Thinking about making my 2003 Monte Carlo a street/strip drag car. Would a 350 or 383 stroke fit in the Monte Carlo engine bay? If so how much of the drivetrain will I have to change?

 

350's and 383's are used in rear wheel drive cars and your 2003 is front wheel drive. I am not saying it cannot be done but pretty much everything from front to back would have to be changed.
We have someone on here doing a FWD to RWD conversion. It is a 7th gen but FWD nonetheless.
Click here --->https://montecarloforum.com/forum/pa...ght=conversion

 

I have heard of a stroker kit for our engines, but they are pretty rare now a days. This is from 2005 article...



Guys their is about to be a release of a stroker crank in OZ by C.O.M.E. racing. It's to suit the series II L67 / L36 which is our Holden Ecotec V6.

I'll give you the garble as follows and a pic.

Holden Ecotec V6 4.2 litre Stroker kits available soon

New for 2005 C.O.M.E Racing is now close to completing a full development program on a long awaited Holden Ecotec V6 4.2 litre Stroker crank, rod, piston kit assembly

Holden V6 owners will now be able to have all the advantages of a stroker engine so popular for most V8 engines families. The big advantage of course is that with the low insurance rates confronting V6 owners there will be less need to convert to the more expensive V8 alternatives.

Our development program has already seen the building of totally streetable Ecotec V6 Strokers with ported cylinder heads and matching camshaft and software upgrades to easily yeild 220KW (295HP) V6's with awesome torque increases for V8 style acceleration.

Shown in the photo is our final production nodular cast iron stroker crankshaft and our prototype forged 5140 steel matched conrod. The assembly is designed as a direct bolt in with no block modifications required and the ability to retain the OEM style production pistons. We will be offering the cranks only, cranks and rods only as well as complete crank, rod and cast piston balanced assemblies. There will be optional compression ratio cast pistons and forged piston options for Turbo, N2O or Blower applications.

We would like to wish all our customers and all automotive enthusiasts everywhere a healthy and safe 2005 and we will be back in our shop on the 10th January 2005.

In the meantime feel free to email us any queries you may have on our new Ecotec V6 upgrade program including software , camshaft and now our 4.2 litre stroker assemblies. Email to come@comeracing.com or call us after the 10th January 2005 on (03)9571-4204
Attached ImagesFile Type: jpg ECOSTROKER.jpg (18.3 KB, 124 views)


I am not familiar with all the details on the Series I engines, but Series II/III engines can only be stroked to ~ 3.62" (stock is 3.40"), giving you closer to 4.0 liters than 4.3 liters. This limitation is because the deck height is shorter than on the earlier 3.8 liter engines.
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Any engine can fit in the bay, although I will say that if you're going through the extreme cost and expense of a conversion to make one fit that using something like an old school 350 or 383 seems rather silly. I'd at least do a built LS engine or a big block if you're getting that much into it.

As far as how much to change, I'm assuming you want it rwd also. In that case, you need to change literally everything about the drivetrain. Absolutely nothing bolts in aND everything will need to be custom fabricated.

There are a few common ways to do this:
-weld on thr complete underbody from an existing rwd car
-weld in sections of underbody from an existing rwd car
-buy or build a tube chassis and attach your current body panels to it

There are lots of downsides to this though,
-Cost. Since you're asking, I'm assuming this level of fab work is something youd have to pay for. Shop rates are expensive for custom fab labor and this is a ton of labor.
-insurance. You certainly don't want to drop $20k+ into a $2k car. If you wreck it without getting the car properly insured, they're going to cut you a check for $2k and you'll lose everything if the car is destroyed.
-liability. If you decide to tackle this conversion yourself and something breaks during operation that kills somebody as a result of something you did wrong, you could be held financially liable for damage or death caused.