hi, my uncle has an 06 ss monte that he is trying to sell to me. i really like the car its pretty fast hes got an after market super charger on it and it rides great. but man it is so boring to drive with the front wheel drive... is it possible to convert an 06 ss to rear wheel drive? if so what would it entail and what would be a price range to covert it?

 

The rwd conversion has been accomplished a couple times, look on You Tube. It is a massive undertaking and can be quite costly, especially if you are not turning your own wrenches. I would bet for a nicely done, not hobbled together build, the numbers to get there would easily be at least 20k. And that is using cheap parts

 

I'm curious to see pictures of the aftermarket supercharger

 

Yep! Could do a dual engine setup too! Twin engine GTP project progress thread - Page 9
Seen a few people do this.

 

well crap thats bad news that is way out of my budget. my uncle is giving me a great deal on the monte it only has 7k miles on it and wants to sell it to me for only $5k... but i dont even want it if im gonna be stuck with the front wheel drive. i have an 87 ss that i love to drive its a blast! but its old about everything needs to be replaced and its slow by todays standards... so i think im just gona dump like 10k into my 87 and i guess continue to wait for a new car to come out that i would be willing to drive sigh... thanks for the info guys it was helpful

 

x2, I have heard nothing about a supercharger on an LS4.

 

hmm really? my uncles best friend runs a small race shop and custom built a bunch of parts that were needed and beefed up the pistons and rods and stuff i guess. i dont know anything about cars past the 80's or turbo chargers for that matter.. so i have no clue what was all done to it off hand hes told me before but its all gibberish to me. as far as my knowledge goes wouldnt you just need a turbo charger and intake manifold lol?

 

I think if you wanted to the conversion on the Cheap you would need a donor car that is rear wheel drive. But the wheel base is not always the same size. Then all the conversions you would need to do, with computers and it is just overwhelming.
I wish it was as easy as Kit bashing model cars. I have seen some conversions for different things from various shops. I think Foose did a 66 Impala on a Corvette chassis a few years back and he won the Sema show with this one. But the amount of work involved. You would need all volunteer help. There was a conversion that was done in the 90's by one of the Magazines.

 

Yes, for a turbocharger, and those exist for the LS4 platform.

We were confused because you specified a supercharger haha

 

I think even $20k is on the very low side to have a professional fab shop do it.

You have to understand the magnitude of a project like that. The only things that will still be stock when you're done are the body work and dashboard. The entire chassis needs hacked up: there is no space for the transmission, the driveshaft, the rear end, etc. Literally the entire underside of the car would be ripped out and replaced with a donor car chassis or with some sort of fabricated chassis.

The fuel system moves, the electrical needs redone, the rear interior/trunk will need redone. At $100+/HR that adds up really quick in labor alone not to mention having to buy a donor car or fabricated chassis (which could be $10k alone).

There are also numerous potential issues:
-A car that was originally designed by a massive team of engineers is now being completely redesigned by a handful of fab guys with a fraction of the experience. That's not to say they don't do good work, they just dont have the time to put in thr same engineering hours as an oem so as a result, custom one off cars like this tend to have a lot of issues. Heck, even ultra low volume botique type OEMs tend to not be all that reliable.
​​​​​-The value of the car will be gone. Mods never add any real value to the car, but unless it was done by a very well known shop, most people wouldn't touch it. Have it done by some low end shop that does crumby work and it may be nearly unsellable.
-It can be very hard to get repaired. Unless it is something simple (say a gasket leak on the engine), many shops won't want to touch it. They know what to expect on a showroom stock car, not so much with a one off.
-Insurance can be difficult and expensive. It's far more likely this thing is going to come apart on the highway and kill someone than a bone stock monte would. As a result, they'll have to price it accordingly since they're going to be held liable up to their limits per your policy. Keep in mind that anything beyond that could certainly fall in your lap especially if it causes a major accident.
-In the safety aspect, you'll probably be getting a worse car. The OEMs spend a lot of time crash testing and analyzing the car. This won't get any of that benefit. It'll also likely be a lot of hand built parts and welds so it won't be near as consistent as stock. Of course that's assuming you're not running a chassis made to some racing standard with a roll hoop and such.


IMO your best bet if the car is as nice as you say with almost no miles on it- Buy it, put it back to stock, sell the turbo kit (should be able to make a couple grand, especially if it's a car tuning kit), then sell the car for a few grand more than you had into it. In the end, id bet you'd be able to double your money. That could buy you an LS catfish camaro or a new goat to get a rwd 2 door.