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(Marc)>> You're watching Powernation!
[ Music ]
(Katie)>> Welcome to Powernation Builds. Now you GM fans are in for a real treat as the guys are taking a grandma car and transforming it into one sweet ride. Here's Detroit Muscle. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> A few of you guys may be wondering why would someone want to pick a grandma car like this one. Well, it's actually because these things are getting really popular, and back in the '80's, well the Grand National, which is the brother i guess you would say of this little Regal, well was the fastest production car of that era. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Oh yeah! Ooh, did you feel that shift? Even the power shift is comfortable. That shows you what kind of power this thing makes. Right now we just reached 65 miles an hour, and now it shifted into drive. Yeah! I've been working with Carter Hickman at Carter Hickman Designs, and he came up with this gorgeous concept for our Buick project. He used a photo realistic approach and hit it with a great looking burgundy paint scheme, along with some black accents. Top it all off with those modern wheels and that aggressive stance and you've got one mean Regal. My plans for this thing is to add some modern conveniences with some strong power. Let's say fuel injection, automatic transmission, big brakes, some fancy wheels, and some pretty paint. Kind of a pro touring theme with a luxury feel to it. Pro-luxury if you know what I mean. A full custom frame that's boxed front to rear with inner and outer gussets for superior strength. For the front suspension it's a combination of C-5 Vette spindles with fabricated tubular upper and lower control arms and rack and pinion steering. Out back we're running a parallel four link with pan hard bar connected to a beefy Mossier nine inch rear axle with a Wave Track limited slip differential to put the power to the ground. For springs and shocks all four corners have adjustable QA One coil overs. That gives us the ability to dial in that ride whether we're cruising on the streets or making a hot lap at the track. For a power plant I wanted something that was strong and reliable with fuel injection. So I'll bet you can guess what I picked, LS Power! This is a 525 horsepower LS-3 from Chevrolet Performance. It's part of their connect and cruise line, and it does just that. We're gonna use these plywood wheels so that we can move our chassis around here in the shop. We've got to fit it up under our Buick, and then we can measure for some custom wheels. And I bet you ole Marc's gonna have something to say about them. Y'all just wait for it. [ Music ] [ mechanical humming ] [ Music ]
(Marc)>> All right Tommy, I got this old chassis out of here for you. The hard part's done.
(Tommy)>> Now after you get the old frame out from under there you can pretty much tell that this thing is nowhere near as strong. It's got C-channel here, where that one's boxed. It's got all those gussets. Man, that piece is gonna be nice up under here.
(Marc)>> Yeah, plus this whole thing's got to go anyway. Might as well just roll the whole thing out. Come on down. We need to get the engine spreader bar attached using a few bolts. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Since we're just mocking it up for now we're not going to install the torque converter.
(Marc)>> All right, let's try that.
(Tommy)>> We'll just secure it with a couple of bolts. [ drill humming ]
(Marc)>> All you! [ Music ] So excited!
(Marc)>> Oh, let me get this trans mount on. [ Music ]
(Marc)>> Just keep an eye on that. See where those mounts fall up front as I'm moving this back. And when the big moment comes... [ Music ] The oil pan's not gonna clear.
(Tommy)>> So where we're at right now, we need another oil pan to clear our cross member, which isn't no big deal at all. So we're gonna have to order us one of them, but what we can do is still put this thing up under the car just to see where it's at cause it's about that much too high, and I'm sure all this is still gonna have plenty of clearance. So, let's just see where it's at.
(Marc)>> I like your wheel choice Tommy. Are these board Codington's?
(Tommy)>> No, no!
(Marc)>> We'll use a plumb bob to make sure our body mounts are in line with the holes on our new chassis.
(Tommy)>> That's pretty close. [ Music ]
(Marc)>> Then we can lower the body onto it.
(Tommy)>> We down now.
(Marc)>> Well I have to admit Tommy, great engine choice. It looks good in there.
