1990 2.5L Buick Century
 

Got my new beater for while I'm wrapping up the Alero. Couldn't beat the price and it runs good, but smells funny on the inside (ex smoker, plus some water leaks inside through bad door/window seals)

Anyone know if those 2.5L motors were any good for tweaking? The car is light as hell. (maybe a low psi turbo in the works).

i dont know if im thinking of the right engine, but if its the one 2.5l that pontiac used during that same time period, you can squeeze some decent perfomance out of it.

yeah, I'm doing some research on it now....factory rated, a whopping 110 hp. Which makes sense. It runs nice and smooth, and will almost get out of it's own way.

you may find this useful... maybe

http://www.amotion.com/p4.html

thanks for the lead.....says the company has closed, but pages left open for information purposes only.

Well, If I'm remembering this right, the 2.5 is also known as the "super duty four" which is basically half of a Pontiac V8. I would think they would be fairly stout for some improvements. I know there were some GM Performance Parts available for it a while back.

The only real common problem is that the timing gears can go out on them. But yours may have a chain.

how would that be possible?
the 2.5 was their small v6 wasn't it?

Are you thinking 2.8? i believe that was their V-6.

maybe

Cool man. My first car was an 89 Buick Century, white, with blue interior. Power locks but not power windows. The car was great... but I had the 2.8l v6. The engine still ran great when I had to get rid of it, but when I was 17, I hit a guard rail on a nasty road in bad weather, and kind of threw the body out of whack. The body looked ok, there was not a lot of visible damage, but after several years, the metal piece the door latch closes around wore out, becuase it was not lined up right.... it rusted off, so the door wouldn't stay shut. It wasn't worth it to fix. But that car had over 200k on it, and the motor was still strong.

The seats in that car were sooo rediculously comfortable. I wouldn't mind buying another one some day as a beater. But yeah, the cars are FWD and very light. I did a 180 in the snow once, and luckily didn't hit anything.

ok, yes, i can see it as a beater, but throwing a turbo in it just sounds rediculous. those things are soooooo ugly and grandpa-ish, that throwing ANY money into modding it would be a huge waste....

^^^^one word.....................SLEEPER lol

Nick's got an idea.

I used to think that you only considered suping up the Alero was "a huge waste" but now I see your narrow thinking spans across about any car you deem unfit. Everyone who's posted gave encouragement, ideas, and advice. OK, so the equation of Alero + Performance = Wasteful Stupidity to you. Then why do you even bother reading and POSTING in the Performance section? Just because you can? You offer nothing but your pessimistic attitude, so I'll offer you some sound advice. Go buy a Kia Rio, join their forum if one exist, and be around others who brag about how good their gas mileage is and who can make their tires chirp if the ground is wet enough. You'll fit right in or, most likely, irritate the heck out of them too. Let the guy do what he wants with his car.

Don't know if this helps but according to wik, the 2.5L was known as the Iron Duke. You're right, finding parts for it may be hard searching for the engine itself, but it has a car list that this engine was placed in. May be able to find a forum or something. And if the Pontiacs you were talking about, Bad99Olds, were the Sunbird, Fiero, and Astre, then you're on the right track.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_Century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Iron...engine#Tech_IV

Yeah, this one's still going strong with 217K miles on it. I don't think I'm going to turbo it though. If I do anything with it now, it's going to be an L67/4t65 swap. Somebody on the A-body forum did a full write-up on the swap, and looks like the only thing he had to fabricate was the rear trans torsion brace, and do a hybrid with the axles. Apparently most of the mounts and stuff off the old gran prix 3100 setup bolts right over and mounts it in perfectly.

Then again, I may just leave it stock. It's a good running car. 200k+ miles just reinforces my pride in GM.

Nice. It is amazing how many of these are still on the road around here, considering the car is at least 13 years old (i believe the last year of that body style was 95, my father in law had a newer body style Century that I think was a 96.)

speaking of the iron duke, my buddy had one in his beater. Not sure if the link still works, cant see it here at work.
here is the post he made explaining whats goin on in the video...
steeletechproductions.com/crussn

the 2.5? hard to find parts for? nah its pretty easy, around here at least. The 91 GA's had the same engine. We have a customer right now in with said GA.. that car is obnoxious.. yuck.

I could see using it as a good beater and keeping it maintained, but dumping any money into it for performance? Unjustified IMO.