The 95 Riviera still had the old L67 so that's not what you want. You could use the top end of a 96 but from what I understand is that you want to get the top end of a 98 or newer L67. The older L67 heads tend to crack more often.

 

Thanks for the offer augi but i wanna try to stick with the newest parts possible. I'd like to increase the value of this baby about 80-100% from the blue book price. And its a series II 3800.

I think a more realistic budget would be no more than 4g's if i could get either a turbo or do a top swap to an s/c with the tranny conversion included. I dont know which one would give me more power though for the money. if i could spend around 4k and get a turbo to around 300whp id do it in a second so i dont have to do all the modifications because id also like to repaint the whole car and do some more asthetic work.

 

If you modify your car like that, you're not going to increase the value of your car at all and in fact you might actually hurt the value of your car. People don't want to buy cars that have been abused (raced/modified). The only reason to do this is for personal enjoyment and if that's the case then going turbo is your best bang for your buck. But it still will cost at least $5k-7k for the turbo setup and the tranny build.

I'm not trying to make this sound impossible, only realistic. I've personally invested almost five years worth of modifying my Monte to get it where it is today and I'm still not done. But I've had so much dun doing it

 

I have to agree with Zipper and anyone else who has done a full custom job....we are going to sound like it's a bad road...or a scary road to go down...mostly cause you need to understand, these cars do not get build in a day..or a week, you may look at the setups and it may seem like everything is "Shan-gro-la" so to speak....but doing a build like this takes three things 1.) Time, 2) Money, and 3.) most of all patients...

seems Ironic but it takes a long time to go fast...

Keep in my, it is a domino effect....every part you upgrade puts pressure on the next causing that part to be under strain more so then it was originally intended, causing it to break and then that needs to be upgraded and so on and so forth.

If you are serious, then the first thing is do research, and not just posting, but search, there must be 10-20 if not more posts here alone from people wanting "more power now!" and just as many responses from zipper and Bumpin explaining the best route to take.

It is no secret that the monte's weak point especially N/A is the transmission. Now there are some with powerful setups running on stock transmissions, but more so then not most blow those up quickly...Even after some have been upgraded there's still a chance of them blowing up (I fall in that category)

So most who have been down that road recommend doing the transmission first. Here's the problem with that....many power hungrey people save up for a long time, and when they finally get $1500-$4000 saved they have a choice of getting a transmission or a turbo/supercharger setup....and what they do? Get the power adder of course so they get all that power now!....Problem with that, is sooner rather then later there transmission blows up, and they have a large paper weight in there front yard and no money to fix it...and worse yet no transportation to get to work to make the money to fix it...lol...

Now reversly if you get the transmission first, if you spend all that money you'd have a bullet proof transmission for a N/A Car but you get no real power gain from it...which of course the power hungrey people get upset over....then you still have to save for the Power Adder setup....but you still havea running car, to get you to work and back.

In all honestly if you can even swing a POS DD just to get you around while the car maybe down, I'd highly recommend that as well.

I think most who have done any major work to the car did so cause 1.) GM at the time didn't really have RWD High HP Cars at the time (2000-2004) or cause they have sentimental value for the car, and know they need to be in it for the long haul, and not sell the car for sometime....so what they say may sound scary or try and talk you out of it, not cause they don't want you to do it, but for you to understand it is going to take a lot of time and money to get the power you desire....

Case in point, if your gunna spend 10K on the car..(Figure 1500-3K for a transmission, and 2500-4000 for a power adder setup and get all the kinks worked out) instead you can easily sell the car for 2-3K and put all the money towards say an '04 GTO which can be found for low teens, and have equal ammount of power and rwd...or spend mid- high teens and get a 05-06 GTO and have more power....there are many other options now in the same price range, that weren't available when we began modding our cars.

Bascially just sit down and really think it over...You are going to spend A LOT of money, most of which you will never see again, cause it does not raise the value of the car...as Zipper mentioned it may even decrease it....It is going to take A LOT of time, like zipper I had my car 11 years and it's still not done.....Your going to need A LOT of patients, even with the best laid plans, things still don't work out perfectly, case in point I had my Transmission redone by Dynotech Performance before the Turbo...Paid a good ammount of $ and got a promise it would hold up to 500HP...a year later I put my turbo in, 6 months later the transmission went, by then Dynotech closed ( Unforseeable situation for them came about) and I had to go to East Coast Superchargers to get it redone again, and yet again for a decent ammount of money....not a good situation for me...just to give you an idea of what could happen.