(Tommmy)>> We've still got quite a bit of work to do. We're gonna be enlarging the wheel tubs. Plus we may accidentally bolt in one of them fancy power adders.
(Katie)>> Coming up, the guys are gonna 86 the vinyl and the chrome for a much cooler look. Bye, bye grandma!
(Tommy)>> Now we're gonna have to address the appearance on this thing, like getting rid of some of the bright work that's on it. We're toying with the idea of losing the vinyl top, and you know this color, we're definitely gonna have to do something in that department.
(Marc)>> Now way back in 1985 somebody's grandmamma drove this car home from the dealership, and she was real happy with all that chrome. Not to mention these bumperettes here, impact strips which are showing their age now, which all of that stuff kinda screams luxury and we're going more for performance look. Now we've got it just mocked up for now because we want to make some changes. We want to get rid of all this rubber, and black plastic, and the bumperettes, but instead of just grinding and welding on this chrome bumper we've got a better solution.
(Tommy)>> That gaudy chrome bumper's what we started with. This is what we've got now. Those few hours we spent gave this Buick an attitude adjustment that it desperately needed. We're finally to the point that we get to pull this ugly vinyl off of the roof, and I have a small concern that it may be rather difficult. This top being in such nice shape it's probably really glued on.
(Marc)>> And you know as much as I hate to see this top go, and you know I do, I think this is gonna be my favorite part.
(Tommy)>> Oh yeah, It's really stuck.
(Marc)>> It's harder than it looks. Lift with your legs they said. With a little teamwork we get the majority off in no time. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> All that's left to get the rest of the vinyl off is this trim panel, which is riveted on.
(Marc)>> My half's done. Time for a coffee.
(Tommy)>> They glued the heck out of that thing. And it just snaps, well breaks, right off.
(Marc)>> Both of these are getting the job done but it sure looks like Tommy's is doing it a lot faster. [ sander buzzing ]
(Tommy)>> We'll just sand away at it one section at a time until all the glue is gone. [ sander buzzing ]
(Tommy)>> Now this car had a couple of performance brothers from back in the day, the Buick Grand National and the GNX, and I'm a big fan of both of those cars. So I want to take some of the body options that they had and add them onto our car. Now one of those modifications is relatively simple. The other one's gonna require some cutting. So what we're gonna do is install these pieces that we got from Original Parts Group. We've got a full set of fender flares and some side scoops. Now to install these it's pretty straight forward. They have a bolt on design. So, let's go ahead and get these on and out of the way. We'll start out by removing the chrome trim pieces around the wheel openings and bottom of the quarter. Then we can put our flare into place and clamp it down. These things just screw right to the inner fender well lip, and just like that they're installed. We've got our flares on. Now it's time for us to install our louvres. Now to do this it's not really all that complicated but it does require us to cut a big ole hole here in the side of this fender. Now with the kit it comes with an instruction sheet that gives you a template of what you're gonna have to trim out. So let's go ahead and cut this out of here and we can get started. [ Music ] For placement on our template it's supposed to be three quarters of an inch down from this body line and this corner here is supposed to be two inches from this edge. We need to make some measurements and then we can tape it into place. Luckily for us the lower pinstripe is dead on three quarter. So we just need to mark the back. Now we can place our template on the fender and trace around it. To cut out my hole what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use a drill, make me a couple of holes here in all the corners, and then follow that up with my body saw and cut out that piece. Now whenever you're gonna cut something like this out you need to keep in mind your tooth count on your blade. You want to choose the correct blade for the material that you're working on. Now we're cutting steel and both of these are for cutting metal but the one here is 32 tooth count per inch. This one is a 14. This is really nice for cutting sheet metal because the teeth are so much closer together. With this one here that's far more course, if you were to try to use it you could actually damage the panel. After punching our holes it's time to let some metal chips fly. [ saw buzzing ]
(Tommy)>> Oh and like your kindergarten teacher told you, stay inside the lines. [ saw buzzing ] If you're installing these onto a painted car you want to come back and touch up this raw edge because you want to prevent it from rusting. Now with our car we've still got to do all the paint work and all that stuff. So we're just gonna stick this thing in there to see what it looks like. [ Music ] Oh yeah, it looks pretty cool. Now I just need to do the other side.
