S/C motors STOCK. This may be either on race fuel/non-intercooled or pump/custom $1800 intercooler. On the otherhand the Eaton M90 in the GM Series II 3.8 is capable of providing enough airflow-hp capacity for high 12-second timeslips at 106mph on regular radials. quarter at 90 or so mph you see in magazines may at best improve to high to mid 13s on radials (my guesstimate). I think the Eaton M62 blowing through an intercooler (inevitable pressure losses) means the Eaton M62 in the Thunderbird application, even with the Thunderbird 3.8's lower volumetric intake, is closer to being maxxed out which in turn means that the quoted low 15 sec. The Thunderbird is intercooled but the blower is a much smaller Eaton M62 (the series II blown GM motors has Eaton M90) and the motor doesn't compare in volumetric intake to the 'revvier' Series II supercharged GM motors appearing in some '95 (Park Ave and Riv) and all '96+ apps (Bonne, 88 LSS, GTP, GS). On a later Thunderbird SC manual, a guy with a couple mods ran 14.5 at 96 or so mph.

94 thunderbird supercharger