You may ask, so why did I continue, 1.) Cause I had a DD and I use public Transportation for work, and I plan to keep the car until one of us are dead...lastly the smile it would put on your face when you keep up with/beat other people who don't see it coming, is priceless....

Good Luck with your decision, and let us know if you still go ahead with the build what you decide on!
Joe

 

There is no bolt on twin turbo kit for the 3800.

Secondly, your 3 main options are:
1.) bolt on turbo kit
2.) complete L67 or L32 engine swap (the supercharged 3800's)
3.) L67/L32 top swap (basically taking the heads up off the new engine and putting it on yours)

Between the 3, the turbo kit is the easiest install- you're mostly just working with the exhaust manifolds, downpipe, and intake plumbing other than the oil feed- you don't open up the actual engine hardly at all. A top swap is similar labor to doing a head gasket change- stripping the engine down to the short block, and rebuilding it with the new parts. A full engine swap is probably the most time consuming- obviously you have to completely remove everything to switch engines.

Price wise, a top swap is cheap- I've seen it done for under $500- and even the vendors sell kits for $1000 or so (plus gaskets) if you're too lazy to source parts yourself. An engine swap is probably next cheapest- L67's can be had for about $1500 or so (unless you spend stupid tons of money and buy a new crate L32 or something). Most expensive is a turbo kit- even used ones start about $2k- new ones start about $3k.

Power wise, the turbo kit will likely make the most power. All of the power records on 3800's are held by turbo cars, with the supercharged cars lagging over 100whp behind. The top swap and full engine swap will both be about the same power- with a slight advantage going to the top swap since you retain you higher compression ratio (ie since you keep your stock pistons/engine bottom end).

I hate to say it, but your cars value will not increase with mods. If you want to make money- put your money into the stock market or a bank account that pays interest. People buying cars typically don't want modded cars. The only modded cars I've seen sell well over stock are those modified by major companies with a reputation (ie lingenfelter, etc). If you're talking about throwing on parts from an internet company in your own garage, a buyer is going to question the quality/reliability of the parts over stock- and the quality of install work. It also means you're going to severely segregate your buying market- there are many people out there (myself included) who won't buy a modded car- especially with powertrain mods. That's the reason why most people part out their mods before selling. Take my 99 GP for example; when I sold it- it still had a 3" DP, 1.9 modded stock rockers, and a PLOG on it- guess how much extra I got for it? Zip. If I hadn't found such a good deal on my GXP- I would've taken the time to save my mods to use on my Impala or sold them.

Don't automatically group the HD trans upgrade with the SC conversion- regardless which power adder you go to, you still have a non-HD transmission, and could benefit from an HD upgrade to a small extent (although that's not the normal failure point with bigger power- it only upgrades the diff/diff housing/ passenger axle).

I think it sounds to me like a turbo would be more up your alley- but it just depends how much work you want to do. Everything said about the transmissions is right- any power over stock, with abuse, is going to fail- and the more go fast goodies you add, the more likely it becomes.

Is this going to be your DD? Sticking around 300 crank horsepower (a basic bolt on top swap or L67 swap) seems to be a sweet spot IMO for trans reliability and power- you start getting into much bigger power with a cam, or IC or something- and you really have to start worrying about the trans. Just keep in mind, typically the more mods you do, the less reliable the car will be. You're changing the design and power output of the engine without taking everything into account. When they make major power changes at the design level- many engineers calculate the loads on everything- input shaft, pistons, crank, axles, etc and thicken/adjust them as needed to compensate and still have a safety margin. When you start throwing parts in and changing that- you start running into various failures here and there, especially the further you get from stock (ie a NA 3800/4t65 putting down 160 whp in stock form, suddenly is putting out 300 whp with a turbo kit- more than double stock)- obviously for cost reasons, factory part safety margins don't allow for that kind of massive power increase without upgrading other pieces down the line. The next thing you must remember is that not all aftermarket parts are engineered as well as the car was- many of these aftermarket companies have pretty small engineering teams (if any)- some are as small as a single guy building parts out of his garage- so obviously the design and engineering quality isn't always going to be up to OEM standards. Just something to think about.

I do also second the opinion of considering another vehicle, especially if you're serious about a $10k mod budget- add in the couple thousand the car is worth- and its possible to have something much newer, with much more power- and maybe even get the remains of a factory warranty to boot (IE used GP GXP's would make as much power as a base turbo'd 3800, already have many other upgrades that you would likely put on your car, would fit in your budget, and would likely still have factory warranty left (on 07+). That's not even getting into different brands and platforms- thats just sticking with the same basic car with factory upgrades.