Journey modding my 04
 

Hi! I'm James and I own a 2004 SS dale earnhardt edition supercharged monte

I came across the car when I was searching for a car to buy, and I just absolutely fell in love with the body style. The car is super fun to drive, and now I'm wanting to put more horsepower down. I'm not looking for the fastest thing on the planet, but I want some more ponies under my hood. I've seen one of the threads with a layout of different mods for the 3800s, but some of it seems a little confusing. I'm wondering if there are any updated threads for this or if someone could just give me some basic information that's easier to understand. Now I've heard that you really gotta do most everything at once because otherwise it'll mess with the computer readings and you don't wanna tune it a thousand times. I'm definitely not made of money, so If there was a way I could do 1 at a time mods, or mod 2 or 3 things that are cheaper at a time, that would be ideal for me. I just want my car to sound meaner and more aggressive, and actually put down some respectable power to match! If I'm being honest I don't know a ton about cars, but I know the basics. Luckily, my dad knows a decent bit and my uncle is actually a mechanic! So I do have them to help me if I want to do something more technical outside of my know-how. Other than that, I really want to get more into cars, specifically my monte carlo because I love it! I'm willing to learn and get my hands dirty. For now my monte is my only car with about 97k miles. I plan on getting another car for daily within the next year so I can really work on my monte more. I've kept up on the general maintenance, cleaned throttle body, changed the battery, replaced EVAP purge, replaced MAF, and that's about it. Bone stock even plugs and wires are still good! I run full synthetic oil now. I think that's about all the info I have about her.

So I would say my total budget I'm gonna allow myself is to put no more than $3,000 in the car when everything is said and done. My goal is to put down 400 hp, or however much I need to smoke all the non car people who think they're fast buying a mustang off the lot.
What would you all say are my best and or smartest options to mod this thing to be a wicked sounding beast?

`Thanks in advance and cheers all, James

Well James it sounds like you got some plans . A few things can be done without tuning the computer such as the exhaust like headers,down pipe, cat and mufflers. Can also put a new air filter and cold air intake on the system. Both mods will free up a few pony's but not much to a stock motor. As for other mods like injectors, a supercharger and a pulley swap you'll need to tune the PCM to get the real power. Here's where your idea takes a big direction change. Your looking to double your power on a stock engine with 100,000 miles from 240 hp up to 400 hp the motor can produce that power, but the big concern you should have is will the transmission hold that power ? Yep that's the expensive weak point.

Putting down 400 whp with $3k is going to be near impossible. The available options are simple, it's just an extreme stretch of budget.

It's going to have to be a used turbo kit with an intercooler and some way to crank the octane up - either meth injection or E85 depending what you have available locally for fuel. Other mods would make it easier to get there, but you're going to be extremely limited due to the budget cap.

There are of course two downsides - what are you going to do about tires and a transmission? Unless you've got some pretty sticky tires now, you're going to have a hard time putting that kind of power down. Then with the trans, it's not going to hold together long bone stock with that much power. If you're easy on it (especially if you don't upgrade to a more sticky tire), you might be able to run it for awhile before the trans blows up.

As for your current blower, the easy way would be just to pull the rotors and block it off. If you're up for more labor, you could save some money by trading the top end of your engine for the top end of their NA 3800. You could probably pick up a few hundred bucks for your budget by doing this assuming the blower isn't hosed inside.

What is the most I can get out of the stock trans without blowing it up? Or how expensive is it to get a different trans to handle that power? (I secretly want a manual trans swap, but I know that's barely possible and $$$) Also when it comes to turbos, so people run them with the supercharger still on there or you take it off? Sorry for all the newb questions.

I would just enjoy what you have now. If you want more power buy a newer Monte with a V8 , cheaper in the long run. But if you insist on more power try nitrous oxide it will give you instant power and you'll have money left for the transmission.

Yea, you gut the supercharger, remove the snout and block it off. Essentially turning it into an upper-upper intake manifold.. Cheapest and easiest way to turbo an L67..

https://zzperformance.com/3800/turbo...lock-off-plate

Dont worry about any kind of "noob" questions.. Those are the ones that make people like me feel uesful.. XD

You're already at the limit with these trans. They are glass. Some people get lucky and have a long time without issues, some people have their trans ruined with just stock power. Check out TripleEdgePerformance.com if you want a built trans. Some of the really good parts are no longer available.

People block the supercharger off and run a turbo, or swap intake manifolds.

I disagree. The l67 is very easy to get comparable power with the LS4. Exhaust work, mild valve train work, intake, plugs, and a good tune should allow a smaller pulley, more boost, and the same 300HP the v8 pushes.

It's just a struggle. I already have it planned for my next car to be a GTO since its RWD manual trans and double the power of my monte, but I just love the body style of the 6 gen monte Carlo so much. Would it be easier working different platform and trying to put the monte body on it? Or to shell out all kinds of cash to build inside the monte with engine and trans swapping?

It's more worth it to not go crazy with these cars, and enjoy them for what they are. For about $1500, you can do a good amount of modifications with your current supercharger and enjoy it.

So I should just do CAI, plugs, wires, thrmostat, some exhaust and a tune?

Check out this thread: https://montecarloforum.com/forum/en...-bumpin-24896/

I think for a safe amount of power, that is still a ton of fun, yes. You should do it simple. These cars are super torque-y, and a blast to drive. They will never be the v8 RWD killer, but they shouldn't be. 300-350 in a FWD car is enough.

Well at this point I think I'll just do the stage 2 kit from ZZP and strap a Powerlog on there. Would you recommend the rear Powerlog as well? Or just the front one since its more restrictive? Other than that, I guess just a resonator delete so I can get some more sound.

The rear manifold is already round, not a half moon like the front so it's not as restrictive and not necessary. if you were doing the rear PLOG, I would just recommend a set of headers instead.

If the car isn't to your liking after these modifications, you can look into doing some minor valve train work (stronger springs and rockers, or a cam), and getting it dyno tuned locally.

Yea I meant to ask about that as well. The only other mods that seemed notable were the 1.9 rockers and a throttle body. What does upgrading to a bigger throttle body actually do? And the rockers, what all do you need for that? It said the springs are reusable if you have less than 100k miles, but I'm basically there. So I'm assuming to do rockers I would need them and new springs. Anything else? Like retainers etc.

Bigger throttle body allows more air in to the upper manifold, but the stock one is fine for your application. I wouldn't bother going larger unless you were pushing a decent amount more air than you would be.

You can most likely reuse for the rockers, just if your tuner is experiencing valve float around 5500RPM, I would get stiffer springs.

The rockers you just need new valve cover gaskets, get a reusable rocker bolt, and you just unbolt the rocker, bolt the new on, torque properly, replace the valve cover gaskets, and put back together.

If your dream car is a GTO, just save up and go for it. They're dirt cheap right now. Take the $3k you were going to spend on mods, selling your car should at least double that. That puts you in 04 GTO range. If you can get up closer to $10k by saving a bit you can get into an 05/06.

I'd just hate to see you blow a bunch of money on a bunch of tiny mods for the monte if a GTO is what you really want. I'd probably feel different if you were looking for something like a C7 ZR1 or something, but you're already so close for a GTO that even a few hundred bucks here or there really adds up.

I have an 05 IBM M6 GTO as my daily and it's a blast.