(Katie)>> Up next, our Buick Regal gets some custom upgrades.
(Tommy)>> Now I know this old Buick isn't necessarily Marc's favorite ride but we've got to finish this thing man.
(Marc)>> You wouldn't believe it but I like this car, and now that I see here in the shop we've actually got quite a bit of work done already.
(Tommy)>> Yeah, we've got the bumpers doctored on front and rear, fabbed up a rear spoiler. Plus, it's sitting on that trick chassis, and the motor and tranny's in it.
(Marc)>> So where do we go from here, what's next?
(Tommy)>> I want to do a bit of plumbing and go ahead and conquer the exhaust. What do you think?
(Marc)>> Let's do it!
(Tommy)>> These probably gonna fit in like butter.
(Marc)>> Let's see. Oh, look at that. I am flat up against the head.
(Tommy)>> That one fits nice too.
(Marc)>> Yep, you can go anywhere with that thing.
(Tommy)>> We'll be able to tuck that pipe a lot closer to the floor board. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> I've been tinkering with fabbing up a fancy exhaust tip that's gonna compliment the tail end of our Buick, and this is what I've got so far. What we still need to do is build the inside of the tip and make it so that we can connect it to the tail pipe. What we need to do now is cut off this inside of the bumper. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> I'm gonna cut this piece out so that I can make room for that inner tip. [ welder crackling ]
(Tommy)>> With this piece tacked into place now we're gonna start putting together the inside of it, and I'm making it out of two different pieces. More or less an upper and lower. Once I get it wiggled around into the sweet spot I'll go ahead and tack it into place. I'm making this stuff out of 18 gauge mile steel because it's heavy enough and yet light enough to work with.
(Marc)>> Alright well I've got those first pieces of tubing tacked into place on each side and they're really imperative because you need to make sure that it's level and also pointed straight toward the rear of the car, but not only that they need to be the same height. I've got that accomplished. Now I can move on to the mid pipe but I've this piece right here that I found out in the warehouse. This is actually an "X" pipe out of a Magnaflow direct fit kit that we had laying around. Somebody already stole some pieces out of the kit. So I took this. This is going to be ideal because the spacing on the pipes here gonna go right through those holes in our frame. So I'm gonna get this mocked up, connect the dots. Alright I'm just gonna check and make sure this is level with the ground. Looks good! Like a glove! Now with everything mocked up all the way to the "X" I can take it all back apart now and start doing some welding.
(Tommy)>> Marc's been making some pretty good progress plumbing the pipes up under our Buick and me, well I've been whittling on some steel and we're ready to weld on the top plate. [ welder crackling ] [ Music ]
(Marc)>> And it's heavy. Now with the bumper mounted and adjusted I can start making my connection between the muffler and the tip. [ Music ] We're using one of Magnaflow's universal kits. What's nice about these is they have all the bends necessary to fabricate this entire exhaust system front to back. [ Music ] Well now that the muffler's tacked into place I know it's not going anywhere we can move on to get these tubes built over the axle. [ Music ] [ saw buzzing ] [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Man your plumbing work under here looks pretty nice.
(Marc)>> I appreciate it. Is it up to your standards though?
(Tommy)>> We don't need to be talking about my standards buddy.
(Marc)>> The tip looks nice. I like what you did with that.
