I have an 02 Monte Carlo SS and I want to do a RWD/V8 conversion to it. Has anybody done this? If so can you give some direction to go as far as how to go about it? Thanks

 

there is tons to it im not sure how many have been done i only know of one and tht was with a corvette engine, but it is tons of cutting and custom mounting, im not sure if anyone here can give you a step by step but they may be able to give you a good idea of the work load

 

https://montecarloforum.com/forum/members/2000montecarlorwd-5557/

 

ok superboy (dig the name, i'm a dc comic buff myself, wish i thought of it) i'm going to level with you. trewyn is 100 % right. this is going to be costly and very time consumeing, and you can't do it with what you have laying in your garage you need some serious special tools to do this and alot of car knowledge, plus welding and cutting and fabricating. let me save you alot of time and money and just but a z28 camaro. i know you love your monte, everyone does, but if you want this car to be something it is clearly not, than do it. its your money and your time, but ask yourself this, is it really worth it?? if you don't wanna part with the monte pop a supercharger or turbo on it, different cam, pcm, headers and exhaust, and hey throw an intake on and you just made this FWD monte faster than most LS1 engines. like i said your $$$$

 

its actually cheaper and much less involved to do a build on the 3.8 FWD v6, you can get some great power out of that engine, run very respectable times at the dragstrip, plus you still get good fuel economy & driveability.

someday i would like to try cutting up a 5th gen to work with the RWD setup from a 3rd gen camaro / firebird, at least with a build like that if it fails miserably your out little $ and a few cars no one gives a crap about, lol.

 

How are your sheetmetal fabrication skills? Can you weld? Do you have equipment and tools to modify the firewall and floorpans for the transmission and driveshaft to clear? Do you have to skills to backhalf the car and set up the rear suspension at a useable geometry? You will need to do all these things as well as modify the subframe to accomodate a RWD drivetrain. You also will need to fabricate a jig to hold the car in place while you cut the floorpans and rear structure out of the car. You need to relocate the fuel tank and reroute the fuel lines. You may need to narrow the axel you choose to use if it is wider than the cars original stance. You are basically doing all that work to try and make a different looking camaro. You would spend more money doing that than you would spend to upgrade to a 4th gen camaro and throw some good mods at it. You would also have a much heavier car, probably close to 4000lbs and it wouldnt handle the same as a camaro.

Im not even getting into the wiring you will have to do to run a different engine/transmission and get it to work with the BCM and gauges. I cant comment on that part, I have no experience there.

 

Honestly...after all the money and time you'd put into it, you're much better off just buying a used F-Body with some bolt-ons.

I can understand wanting to be "unique"...but some things just aren't practical unless you're in the customs business. It's been done...but not reliably or necessarily in a clean manner.

 

I vote viper engine.

 

it always sucks breaking news like this to a new member, i remember my first letdown... throwing a six speed in :P

 

this has been done before. i honestly dont think it has to be as costly as everyone is making it seem. you can find ls1 drivetrains for a fair price on ebay. the member that was on here and did it gave me a ball park of 8g or so with me providing the drivetrain. so if you could get a drivetrain in the 4-5g range your talk 12-13g. not a terrible price when you consider low mileage ls1 cars go for that if not more. oh and with the swap the car only weighed 50lbs or so heavier. which is lighter than the ls1 cars. dont forget your going from an iron v6 to an all aluminum v8.