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.