How did I get to this point? well, here is my ( short ) story...
I purchased the car in 1990, This is the first joint purchase that my girlfriend and I made together.
It had a 350 V8 truck engine, original TH350 trans and untouched stock drive train.
The owner I bought it from replaced the origional LC8 V6 "Carb'd" turbo engine with the V8.
The 4-bolt main V8 had potential and I managed to upgrade and tune to the point where it ran 14.0x @ 95mph just with basic mods ( Headers, cam, intake, recurved HEI distributor, tuned q-jet, camel hump heads, 4:10s, 2500 stall )
Here is a recipe and dyno numbers of a 350 very similar to mine ( Heads and carb different but flow very close to parts on my old V8 )
At this point I had to decide what to do to go quicker ( I want a 12 sec timeslip ) while maintaining good street / highway manners.
I had several options but I knew someday a turbo'd engine would have to reside under the hood with the unique bulge.
That being said, the decision was made to go for the Buick V6, the engine the Monte originally had installed from the factory.
Two engines were purchased. The first was a complete motor that was the doner ( with a wiped cam ) and the second was a rebuilt ( see pics and credits below ).
Let the conversion ( not a swap ) begin.
Ken Seggie ( National Performance )
Kirt Silbermann ( Ajax Racing Engines )
Mike and the boys at Trans-Ware Transmission Ltd.
as well as Greg Moho ( Canadian Speed & Machine )
performed the voodoo on my Monte Carlo.
Out came the 350
Along came the fresh prepped 3.8
The motor is built with performance hardware ( Total Seal, ARP, etc.........)
And a doner 3.8 with all the bolt ons
The motor was built for low 10's in mind ( approx 600hp ) once the right combination of parts are added.
Rebuilt the modified 12 bolt rear ( fragile factory 7.5" 10 bolt replaced around 1998 but kept the factory aluminum finned rear drum brakes )
Note the dirt, I hate that picture. Rained the day I took the MC to the shop.
You can see a couple of air bags and a pair of adjustable upper control arms.
Drive shaft was origionally made for a Pro Mod Dragster, it unfortunatlly wrecked before it was installed. After I purchased it I had it shortened to fit the Monte.
A new gas tank ( GN / Turbo-T part ) hides the hot wired Walbro Fuel Pump which supplies 94 octane to the V6.
The rubber bushings were replaced with Polyurethane bushings all around back in 2000.
I had also removed the 4:10's and replaced the gears with 3.42's on the Eaton posi differential
Exhaust from the turbo exits via 3" Kirban down pipe all the way to a couple of Hooker Super Competition mufflers. Dual 2 1/2" exhaust from there on back.
With the front grill removed you can see the trans cooler in front of the new heavy duty rad. Since the conversion, I never ran over 180 degrees, even in stop and go rush hour traffic with record August heat.
Check out the dual trumpet horn. Dad salvaged that from a old (1950's) speedboat. Is it loud ?... oh ya .
The 200r 4 speed transmission was built to handle the higher horsepower engine. A Billet super servo assembly is visible. The re calibrated valve body firms up the shifts between gear changes on the 1-2 and 2-3 gear shifts.
The restalled 2800rpm " D5 " converter complements the bigger turbo cam.
Front Tube upper and lower control arms
and Bilstein shocks
Currently, my setup and mods closely mirrors " Step 3 " of the
Stock Drivetrain Staged Turbo Regal Recipe
.
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