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UPDATE: Got the car back yesterday. A fantastic job was done by the mechanic. Maybe it's just me but the motor seems to be quieter and it's running much better, must be all those new intake gaskets(?). I checked this morning, there is no more oil coming from the oil pump drive, so it looks like the RTV will probably hold. Unfortunately the car is still leaking oil, coming from the lower part of the motor. Not anywhere near as bad as it was though, so for now it will be something I can live with. They also cleaned the engine compartment out of all the oil & grease, changed the oil, and installed a new EGR replacing the original one. Thanks to all for the advice on this one, this is one less major issue this LQ1 now has

DOUBLE UPDATE - some really great news to report here. I was hoping for this and it just might be coming true..........I have been monitoring the amount of oil dripping in my flat pan since the return of the car, and its getting less and less. It may just be this was residual oil already on places on the motor that were not able to be wiped off, and I just might something here, an almost non-oil leaking LQ-1. Even the wife noticed how well the car is running, and if she notices, now that can't be bad, can it...........

Wrong plugs altogether? Or correct plugs but gapped incorrectly? OEM plugs were always a requirement for these cars, and even 20 years ago, we had quite a few bad running engine posts where the fix was "replaced plugs with OEM". I've seen these things run nearly flawless on heavily worn OEM plugs with gaps closer to the 0.090" range...so I'm not sure the gap alone was the main issue.

If we’re talking bone stock out of the factory, it might be a very close call between the w-body2 (the MS2000 platform(“97”-“03”) GTP Grand Prix & the 1990 Cutlass international. If we’re talking modest mods, it’s going to be the GP (“97”-“03”) & if it’s a full out build, then there is no competition. It’s the GP (“97”-“03”)! Why? I have driven all of them extensively in testing & owned quite a few as well. So; I’m not being prejudiced or a smart guy! It’s just you can’t argue with physics! Now there are minor things that can be done to help improve the inherent physics incorporated into a platform/model & some more than others, but they tend to be somewhat limiting. While you might think all models in a platform have the same physics, they do not! Height, width, wheelbase, weight distribution, etc. are all different & consequencally so goes the base physics that limits the overall performance. Furthermore Super Buick is correct! The skidpad test is just one data point & while it measures lateral g acceleration, it is not a true test of an active suspension & how the suspension components work with regards to the handling. What it is, is the test of three things! The adhesion of the tire coefficient to the pavement, the stability of the components to hold their positions relative to geometrical physics that were designed into the vehicle, I.E. CG & RC, etc. Plus the moment of inertia! But the moment of inertia that is measured in the skidpad is minuscule in comparison to performance handling! Which is a critical element in car handling! What the skidpad test can’t test is suspension rollover, hard instant response handling like slalom racing, accelerometer force generated by such aggressive movements & platform resonance frequency, in which the latter can drastically influence the total performance of suspension performance.

Super stoked for this one! Just picked up this 93 tonight. One owner Michigan car! Not a spec of rust accept for around the windshield trim! Undercarriage looks virtually new! Has been sitting since 19, so some gremlins to work through! New top, but not a documented time of replacement. Has the usual oil leaks etc, and a horn / headlamp issue. But I am looking forward to getting acquainted with it! I think it’ll be a good pairing for my 95 as well.

It’s been just a little over a year now since I got the Regal…so what better way to celebrate that than with some more recent pictures. Nothing much visually has changed except for the refinished wheels and new tires…which was a fairly large, yet subtle change on its own. My intent is to keep the car as stock as possible, and to keep it up to snuff mechanically to be used as a reliable, fair weather cruiser. And to shake things up…. This is the final picture I ever took of my 89 GS before it was parked for good in summer of 2008.

Factory cassette deck is my choice for any 1st gen!

BEN??? Had to look at your user name a few times. Holy shit man. Its been a few minutes! How've you been?!? If for whatever ends you can find the Bose specific speaker brackets they can accommodate a bigger speaker. If you're using a 6.5 round you could make an adapter plate and then use a block of wood or something to take up the space to the bracket. Though honestly some self tapping screws would make the quickest work of it.

