Recently I've been doing some thinking about getting an L67 in my car. I of course will not have enough money to buy a whole car or the room for that matter. I was wondering what all will i need to swap in the L67 into my LS. I'm thinking motor, trans, harness, axles?, and a tune. If there is a thread on an L67 swap, drop the link please. Preferably one going from a non-HD trans

 

I think you'd be surprised what a whole car would cost you. I picked up a totalled GTP back in the mid 00s for like $1500. Now, you can even get a running gtp for that much. It can get more expensive if you try and piece something together and have to buy individual components.

My first thought nowadays with an L67 swap is always - think about just buying an L67 car instead of swapping. It made plenty of sense years ago when GTPs were $10k+ and the engine dropouts were a grand or so. Nowadays even a good condition GTP is maybe $5k or so. I can't imagine the supercharged montes are drastically more expensive

The other issue is the cost. Spending $1k+ on an l67 swap into a car that is only worth a few grand can really backfire if the car would be totalled in an accident / stolen or if you ever went to sell it. Either way, the value of the swap is such a big percent of the value of the car that you may as well consider it money lost the second you do it.


Beyond that, there is a how to thread in the sticky section of the engine sub forum. It's on a 5th gen, but the process isn't that different on a 6th gen. I would get an engine bay harness for an L36 monte carlo of your same year (should be easy in a junkyard), then get te l36 to l67 adapter harness for a few bucks (2 simple plugs).

Axles are easier than the how to guide also. Your stock drivers axle will plug right in. The passenger axle will either need to be a hybrid built by you if you want to go the cheap route, or you should be able to buy a supercharged monte passenger axle and drop it in (please verify first).

You're pretty much dead on with the rest of what you need. Biggest thing to look out for with a used L67 if it's been modded. The cheaper the cars get, the more kids buy them and beat on them. If the supercharger pulley is non stock or looks to have been removed at some point, I'd walk away. L67s are all over, it won't be that hard to get one that isn't modded. Worst thing would be to swap in a engine that already had a chipped ring land and have to pull it back out later.

 

Yeah i've found some cheap stock L67's. I found one for 500 with trans, motor, harness, and some other stuff with 100 some thousand miles. But guy lives in Iowa. I do plan on keeping this car till i'm way older and can LS swap and make it a pretty heavy duty sleeper. So i'm not worried about the re sell value. Thanks for the input though, i'll definitely consider my options.

 

If your ultimate goal is LS power, keep in mind that the couple grand you're going to dump into an L67 swap would pay for a pretty good size chunk of a Z28 catfish camaro. Then you'd have LS power and still have your Monte as well.

Don't let distance scare you away too much, as long as the cost works out. I drove from Indiana to New York for the totalled gtp I bought. The mileage/condition were exactly what I wanted, and I was running out of time to start the build, so the gas cost there and back was worth it. Keep in mind, all the stuff you need for a swap will fit in the trunk of a wbody. Just put a tarp down to keep the fluids contained and put in some spring blockers in the rear to keep the rear end up.

 

Well way into the future once i graduate college and start my career. I want to go all out on this car. Right now i enjoy the FWD during the winters and the mpg of the v6. Do you live in Indiana?

 

That's the upside to doing a daily driver / project car arrangement. You can have fwd in the winter, and good gas mileage most of the time - then have something really fun when you need the excitement or have time to go cruising.


I do not live in Indiana anymore, although I did for years. Moved out to AZ a few years back, the weather is far better out here! As a result, there is an amazing car scene nearly year round that encompasses every genre of vehicles.

 

Yeah i would do some tasteful mods to the engine and make it a nice sleeper for the nights out in Mexico. You ever been to Mexico in your Monte before?

 

Honestly it's never been particularly competitive. On the original setup I swapped in, I got down to a 3.0" pulley on the m90, but I didn't have much timing cranked into it. 1st gear was pretty useless, and 2nd gear was only decent - certainly not quick enough to run with H/C/I LSs.

When I swapped on the whipple, I went back up to a 4.0 pulley. It seemed about as fast as the old m90 setup, maybe a touch quicker. Still, 2nd gear wasn't crazy fast. Unfortunately I never got below the 4.0" since the adapters had so many problems. I spent too much time fiddling with getting everything to seal and function correctly that I wasn't adding new mods at all.

The current setup should be better. Now I've got the whipple adapters replaced, and I've got an IC and e85, so I should be able to really crank some boost into it. It'll just need some sticky tires up front, and it should be strong in 2nd and 3rd. Unfortunately, I lost a fuel pump so I'm not getting hardly any pressure. Haven't had time to pull the pumps and fix the issue though.

 

Dang that sounds like a headache but a beast! I bet the IC and e85 does a lot to that build. Actually Street Car Takeover is here in Indy next weekend. Not too late to make the trip! What fuel pump are you going to run though? And there's a guy who has a turbo'd 97-03 grand prix in my area and he's running e85 and says it makes a world of a difference. But yeah there's not much anyone can do against a HCI LS lol

 

I guess I'm a bit premature in saying a pump is toast. All I know at the moment is that I've only got about 10 psi at the rail, sometimes a little less. For sure there is no fuel going out the regulator, it seems completely closed.

I'm currently running dual walbro 255s. One is about 5 years older than the other. That's why I'm assuming that one died. Another option is that a feed hose came off in the tank, so one pump is pumping up to the rail, then the fuel is coming back down the other pressure hose (each pump feeds one rail with a crossover between the rails on the backside) and spraying all over the first pump inside the tank. I'll find out for sure when I have time to tear it all apart.

What pump I run kind of depends what I find when I open it up. If it's as simple as the older pump crapping out, I'll probably just stick another walbro in it since that's a cheap option.

If it's anything more serious/complex, I think I'm going to scrap the existing fuel tank altogether and just go to a fuel cell in the trunk. I see Aeromotive has a unit with a pump and level sender already built in for under $1k. I'd just have to buy the lines to hook it into my existing plumbing. I'd probably go with the Eliminator pump. It's technically more than I need, but I know those pumps aren't as great at higher rail pressures, so I want to make sure I've got some headroom. I've already got a speed controller, so I'm not worried about overheating the fuel at idle/low speed either.

E85 rocks if you can put up with its few drawbacks. It is literally budget race gas. For how few miles I put on the monte, I don't at all mind the drawbacks.

Either I wasn't hanging out with the right crowds in college or the street scene has gotten obscenely fast in the last 5 or so years.

I remember when a heads/cam/converter catfish camaro car would pretty much dominate anything on the streets. Nowadays, it seems like you almost need a boosted v8 to be competitive. Tire technology has made drag radials that can hook insane power and still last almost 10k miles on the street, and the power figures for 'street cars' is out of control. I can't even count how many 1k whp street cars are local, and that doesn't count the guys that don't bring their cars out to flaunt their setups and dyno sheets.

I know my monte will never hang with stuff like that, I'll just be happy making it into a fun cruiser with respectable power with a unique build.