It's been a while since I've done an update on my car, and it'll probably be a while still, I'll save up enough progress to do several updates in a row here. But until then, ever since the engine in this car became extremely happy, I've been spitballing the (admittedly stupid) idea to swap my car to RWD, but keep the engine. This, if it would ever be done, would be FAR into the future. Here's what I (think) I would need:

A junker 4th gen F-body (Camaro/Firebird), preferrably a 95 Automatic. (will explain why that is further down). Any parts that are needed to mate my engine up with that transmission. Some wires and connectors, in case I have to extend some connections. Exhaust pipe (preferably 2.75"-3" pipe). Intake pipe. (preferably 4" wide, if even needed) Scrap metal (welding fodder). Some rubber seals. (trunk weather stripping maybe?) 2* Flowmaster Super 40/44 Mufflers (1 in 2 out). Possibly 2* Cherrybomb glasspacks (for resonators, if it gets too drony with just the straight pipe back to muffler)

So, first off, why the auto, and why would I keep the DOHC for this, why not an LS swap? Well, for the engine question, A. because anyone can do an LS swap these days, but I have yet to see a DOHC swapped rear drive. B. because if the car WAS RWD in 1995, I don't see GM making it V8 in the mid-90s, as it may compete against the Camaro (if they went with the concept, it would SLAUGHTER the Vette too), so I believe it would only get V6 options, if it was even made in the first place. Granted it would most likely get the 3.1 base and the 3400/3800 top trim, but we'll pretend they'd put in the effort to make the LQ1 RWD.
And why the auto? Well, for two reasons. One, for heritage, the Monte Carlo only ever had a manual ONCE, and that was paired to a V8, every other year, it was an automatic car. If I had an 06-07, I MIGHT do that because it's already a V8, and if I had a GP GTP with the TDC, you bet I'd be making it manual, but it's a monte, so it keeps automatic. And, it also comes with a plus. In THEORY if it's the 4L60E (especially if it's a 95), I shouldn't have to modify my factory wiring much to get it to work, and in theory, I shouldn't even have to mess with my PCM.

Now, on to my spitballing.
First off, haven't figured out how to mount the engine (mainly because I haven't started to take measurements yet), but the subframe would likely need to be modified to fit the mounts, and I'd have to add structure, maybe piggy-back off the strut tower? to put the torque mount on.
From there, how would the intake work? Well, one of two ways. Preferrably, there'd be just enough room with the engine moved slightly forward (as far forward as I can fit it) to have a very short tube (for my IAT and my PCV) with two rubber couplings (one for the throttle body, one for the MAF sensor. On the other side of the MAF sensor, there's be another pipe that would curve upwards, with a hole cut in the cowling to fit it. A rubber seal would go around it to seal it to the cowling, and four self-tapping screws would secure it. A special bracket (maybe with built in scoop/scoops/louvers) would go over the filter to secure it so it doesn't fly away, with holes for the self-tappers. Some appropriately sized nuts would secure it tightly.
If that's not possible, I'd need to do a 180 and come back up to the front of the engine bay with the pipe. Not ideal, but you do what you gotta do.

For the driveshaft and trans tunnel, obviously I would cut and weld metal as needed to make a U-Channel, I'd likely also add some stiffening in this stage. Rear end would be out of a Camaro, and somehow converted to accept independent rear suspension. (no clue how to do that specifically yet). I might have to modify my fuel tank some to fit, as well.

The exhaust is thought out at the front, but past that is mostly a mystery for now. The manifolds would be modified, the front one would have the crossover connector removed, and cut then welded back on to make it straight instead of curved. The crossover on the rear bank would have a metal plug welded in, and the downpipe connector again moved to be straight rather than curved backwards. From there, it'd be a true dual exhaust all the way back to the factory muffler location, where dual flowmasters would then be mounted. If that's too drone-y, some Glasspacks would be added halfway down to serve as resonators.

Inside the car, the center console would be replaced with the camaro console, but with the monte shifter still intact to keep the T-post. This is A. because I like the camaro console a little better and B. because it would allow me to move the console forward if I can't fit a shift linkage and have to go directly into the tranny. (if I can fit a shift linkage, though, I am going to use a rod with bushings to make it feel nice and tight, like it goes directly into the transmission)


That's all for this one, tell me your thoughts on this idiotic idea of mine!

 

If I could offer a suggestion in general for planning, I wouldn't worry at all about mapping out the ancillary stuff up at first (intake tube, which mufflers, etc) - I'd focus more on getting the details of the core of the swap figured out first - is it going to be a body on frame conversion? Unibody using panels from a donor? Factory body hacked up with hand made panels, etc?

Thats the make or break part of the swap and should be 95% of your planning. The other stuff you can figure out once those details are ironed out, especially since they can drastically change your other plans.


IMO F body is a good option for a 5th gen swap. However, I wouldn't get too worked up about the year. Since all you're doing is using bits and pieces, really any year can be made to work. The focus should be on finding one that's clean and straight.