I was in the car audio industry for 10 years in my younger days. I’d strongly suggest you use the crossovers on those tweeters. If you don’t, you’ll be sending full range to them and they will go pop. They cant handle any low or midrange frequencies, they’ll also sound much better with the crossovers. Good place to stuff the crossovers is behind the kick panels. I would suggest Velcro and a zip tie to hold them in place. I’ve had my crossovers there for years with no issues. It’s easy to drop the wire down from up top when the dash pad is removed. Solder and heat shrink!

Check out Crutchfield. I got a single din radio/CD from them for my 95, Olds 88. With there free install kit, it was virtually plug and play.

yeah, it's in my gallery, this is the old head unit that was in the car, but the kit is the same one

It's a Pioneer AVH-P6800DVD w/AVIC-9DVD add-on navigation unit. I bought the HU in 2007, installed it in 2008, and just this week finally made it down to the paint store to get some paint that matches the original color so I could paint my dash bezel and finish it up. I procrastinate too much! I'm not sure how long it actually took to install, I worked on it anywhere from 30-minutes to a couple hours a day for 2-weeks or so. Pics didn't come out so great (way more bluish than real life), but you get the idea. Purely coincidentally, the aqua text Pioneer used matches the digital dash color perfectly. Navigation mode iPod in the center console iPod fits neatly into one of the cassette slots in the console because it's housed in a modified cassette case.

Nevermind what I said. I just re-read what was posted above. The factory speakers on these cars must be some complete shit. Nobody these days bi-amps a DVC speaker with two entirely different signals. Sounds like the only way to correctly fix this problem is what has already been suggested, to buy a cheap and weak 2-channel amp like an old Coustic Power Logic Amp-160 for like $40 and amplify the fullrange signal. Then again, I never really believed in dumping money into rear speakers anyway.

A DVC speaker doesn't create a hole in a specific range of frequencies. What you're looking at is more of a multi-way speaker. A DVC speaker has two voice coils on the exact same cone, acting in conjunction, wired to a specific impedance together. Sounds like there are two terminals here and two independent coils on two independent cones. The question I have, is whether or not there's a low pass filter in the amplifier on what used to be the tweeter's output, or if the low pass is filtered by a capacitor on the speaker itself.

No, that will not give full range sound! The amplifier is low-passed at around 100 hz or so. It is a subwoofer amp. The factory speakers played a dual role of full range and providing extra bass. Hooking up the amplified wires to a speaker only gives low bass. It does not give any midrange. There is not any midrange on the amplified signal. NO MIDRANGE. If you hook the amplified wires to a 6x9 and the other wires to a tweeter you will have deep bass out of the 6x9 and high frequencies out of the tweeter. There will be no midrange! No guitars, no voices, no snare drum. It will sound like crap. I have my speakers hooked up with only the amplified signal. There is only bass coming from my rear deck. Just like if there were only a subwoofer back there. There is NO midrange. Only bass. Deep bass. It is not some muddy sounding mix of bass and mid. I'm sorry for repeating myself so many times, but I don't want anyone to get confused and ruin a set of speakers or just otherwise be disappointed. To clarify some more... 1 set of wires provides amplified bass-only signal. Those wires are hooked up to one voice-coil on the 6x9. The other set of wires is a low-power, full range signal. It is hooked up to the OTHER voice-coil on the 6x9 AND the tweeter. Just like a regular co-axial speaker. The factory 6x9 has dual voice coils on the 6x9. The wires do not power only the 6x9 and only the tweeter. One set powers the 6x9, the other set powers the 6x9 AND the tweeter. The wires that power the 6x9 AND the tweeter are not amplified by the factory amplifier. Those wire simply pass through the amplifier and are only powered by the factory head unit. If you want full-range, powerful sound from a replacement set of 6x9s, you will have to add an amplifier and use the signal from the full-range wires as the amplifier's input. That's the only way I can see to do it.

SOLVED! It’s unreal, but the shop installed the wrong spark plugs! Gapped to 0.060” instead of 0.045”. I put the OEM plugs and it runs great.