Concur, the stainless equals better longevity and looks way cleaner, more $$ factor too. LOL, the Blue Monte has a small fortune in stainless in it. I bet, simple nuts, bolts are crazy expensive in comparison to standard steel. I guess if I had my druthers stainless would be the way I should have gone too. Nicely done!!

 

Short story is its the easy way out. It is possible to hook up, it just takes more effort (I have a functional PCV on my CSC Ls3 vette). IMO it is desirable to have functional PCV, but many take the approach that the benefits of PCV aren't worth thr hassle of redoing the system to make it work right, especially with the 3800 MAF location.

Personally I'd say even if you do just vent it, I wouldnt do a breather cap(s). Id reroute to a vented catch can. Never was a big fan of people dripping hot oil down onto their exhaust. Depends how much blow by you get, some are worse than others - but there's always some oil mist there.

If you're interested in preserving it- I'd search for pcv setups on turbo 3800s. PCV system wise, those are no different than your CSC.

 

Would you mind sharing where you got this rubber piece?

As always, loving the pictures and watching the progress!

 

Thanks guys. I admit, I am *not* a fan of a breather that could oil up the engine. I admit, I drove the black Monte a good amount this summer and it currently had a breather and I did not see any oil concerns. I am still open to better items. I am drawn to that breather with a check valve but still open to better plans. I am planning to run valve covers on both sides of the engine that will use oil caps (my idea was to keep my nice aluminum cap up front, nice for shows and put the breather in the back OR I could adapt an oil cap to accept a line to run to a catch can). If I can find a better method, I am open to explore it. So far my research has not presented me with a solution that does not involve a breather or a catch can with a breather.

 

That rubber piece you circled is factory original. GM had that vacuum line boot that connects to the lines for the fuel pressure regulator and the purge valve. And from my experiences at the junk yard, you can pull the plastic tubes out of that rubber boot. Originally that boot slid on the a connection at the throttle body. When I did the L26 UIM swap, my throttle body was now a couple inches further. I drilled and tapped the intake to keep that connection in the original location (instead of extending the vacuum lines). If the L26 swap interests you, I have an entire thread about what I did with it:
https://montecarloforum.com/forum/fw...c-heavy-48949/

 

Not much to report. At the moment, both Montes being where they are, weather/working conditions, not too much to do. I think Mike can tell from some messages this weekend, I am a bit nuts and wanna wrench on something lol.

But, here is something I want to share. On the blue Monte, I have all aluminum pulleys. The tensioner pulley is left hand thread and I have been having problems sourcing a stainless bolt for it. So, years ago, I had my original bolt and washer powder coated gloss aluminum color. Since you really cannot see that pulley, I figured "why not". Well, I when to remove the pulley this fall and did not protect the head of the bolt, so the corners are messed up. I was originally planning to get another from the junk yard (keep this as a "spare") and decided I will source a junk yard one some time later, but I will just "borrow" the one from the Black Monte. I was a bit surprised at the differences. I personally like the black Monte bolt more from the sense you can see more of the pulley I have (sorta, again, hard to see location). The black Monte bolt has a big flange, no extra washer. The only thing I don't like, that bolt does not have as deep a head on it for pulling/pushing the tensioner (but I am not overly worried). So I am having the black Monte tensioner bolt powder coated aluminum to go on the blue Monte and I will later source some junk yard spares.

 

I took a look again at the tensioner bolts. One has a big flange on it and the other uses a crazy big washer. I was messing in the garage and looked at the two with a factory tensioner pulley. I am betting GM switched to the large washer so in the event the bearings on the tensioner have a full 100% failure and the pulley and bearings separate, the pulley does not go bouncing around the engine compartment. With that big washer, the pulley will stay in it's spot and minimize potential issues.

Something worth noting.

 

Ignore the issues in the powder coating. It was bad prep and I will take the blame. My friend who is doing the powder coating for me at his work deals with new metal. I'm the one bringing him used metal. I prepped the fuel rails with a wire wheel and they looked great and clean. What I suspect, they had issues still in the steel. I read a common practice is to bake the metal before coating to allow all the impurities to escape and I believe this is called "out gassing". I also have a feeling if I treated it with a degreaser and/or sand blasted instead the outcome would have been better. I have a friend blasting the rails and we will re-try later.
But, the point of this post..... Long ago, Mike found he needed bigger injectors for the Novi build. GM put us L36 guys in a weird spot. If you want to go with bigger injectors, the height of the injectors are different! As a result, many end up with using some type of aftermarket fuel rail. Both Mike and I wanted to keep the factory look (as the need for different injectors did not require a change in the tubing). Mike found (I think from some one at ZZP) that earlier year 3800s (like the 1997 Grand Prix) use a slightly different fuel rail. I wish I knew which years were which. I can tell you, the older fuel rail is a bit harder to find these days in the junk yard (not impossible). The red one is the common modern rail and the black one is the older one required for non-factory injectors. Best I can tell, the "bell" (where the injector attaches to the rail) is a different height between the two rails. Also, the retainers to hold the injectors are different because the end shape of the bell is different. the one with the fangs in the back is for the newer style rail (you cannot interchange these clips, the slots on the sides that I don't have a picture of is the reason why you cannot interchange them).

 

OK, some updates. New bearings for the end pieces of the jack shaft. Initially I was not going to have the actual jack shaft re-powder coated, but I am thinking I might look into it (as it has some areas where the coating has seen better days, granted, not really visible areas). And the jack shaft is now OUT of the black Monte.
Now, the part on the jack shaft to hold the coil packs uses a bracket from an L67. I love stainless steel hardware, but I don't know WHAT GM did, that bracket that holds the coils uses a slightly thinner bolt than the brackets for the coils on a L36 or LA1. I cannot find matching stainless bolts. SO.... A future change soon will be drilling and re-tapping the holes for the bolts GM used on the other engines so I can use nice stainless (and get rid of the tiny hex head bolts).

 

A friend of my fathers owed me some favors and he DELIVERED!!! Years ago, a guy on an old Pontiac forum sold about 4 sets of custom aluminum accessory pulleys. Sadly, I tried reaching him, he responded once and went silent. So, plan B. Here is what I got:
- Had holes drilled in the original Novi accessory drive pulley (to help it match the look of my other aluminum pulleys)
- Had another drive pulley made that is 1/4" smaller (the original pulley was 4"). I am NOT sure how far I can push it, so started kinda small.
- A clone of my existing aluminum tensioner pulley (as the Novi belt routing requires an extra).
- Stainless steel, left hand thread tensioner bolt. I decided to have the style with the wide flange found on the 2000 monte cloned instead of the standard flange found on the 2004 monte. And I asked for the head to be taller, this way if using a wrench to move it, makes it harder to accidentally slide off the bolt. Side note, with the coolant bottle in place, my tensioner tool with a shallow 15mm does not fit, this obviously shares the same fault. I already installed one on the black monte.
and he made a few extras of everything for me. So thrilled! Custom goodies are fun lol.

And the other goodie that also arrived, the valve cover breather I ordered. This is a unique breather. The claim is that you can leave your PCV system factory. It has a check ball in it. It allows excess pressure out but avoids allowing unmetered air into the engine. Cool concept in my book, so I will give it a try.