New to Monte Carlos so bare with me please Ok 04 SS non SC considering i would have to obtain a SC 3800 Motor and than swap it with my motor at a shop (No time or room in garage with new little one running around) Would it just be easyer and cheaper to dish out the 3G's for the Turbo kit from 3800 Performance? Or is it cheaper or worth it just to build up the motor and install a nice cam in it etc. Has anyone turboed there Monte's?THanks for your time!

Matt

 

hello and welcome! do a little searching on the forum and u should find ur answer!

 

search for top swap, that's the cheaper route.

but turbo is where serious horsepower is, but loss of reliability. AND EXPENSIVE.

but search search search we have plenty of topics on this stuff.

 

depends on how deep your pockets are

 

As said above- you don't have to swap the entire drivetrain- you just need what is called a 'top swap'. It basically amounts to everything from the heads on up from an L67 (sc 3800). Install time and difficulty are just about as easy as the job of changing head gaskets- since most of the stuff you have to pull off/change is the same. These can be done for $500-1000- and you can figure 240-250 crank hp.

A turbo is definitely going to make more power, but they're a good deal more money too. If you're looking for something quick and easy to install- the new zzp Z3 kit is about as cheap/easy as it gets:

http://www.zzperformance.com/grand_p...ts1.php?id=964

But you're still talking $2400 (base price + weld in DP + L67 injectors) for roughly 300ish crank hp. Thats roughly 2-3x more than a top swap.

The big thing is, you can easily get the top swap car to ~300 crank hp too with another $1k or so in easy bolt ons, but then you need to spend big bucks to go further (IC, or cam, or heads + cam). Whereas with a turbo, you've got a lot more potential once you start adding basic bolt ons.