(Tommy)>> Thanks man, I know each time we're getting a little closer to hearing this thing roar and I can't wait. Well, our Buick's ready for its transformation and I'm so excited. We've been working on this old Buick for quite a while and one thing I'm glad to see going away is this maw-maw colored paint job, yuck! I'll be spraying on a coat of sealer before we add on our color, and this process will help the paint adhere to the surface and gives us a uniform canvas for us to work with. [ Music ]
[ spray gun hissing ]
(Tommy)>> Now some people say it's a little bit tricky to spray on clear coat but really the trick behind it is to see where you're spraying it. Sometimes you have to maneuver yourself around to catch the light just right to see where it's going. Other than that just keep moving, keep spraying. M&M took our Buick to the next level. She now has a full custom upholstery with high end Douglas leather. They showed off their skills by using multiple textures, rivets, and pleats to give us an aggressive interior, while yet keeping it refined to compliment our Buick. By selecting the perfect color combinations accompanied with pure craftsman style stitching. The only thing we have to do now is go enjoy our creation out on the pavement.
(Katie)>> Finally Street Regal is ready to show off her true colors. Stick around to see how she performs.
(Marc)>> We are here at NCM Motorsports Park because this is where this car was built to perform right Tommy?
(Tommy)>> Not exactly. We built this car over the course of many moons, and I'll tell you having it out here on a day like today is gonna be a great day. [ engine revving ]
(Marc)>> Wow, this thing is super flat. [ engine revving ]
(Marc)>> Wow, this thing actually likes it out here. Well the first thing I notice lots of power, and lots of grip too. Lot of lateral grip. Big meats in the back, plenty of grip in the front. Plenty of braking, lots of braking. You know being that this thing is a Buick Regal, a grandma's car essentially. It's a little odd, especially with this steering wheel, and being an automatic it's slightly awkward. It's just not your normal track car, and I know this isn't a track car and Tommy will argue that's not what it was built for, but this thing's plenty capable. It's awesome! Coming down the straight now. [ engine revving ]
(Marc)>> Easily surpassing 100. The gauges are happy, I'm happy! [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> I'm not sure but this ole Buick may have converted you. What do you think?
(Marc)>> No I think we converted it.
(Tommy)>> That's a given. From where I was at up there this thing looked great.
(Marc)>> The complaint I have. It needs harnesses, if it had a stick, but I understand that's not what this car was built for. But if I had to blame something on it it'd be that. That's our fault. We didn't do it for that. The only other thing is it almost has an identity crisis. So it's like acceleration, plenty of acceleration. All the power you want, but then again when you're not under hard acceleration it's comfortable and it's quiet. It's like it's trying to be two different things at the same time and it's not doing either one of those really poorly. So it's a cruiser and it's a potential racer if it had those few components. Again it's not what it was built to do.
(Tommy)>> This car here, for me per se, I just wanted it to perform really well but I didn't want to sacrifice any comforts or even the appeal of it by going fast.
(Marc)>> Mission accomplished.
(Tommy)>> Getting out here on these back roads and stretching this thing out is definitely putting a smile on my face. We've been working on this car for a long time. We went through the suspension. We've done paint and body work on it, had the interior redone. Basically this car has been touched from the front bumper to the back, and you know that in itself is quite the undertaking. [ Music ] Some people call it spirited driving. I just kinda call it goofing off. [ engine revving ]
(Tommy)>> There ain't no lying. This ole girl will rock 'n roll. [ Music ] Put a car together like this it's pretty easy to have a good time. Sometimes I question myself. Did I pick the right occupation, and I have to say yes because sometimes it just seems like your project will consume you cause you're putting all your spare time, spare money into it, and sometimes it seems like you're not really getting that far, but finally you get over that threshold and you complete it. This car here, yeah, I'm pretty proud of it. [ Music ] The nice thing about being out here in the sticks is there's plenty of places to do a big pro mod burnout. [ Music ] [ engine revving ]
(Tommy)>> That wasn't too bad. I wasn't even trying hard. All that smoke blowing around, that's a sign that this thing's plenty peppy. I guess you can say this Buick's got all the goods. Looks, performance, ride, comfort, home run! [ Music ]
(Katie)>> Well another great job by the guys. Pretty sure Street Regal's gonna be a fan favorite. And remember, you can also watch all of our other projects right here on Powernation Builds.