Did I read it right that you were going to use a dohc 3.4? Unless that thing is insanely modded, its not going to need anywhere near that big.

On boosted V8 stuff people are using that size up to like 1000 crank hp setups. I'd think even single 2.5 or 3" should be plenty for a NA 3.4.

My only caution is if you're cutting the car apart and rebuilding the tunnel yourself, you'll have to be careful what you get as it'll be a structural part of the car. Of course if you do body on frame or something it won't matter.

IMO I wouldn't keep the FWD subframe. You want to end up with something more similar to the Fbodys K member in the end. Mounts will be much closer to where you need them and it'll give a lot more clearance out back

The problem with the stock sub is that you're going to almost completely cut out the rear bar for the trans and exhaust. The sides are also spaces way too far out as they're supporting such a long span stock. The mounts will need to be much closer with the engine rotated. By the time you fab up new dropped support for the rear and support for the new mount locations, you're going to have a ton of fab work and a wonky looking part.

If you're concerned with performance, that's going the wrong way. Going to make it awful front heavy in terms of weight distribution.

Check out the location of the engine in the camaro - its pushed way back under the firewall to help with this.

No doubt the intake is problematic, but maybe you can fabricate some kind of new upper intake to route the TB somewhere else? Just hate to see you settle for some terrible weight split just to keep the stock intake manifold.

Its not hard to do, they have IRS kits that'll just bolt in. But they're very expensive- $6k+.

Given all you're using is bits and pieces of the Camaro, Id start with a different platform if you really wanted IRS for the swap. A totalled V1 or GTO chassis would be cheaper than the IRS kit alone for the Fbody. As before, no ones going to know what the heck the donor car is anyways, so its not like heritage really matters there (and how many montes came with IRS anyways stock?)

There is no modifying it, it needs to go completely. Its right in front of where your rear end goes and right in the middle of the drive shaft / torque arm pass through. Easiest route is probably a trunk tank (would need a firewall too due to rear pass through), followed by making the stock Fbody tank fit (depending how much Fbody metal you use).

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The manifolds would be modified, the front one would have the crossover connector removed, and cut then welded back on to make it straight instead of curved. The crossover on the rear bank would have a metal plug welded in, and the downpipe connector again moved to be straight rather than curved backwards.

IMO that sounds like way too much effort to save the stock manifolds which probably aren't all that great anyways. Id just get some flanges cut at a local machine shop, buy a header fab kit, and weld up your own long tubes.

This is the kind of stuff (which shifter to use) that IMO is too detailed right now.

I also wouldn't put too much hope in the Camaro console. The dirt cheap cars that you'd be ok chopping up for a swap are generally going to have terrible condition interiors. Might get lucky and find someone parting out a nice F body interior to make a race car out of, but all the ones I've seen locally were nasty and broken (especially the center console).

 

I would likely end up using a custom body-on-frame design.

The only reason I was wanting to keep independent rear is because the W-body (and this car is a 1.5 gen W-body) came from the factory with independent four-corner, though I suppose it wouldn't suck too much to just use the stock rear end and modify the chassis to fit the camaro suspension.

K-member from a Camaro idea isn't really bad either, if I could manage to get it to fit and if I wouldn't have to modify it for the mounts.

The reason I was so set on an F-body is simply because I know the F-bodies came with the 4L60E transmission. My factory transmission happens to be the 4T60E.
And the reason I wanted a hopefully 95 specific was because my electronics are all 95 OBD-I. There's no OBD-II routine, and I don't know if a 96 4L60E would work as easily as a 95.
Regardless, I've slowly realized over the day that it's kind of a pointless swap anyway, not worth doing. If I'm going through all this effort, I might as well go ahead and put a V8 in it, there's no reason not to at that point, right? Or just keep it FWD and do random stuff like mufflers and degree-ing it and generally trying to squeeze as much power out of it as I can. If I really want a RWD car, I should really just sell it and get myself something that came RWD from the factory, like a G8 or GTO or something.

 

Some other considerations in general for a RWD conversion:

-Cost. Depending what parts you use and how much labor you can do yourself, this could be a $5k build or it could be $10, 20k +. You'll have a good rough idea at the end of the planning stage - but that's a good time to stop and think before buying anything - if I had $15k (or whatever your total is) cash in hand would I rather have this or something else?

Certainly itll be unique, but if performance is a big concern here, bang for the buck is gonna be poor. I don't have any clue what modded 3.4s do, but even at 250 or 275 crank hp, it would still get wrecked by any modern v8 performance car, and heck would probably even struggle to keep up with mildly modded L67 cars (especially due to all the extra weight added during the swap).

-Insurance. Nows a good time to stop and think - what are you going to do about insurance? If you hide it and something you modified fails as you crash into and hurt others- they could drop you for breach of contract leaving the liability all on you. If the wreck is bad enough it kills someone, their family could ruin you financially. If you tell them, they may drop you immediately for not wanting to insure some hacked up DIY garage build, but then at least you can try to find a place that will insure it for what it is so you're covered. Certainly won't be nearly as cheap as there's a lot more liability on the insurance company.

