The All About My Monte Carlo SS Thread

[daveismissing]

Whats the redline?

[motorhead]

Whats the redline?

It was 6500rpm when the engine was N/A... or at least that was my shift point (even when on the spray).

I hate porting stuff; so much mess.  So far I've ported two stock inlet bells, two cast iron oil drain elbows... and I still have a compressor housing to touch up. Sigh.

[daveismissing]

So its pumping almost the stock amount of air thru the turbo, probably less with the lower boost. Sounds good to me, interested to see what Steve, Ed and Paul have to say.

[motorhead]

This is normal, right?

[$1987 GN$]

Are you changing the body bushings?


AJ___

[motorhead]

Are you changing the body bushings?


AJ___

That's the problem... I wasn't originally planning on it.  But, I started poking around thinking about how I could stiffen up the frame to accept the added torque from the boosted engine and then out came the scraper and screw driver to clean up some scale. One thing lead to another and now I have a fair bit of body work in front of me.  This is the PS front body mount and it came out the side of the mount box. :o

[$1987 GN$]

Interesting that one broke, when you get to the other ones that are inside the panels.

I have used hockey pucks in the past, cheap and solid.


AJ___

[motorhead]

The funny thing is the rubber mounts themselves are in okay shape. This is just a function of t-tops, salt and 25 years of use.  I'll build a new box and go from there.

[motorhead]

I've determined that the body is going to have to come off the frame to fix a variety of issues, including the missing bodymount(s).

Now I have to decide if I want to sink any effort into this body or this frame; buy another base-Monte that is clean, out of the States; or chop the crap out of this car and do something radical.  I am considering swapping the body onto a shortened AWD TrailBlazer SS chassis, and turboing a 5.3L.

I could recoupe a fair bit of my money by selling off the current turbo engine, built 200-4R and 8.5" to fund this... either way I am looking at a fair bit of work.

[SuperSix]

What's so wrong with the current frame and body?

[motorhead]

Overall, it is looking like it is 25 years old with being exposed to humidity and salt. So to put it plainly: FUBAR... or it is going to be a long road back.

Originally I bought this car because it didn't have rotted rear frame rails, despite the doors and floors being gone.  Now the floors are going/gone again (10+ years since it was "restored") and I am not certain that I want to fix it.

[SuperSix]

Ok. That makes sense.

[motorhead]

My brother and I are starting to hunt for donors... and I am thinking I am going to sell the twin turbo Gen I small block in this thing and go to to an LSX instead.

[motorhead]

I may have found a hard top donor car... should know by Sunday afternoon. More. To. Follow.

[motorhead]

We picked it up for $800; and in Buick related news it has a 3.8L.  Other than power windows this car has no options.  Hopefully we can get it home to Ottawa safely tomorrow.