Show Full Transcript
[ Music ]
(Katie)>> Welcome to Powernation Builds. Now you GM fans are in for a real treat as the guys are taking a grandma car and transforming it into one sweet ride. Here's Detroit Muscle. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> A few of you guys may be wondering why would someone want to pick a grandma car like this one. Well, it's actually because these things are getting really popular, and back in the '80's, well the Grand National, which is the brother i guess you would say of this little Regal, well was the fastest production car of that era. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Oh yeah! Ooh, did you feel that shift? Even the power shift is comfortable. That shows you what kind of power this thing makes. Right now we just reached 65 miles an hour, and now it shifted into drive. Yeah! I've been working with Carter Hickman at Carter Hickman Designs, and he came up with this gorgeous concept for our Buick project. He used a photo realistic approach and hit it with a great looking burgundy paint scheme, along with some black accents. Top it all off with those modern wheels and that aggressive stance and you've got one mean Regal. My plans for this thing is to add some modern conveniences with some strong power. Let's say fuel injection, automatic transmission, big brakes, some fancy wheels, and some pretty paint. Kind of a pro touring theme with a luxury feel to it. Pro-luxury if you know what I mean. A full custom frame that's boxed front to rear with inner and outer gussets for superior strength. For the front suspension it's a combination of C-5 Vette spindles with fabricated tubular upper and lower control arms and rack and pinion steering. Out back we're running a parallel four link with pan hard bar connected to a beefy Mossier nine inch rear axle with a Wave Track limited slip differential to put the power to the ground. For springs and shocks all four corners have adjustable QA One coil overs. That gives us the ability to dial in that ride whether we're cruising on the streets or making a hot lap at the track. For a power plant I wanted something that was strong and reliable with fuel injection. So I'll bet you can guess what I picked, LS Power! This is a 525 horsepower LS-3 from Chevrolet Performance. It's part of their connect and cruise line, and it does just that. We're gonna use these plywood wheels so that we can move our chassis around here in the shop. We've got to fit it up under our Buick, and then we can measure for some custom wheels. And I bet you ole Marc's gonna have something to say about them. Y'all just wait for it. [ Music ] [ mechanical humming ] [ Music ]
(Marc)>> All right Tommy, I got this old chassis out of here for you. The hard part's done.
(Tommy)>> Now after you get the old frame out from under there you can pretty much tell that this thing is nowhere near as strong. It's got C-channel here, where that one's boxed. It's got all those gussets. Man, that piece is gonna be nice up under here.
(Marc)>> Yeah, plus this whole thing's got to go anyway. Might as well just roll the whole thing out. Come on down. We need to get the engine spreader bar attached using a few bolts. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Since we're just mocking it up for now we're not going to install the torque converter.
(Marc)>> All right, let's try that.
(Tommy)>> We'll just secure it with a couple of bolts. [ drill humming ]
(Marc)>> All you! [ Music ] So excited!
(Marc)>> Oh, let me get this trans mount on. [ Music ]
(Marc)>> Just keep an eye on that. See where those mounts fall up front as I'm moving this back. And when the big moment comes... [ Music ] The oil pan's not gonna clear.
(Tommy)>> So where we're at right now, we need another oil pan to clear our cross member, which isn't no big deal at all. So we're gonna have to order us one of them, but what we can do is still put this thing up under the car just to see where it's at cause it's about that much too high, and I'm sure all this is still gonna have plenty of clearance. So, let's just see where it's at.
(Marc)>> I like your wheel choice Tommy. Are these board Codington's?
(Tommy)>> No, no!
(Marc)>> We'll use a plumb bob to make sure our body mounts are in line with the holes on our new chassis.
(Tommy)>> That's pretty close. [ Music ]
(Marc)>> Then we can lower the body onto it.
(Tommy)>> We down now.
(Marc)>> Well I have to admit Tommy, great engine choice. It looks good in there.