-Skill. Somewhat related to the above, youre talking about re-engineering the chassis of the car and assembling it via welding. Is the person doing the engineering and the welding degreed / certified? As with the above one poor design choice or one insufficiently welded section and the thing could come apart on the highway killing you or others. I love looking at crazy swaps and conversions online, but some of the "engineering" involved is horrifying as some people literally just wing it with no real background.

Even for a degreed engineer, given the whole car will be modified from engine bay to the rear end mount, that's a lot of engineering time and likely will still end up very sub-par compared to a factory vehicle (at least in terms of crash safety). A home individual doesn't have access to the stress models / calculations from the original design, so you've got to take some liberties / shortcuts as there's no way to recreate all that at home by hand with 1 person. That's one benefit to a full body on frame swap - you can literally buy a completely pre-engineered chassis and just mount your body skin panels / interior on top of that.

On a related tangent to that, you've also got to think about the chance of success in completing it. Its a lot of time, money, and engineering work to complete (assuming you don't farm it all out to a shop). There is a chance it ends up in the scrap yard at the end even with the best effort going in. I think back to how many people sold / scrapped their 5th gens back in the mymonte days doing a basic L67 swap (a relatively simple swap in comparison) because they couldn't get it to work right.

 

Yeah. In general, like I said, it's not really worth trying, even without starting to plan things and look at cost. If I wanted to do some sort of swap, I'd be much better off doing, well, an L67 swap, like you mentioned. At least then I have someone experienced at this kinda thing. (My Dad, who has done an L67 swap already) He's also experienced at welding (more structural though, they don't usually look very pretty) but he doesn't have a degree in that. Not that he has a degree period. Even that's something where I'd need to get a better car, like the 99 Z34 I saw on marketplace earlier. That one's a better color, has a leather interior, is OBD-II and has a much better platform to start with on a top-swap or straight up engine-swap.

 

Thats a really good start though, having an experienced structural welder. It's a huge step up from many of these RWD threads where the person plans to just run down to Harbor Freight and grab a basic flux core unit and some flux wire and wing it on the actual car.

Even if its not pretty, its all either on the bottom of the car or hidden by interior anyways. All that really matters is if it would meet the load test needs of the engineering plans.

 

Performance / safety wise (especially for someone without access to an engineer), this is probably the best bet. Its also a very expensive route. A full basic Art Morrison chassis would be like $10k alone.

There are options to do it, just expensive as noted. If you did a full body on frame, the cost delta wouldn't be too crazy over a 4 link.

I think it really boils down to what you want to do with it. Most people go RWD because they want more traction and are tired of breaking 4t65s so a solid axle rear isn't a big deal. In your case with a 3.4 dohc maybe you're aiming for more of a autox or light track car where the IRS would be beneficial?

I wouldn't let that be the driving factor for you at all. Absolute worst case scenario you can't find any way to make it work with the stock pcm, they make reasonably priced standalone controllers for all of the 4L transmissions - 60/65/80.

I don't think that's a bad plan at all given how cheap some of these cars are. You've got your pick of fbody / GTO / C5 for $10k, and you'd have a factory safe / reliable car that's relatively peppy, even bone stock.

If youre really just wanting to make the monte faster, what about a turbo? Plays well to your dad's welding talent, would give you a fun project of a much more tangible scope, and would add tons of power.

 

The GTO and (non-trashed) C5s, as well as the G8s would take me a while to build up money for. (10K is expensive to me, that's enough to buy some land)
The F-Bodies would possibly be within my range, I could get a decent one for around 2-5K here.

Another option (though less flashy) could be a Lincoln mark 8. I know they're not peppy from the factory, but they're cheap and look cool (at least to me).

 

May seem like a lot, but honestly depending which route you headed down with the RWD swap, you probably would've ended up close anyways- especially if you were set on a IRS swap. If nothing else, it's good to think about options either way.

The other thing you've got to figure from the swap route is the value of your time. If you were prepared to sink a couple hundred hours into it, at a reasonable hourly wage, that's a good amount of money 'lost' as well that could've been spent working a normal job (time that wouldn't be lost just buying a car outright).


Fbody's are dirt cheap now as you mentioned and can be plenty of fun - especially with a LS1 and T56. Also, if you're OK with an auto, you can grab a 04 GTO for $6-7k depending on miles.

As you noted with the vette, the hard part is always finding one that hasn't been beaten to death. You can usually get lucky on regular econoboxes that it probably wasn't raced and beat on, but with any kind of performance oriented car, there's always the risk - especially at high mileage and on the 3rd, 4th, 10th owner.

 

I'm not really thinking of a RWD swap anymore, anyway. At this point, I'm thinking of other RWD cars I could get, or what I could do to this car without needing to do any electronics modifications.

I MIGHT consider the 3rd gen LS-W bodies as well. Especially if a cheap GXP rolls onto the market at the right price at the right time.