The 4200 in the trailblazer is a very smooth strong modern DOHC motor with variable valvetiming. It makes close to 300 hp in stock format with a red line of a little over 6,000 rpms. Decrease the bore of the 4200 slightly to increase block cylinder wall strength for the forced induction. Then destroke the motor some to increase the red line. Make it so you end up with a 3900 inline 6 using a supercharger or maybe twin turbos.

That should net you a conservitive 400-450 horsepower.

The problem has been the fit and finish and quality of materials. My current Cavalier Z24 is fine engine / mechanical wise, but it definitely feels like its falling apart. Panel gaps are uneven, squeaks and rattles abound.

It will soon be time for me to purchase my first brand new car and I don’t think it is likely to be a GM, though a Saturn Ion once it is replaced by an Opel sounds tempting. Even the Aura once it comes in Red Line trim sounds nice, but I’d rather have an engaging to drive hatch such as a Mazda 3 or VW GTI (though VWs reliability is suspect also)

I have every damn right to be here as everyone else. This isn’t a GM fanboi site bud. Go cry to someone else because I called your friend names. I hope Toyota destroys them. It’s only a matter of time.

David

“So what steps caused/aided the turnaround and how are these being benchmarked? noting that they sold some great assets (ones that threw cash) like a majority of their lending business to raise cash which makes the adjusted profit more impressive ”

what does the above have to do with the third quarter ?
GM AC minority sold in 4/2006
Isuzu stake sold in 4/2006
It’s called diversification look up the meaning and purpose.

To: everyone else
As far as the meaning adjusted it means the car company generated profit from their automotive sales. The adjustment come in the form of all their contractual agreements buyouts and bailouts like Delphi. Gm having previously owned Delphi was obligated by contracts even if the company was spun off. Besides a Delphi bankruptcy or failure would have severely crippled GM and other car manufacturers. Because they are a major source of parts. Now that being said it was cheaper to take a hit now and keep the company going than have them fail and run out of parts. No parts ,no cars.

As far as fleet sales they mean more to Ford than GM here in the US, lets get that strait. Yes it’s significant but Ford has a edge on that one. So what if they (GM/Ford) sell large quantities to government or companies. The idiots are the ones making these comments glorifying these other foreign car companies not thinking about what they do. As if they do not have fleet sales. What does Japan have for their government/companies vehicles(mostly Toyota)? What does Europe have for theirs (Mercedes, just about every cab I’ve seen in Europe, police car etc.) That’s everyones bread and butter.

Please Please take 2 minutes and research before posting, makes for a much more stimulating discussion. Nothing wrong with opinions but at least be factual.

I got burned. Don’t like reading my posts? Move on.

GM’s success comes at the price of Ford Motor and Daimler Chrysler. I don’t want to see them disappear and I also think it is time for GM to drop off the pedestal of #1 that they haven’t earned in decades.

Of course, if you drop the fleet sales, the 0% finance deals, the payouts to customers to buy the metal and the Oprah Winfrey giveaways, GM sales don’t look so hot. Toyota is going to be eating their lunch soon enough anyways

And nowei, please get over yourself, not everyone who buys American is low class and broke.

There, service dept. blows, the product is overpriced for what you get and frankly, I don’t like driving something that my Grandpop would own. And now you are trying to sell me on a Bluehair Buick?

Might as well try and sell me on a Hearse.

Buick is for fogeys, plain and simple. I am not old (I am in my late 30’s) don’t live in a retirment commuunity and prefer something a bit more “Engaging” than a bloated pillow. Sorry, the Lucerne is not a performance vehicle like my SRX is. You’re wasting your time trying to convince me that it is.

In fact my neighbor (probably older than you, he’s 49) just sold his SRX and got a Lucerne. Loves it.

I find it odd how two things that seem to come up in the discussions of GM, and indeed, American industry in general, are how the lack of free trade and cheap foreign labour really hurts domestic American operations. When really, because of free trade, many large American companies have been outsourcing their own production to cheap foreign labour markets (read: Mexico). I mean, I don’t know if anybody else has observed this, but there aren’t exactly many other foreign car manufacturers (with the possible exceptions of Kia and Hyundai) whose domestic markets allow for cut-rate manufacturing. I mean, does anybody here have any idea what minimum wage is in Japan? The fact is that the push to reduce manufacturing costs (apparently with little or no concern for loss in quality) has a lot less to do with remaining competitive, and a lot more to do with maximizing profit. Now I’m certainly not saying that companies like GM shouldn’t make a profit, I just don’t think that they should be pushing the absolute limit of what’s possible in terms of profit. Apparently, the market agrees with me on this, as this strategy didn’t exactly pay off for them.

I would also like to point out that being (very marginally) profitable isn’t necessarily indicative building great cars. I do agree that much of this apparent turn around at GM has a lot to do with the manner in which they conduct their operations, so that’s good news. Now, if they could start building consisting good and appealing vehicles they’d be in a much better position. And don’t anybody mention the Corvette Z06. Yeah, it’s great, but building one great car doesn’t mean you have a great company.

I mean, in the future, I don’t ever see GM really being able to reclaim the status they once had. I don’t mean any disrespect by this comment, but I kind of see GM (and a lot of really large manufacturers, like Ford or even Toyota) as having carved out a niche on the bottom of the automotive totem pole. As the world’s largest automaker, they build a lot of average cars for average people (or below average cars for below average people) [and I should point out that I'm talking here about the Cobalt and the Wave and the Colorado and the like]. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. The market is there, and it’s pretty much the biggest automotive market there is, so somebody has to build cars for that market. I think it’s this market that ultimately sets the low bar in the automotive industry, and the higher companies can set that low bar, the better it is for all of us. I welcome the notion that GM will be building much better cars, because it means the competition will have to build cars even better than that.

/no

The other place for cash/cost reduction is in the retiree pensions and healthcare. Not sure what they can do there. A first step is they just told them that they are holding the line on health care cost. All increases in the future will be paid for by the retiree. Long term it will help.

the era of “free trade” has come to an end – it’s time to talk about fair trade – and that includes building products that people not only want to buy but get excited about.

GM is beginning to do that. there is a long way to go, but it sure beats a $5bil loss like Ford just experienced, or the nearly $2bil loss for DC.

congratulations, GM.

And by naysayers I meant all the people who comment negatively about Ford and GM no matter what good they do.

Yay, GM!