(Tommmy)>> We've still got quite a bit of work to do. We're gonna be enlarging the wheel tubs. Plus we may accidentally bolt in one of them fancy power adders.
(Katie)>> Coming up, the guys are gonna 86 the vinyl and the chrome for a much cooler look. Bye, bye grandma!
(Tommy)>> Now we're gonna have to address the appearance on this thing, like getting rid of some of the bright work that's on it. We're toying with the idea of losing the vinyl top, and you know this color, we're definitely gonna have to do something in that department.
(Marc)>> Now way back in 1985 somebody's grandmamma drove this car home from the dealership, and she was real happy with all that chrome. Not to mention these bumperettes here, impact strips which are showing their age now, which all of that stuff kinda screams luxury and we're going more for performance look. Now we've got it just mocked up for now because we want to make some changes. We want to get rid of all this rubber, and black plastic, and the bumperettes, but instead of just grinding and welding on this chrome bumper we've got a better solution.
(Tommy)>> That gaudy chrome bumper's what we started with. This is what we've got now. Those few hours we spent gave this Buick an attitude adjustment that it desperately needed. We're finally to the point that we get to pull this ugly vinyl off of the roof, and I have a small concern that it may be rather difficult. This top being in such nice shape it's probably really glued on.
(Marc)>> And you know as much as I hate to see this top go, and you know I do, I think this is gonna be my favorite part.
(Tommy)>> Oh yeah, It's really stuck.
(Marc)>> It's harder than it looks. Lift with your legs they said. With a little teamwork we get the majority off in no time. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> All that's left to get the rest of the vinyl off is this trim panel, which is riveted on.
(Marc)>> My half's done. Time for a coffee.
(Tommy)>> They glued the heck out of that thing. And it just snaps, well breaks, right off.
(Marc)>> Both of these are getting the job done but it sure looks like Tommy's is doing it a lot faster. [ sander buzzing ]
(Tommy)>> We'll just sand away at it one section at a time until all the glue is gone. [ sander buzzing ]
(Tommy)>> Now this car had a couple of performance brothers from back in the day, the Buick Grand National and the GNX, and I'm a big fan of both of those cars. So I want to take some of the body options that they had and add them onto our car. Now one of those modifications is relatively simple. The other one's gonna require some cutting. So what we're gonna do is install these pieces that we got from Original Parts Group. We've got a full set of fender flares and some side scoops. Now to install these it's pretty straight forward. They have a bolt on design. So, let's go ahead and get these on and out of the way. We'll start out by removing the chrome trim pieces around the wheel openings and bottom of the quarter. Then we can put our flare into place and clamp it down. These things just screw right to the inner fender well lip, and just like that they're installed. We've got our flares on. Now it's time for us to install our louvres. Now to do this it's not really all that complicated but it does require us to cut a big ole hole here in the side of this fender. Now with the kit it comes with an instruction sheet that gives you a template of what you're gonna have to trim out. So let's go ahead and cut this out of here and we can get started. [ Music ] For placement on our template it's supposed to be three quarters of an inch down from this body line and this corner here is supposed to be two inches from this edge. We need to make some measurements and then we can tape it into place. Luckily for us the lower pinstripe is dead on three quarter. So we just need to mark the back. Now we can place our template on the fender and trace around it. To cut out my hole what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use a drill, make me a couple of holes here in all the corners, and then follow that up with my body saw and cut out that piece. Now whenever you're gonna cut something like this out you need to keep in mind your tooth count on your blade. You want to choose the correct blade for the material that you're working on. Now we're cutting steel and both of these are for cutting metal but the one here is 32 tooth count per inch. This one is a 14. This is really nice for cutting sheet metal because the teeth are so much closer together. With this one here that's far more course, if you were to try to use it you could actually damage the panel. After punching our holes it's time to let some metal chips fly. [ saw buzzing ]
(Tommy)>> Oh and like your kindergarten teacher told you, stay inside the lines. [ saw buzzing ] If you're installing these onto a painted car you want to come back and touch up this raw edge because you want to prevent it from rusting. Now with our car we've still got to do all the paint work and all that stuff. So we're just gonna stick this thing in there to see what it looks like. [ Music ] Oh yeah, it looks pretty cool. Now I just need to do the other side.
(Katie)>> Up next, our Buick Regal gets some custom upgrades.
(Tommy)>> Now I know this old Buick isn't necessarily Marc's favorite ride but we've got to finish this thing man.
(Marc)>> You wouldn't believe it but I like this car, and now that I see here in the shop we've actually got quite a bit of work done already.
(Tommy)>> Yeah, we've got the bumpers doctored on front and rear, fabbed up a rear spoiler. Plus, it's sitting on that trick chassis, and the motor and tranny's in it.
(Marc)>> So where do we go from here, what's next?
(Tommy)>> I want to do a bit of plumbing and go ahead and conquer the exhaust. What do you think?
(Marc)>> Let's do it!
(Tommy)>> These probably gonna fit in like butter.
(Marc)>> Let's see. Oh, look at that. I am flat up against the head.
(Tommy)>> That one fits nice too.
(Marc)>> Yep, you can go anywhere with that thing.
(Tommy)>> We'll be able to tuck that pipe a lot closer to the floor board. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> I've been tinkering with fabbing up a fancy exhaust tip that's gonna compliment the tail end of our Buick, and this is what I've got so far. What we still need to do is build the inside of the tip and make it so that we can connect it to the tail pipe. What we need to do now is cut off this inside of the bumper. [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> I'm gonna cut this piece out so that I can make room for that inner tip. [ welder crackling ]
(Tommy)>> With this piece tacked into place now we're gonna start putting together the inside of it, and I'm making it out of two different pieces. More or less an upper and lower. Once I get it wiggled around into the sweet spot I'll go ahead and tack it into place. I'm making this stuff out of 18 gauge mile steel because it's heavy enough and yet light enough to work with.
(Marc)>> Alright well I've got those first pieces of tubing tacked into place on each side and they're really imperative because you need to make sure that it's level and also pointed straight toward the rear of the car, but not only that they need to be the same height. I've got that accomplished. Now I can move on to the mid pipe but I've this piece right here that I found out in the warehouse. This is actually an "X" pipe out of a Magnaflow direct fit kit that we had laying around. Somebody already stole some pieces out of the kit. So I took this. This is going to be ideal because the spacing on the pipes here gonna go right through those holes in our frame. So I'm gonna get this mocked up, connect the dots. Alright I'm just gonna check and make sure this is level with the ground. Looks good! Like a glove! Now with everything mocked up all the way to the "X" I can take it all back apart now and start doing some welding.
(Tommy)>> Marc's been making some pretty good progress plumbing the pipes up under our Buick and me, well I've been whittling on some steel and we're ready to weld on the top plate. [ welder crackling ] [ Music ]
(Marc)>> And it's heavy. Now with the bumper mounted and adjusted I can start making my connection between the muffler and the tip. [ Music ] We're using one of Magnaflow's universal kits. What's nice about these is they have all the bends necessary to fabricate this entire exhaust system front to back. [ Music ] Well now that the muffler's tacked into place I know it's not going anywhere we can move on to get these tubes built over the axle. [ Music ] [ saw buzzing ] [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Man your plumbing work under here looks pretty nice.
(Marc)>> I appreciate it. Is it up to your standards though?
(Tommy)>> We don't need to be talking about my standards buddy.
(Marc)>> The tip looks nice. I like what you did with that.
(Tommy)>> Thanks man, I know each time we're getting a little closer to hearing this thing roar and I can't wait. Well, our Buick's ready for its transformation and I'm so excited. We've been working on this old Buick for quite a while and one thing I'm glad to see going away is this maw-maw colored paint job, yuck! I'll be spraying on a coat of sealer before we add on our color, and this process will help the paint adhere to the surface and gives us a uniform canvas for us to work with. [ Music ]
[ spray gun hissing ]
(Tommy)>> Now some people say it's a little bit tricky to spray on clear coat but really the trick behind it is to see where you're spraying it. Sometimes you have to maneuver yourself around to catch the light just right to see where it's going. Other than that just keep moving, keep spraying. M&M took our Buick to the next level. She now has a full custom upholstery with high end Douglas leather. They showed off their skills by using multiple textures, rivets, and pleats to give us an aggressive interior, while yet keeping it refined to compliment our Buick. By selecting the perfect color combinations accompanied with pure craftsman style stitching. The only thing we have to do now is go enjoy our creation out on the pavement.
(Katie)>> Finally Street Regal is ready to show off her true colors. Stick around to see how she performs.
(Marc)>> We are here at NCM Motorsports Park because this is where this car was built to perform right Tommy?
(Tommy)>> Not exactly. We built this car over the course of many moons, and I'll tell you having it out here on a day like today is gonna be a great day. [ engine revving ]
(Marc)>> Wow, this thing is super flat. [ engine revving ]
(Marc)>> Wow, this thing actually likes it out here. Well the first thing I notice lots of power, and lots of grip too. Lot of lateral grip. Big meats in the back, plenty of grip in the front. Plenty of braking, lots of braking. You know being that this thing is a Buick Regal, a grandma's car essentially. It's a little odd, especially with this steering wheel, and being an automatic it's slightly awkward. It's just not your normal track car, and I know this isn't a track car and Tommy will argue that's not what it was built for, but this thing's plenty capable. It's awesome! Coming down the straight now. [ engine revving ]
(Marc)>> Easily surpassing 100. The gauges are happy, I'm happy! [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> I'm not sure but this ole Buick may have converted you. What do you think?
(Marc)>> No I think we converted it.
(Tommy)>> That's a given. From where I was at up there this thing looked great.
(Marc)>> The complaint I have. It needs harnesses, if it had a stick, but I understand that's not what this car was built for. But if I had to blame something on it it'd be that. That's our fault. We didn't do it for that. The only other thing is it almost has an identity crisis. So it's like acceleration, plenty of acceleration. All the power you want, but then again when you're not under hard acceleration it's comfortable and it's quiet. It's like it's trying to be two different things at the same time and it's not doing either one of those really poorly. So it's a cruiser and it's a potential racer if it had those few components. Again it's not what it was built to do.
(Tommy)>> This car here, for me per se, I just wanted it to perform really well but I didn't want to sacrifice any comforts or even the appeal of it by going fast.
(Marc)>> Mission accomplished.
(Tommy)>> Getting out here on these back roads and stretching this thing out is definitely putting a smile on my face. We've been working on this car for a long time. We went through the suspension. We've done paint and body work on it, had the interior redone. Basically this car has been touched from the front bumper to the back, and you know that in itself is quite the undertaking. [ Music ] Some people call it spirited driving. I just kinda call it goofing off. [ engine revving ]
(Tommy)>> There ain't no lying. This ole girl will rock 'n roll. [ Music ] Put a car together like this it's pretty easy to have a good time. Sometimes I question myself. Did I pick the right occupation, and I have to say yes because sometimes it just seems like your project will consume you cause you're putting all your spare time, spare money into it, and sometimes it seems like you're not really getting that far, but finally you get over that threshold and you complete it. This car here, yeah, I'm pretty proud of it. [ Music ] The nice thing about being out here in the sticks is there's plenty of places to do a big pro mod burnout. [ Music ] [ engine revving ]
(Tommy)>> That wasn't too bad. I wasn't even trying hard. All that smoke blowing around, that's a sign that this thing's plenty peppy. I guess you can say this Buick's got all the goods. Looks, performance, ride, comfort, home run! [ Music ]
(Katie)>> Well another great job by the guys. Pretty sure Street Regal's gonna be a fan favorite. And remember, you can also watch all of our other projects right here on Powernation Builds.
