turn my 07 monte ss into a rwd manual with a new tranny obviously and suspension upgrade? wife don't want me to get rid of her and I really love the car but want something a lil more fun with the same looks. think I can pull this off for under 25k? and who do I turn to? I would want it done right nothing halfassed. help me out guys is it possible?

 

im sure its possible if your pocket is deep enough but IMO i think its a waste of money to do to this car. yes i love them but the amount your gonna spend to convert a monte and still not be that powerful you could go buy a camaro or trans am etc and mod the crap out of it and have a very very fun/ fast car. just my .02 and as far as where to go i have no idea, some custom performance chop shop type deal is my guess...

 

under 25 ya think?

 

also I would have no intention of keeping the motor. id upgrade to a vette motor or something 400 hp plus

 

idk if you will be under 25k. by the time you buy all the parts, pay someone to custom fabricate pretty much the whole car, idk man i doubt under 25k. look at sams 7thgen he build, yea its making tons of power and is insane but all the fab work that went into it to get it there was insane and its still fwd....

 

I agree I was thinking the same thing.

 

Anything can be done for the right amount of money. I just don't think $25k would cut it for it to be 'done right'.

You're talking RWD and a vette engine- the E-rod package for an LS3 is $8k, and a T56 new is $4k. Those two parts alone burn up almost half your budget and you don't even have a rear end, driveshaft, clutch, front/rear suspension, a cooling system, a fuel system (the driveshaft is going to take the place of the stock gas tank), and fab work. I just don't see a chance in heck.

Best way to do it if you're set on using the stock shell is to have a race shop build a rolling tube chassis with the drivetrain components you want. Then have them fab mounts to mount the factory body panels to the chassis (fenders, hood, bumper, etc etc etc). That's by far the safest way to do it, and would also likely be the most reliable. However it would also cost a fortune.

Cheapest route would be to buy a donor car (camaro, gto, etc) have a shop cut the lower unibody off that car and weld it to your car. That way you can spend $5-10k on a wrecked car and have all the parts you'll need for the swap (minus fab work). Downside is, this will not be as safe as OEM. The work can certainly be done, but it won't have the thousands of hours of engineering and crash testing to verify the process was done right or that crash loads will be carried through the chassis as they should. Certainly there are some good fab guys out there, but you are literally putting your life in their hands with their welding and on the fly 'engineering' about where to cut each car and where to place the new spot welds.

Either way you'll ruin the value of the car (unless maybe you built it to meet some sort of race series spec), have something that can be a pain to insure and register, and depending which route you go- could be a safety hazard to you and others on the road.

Bottom line, I think it sounds a bit crazy to drop over $25k for a conversion just because your wife won't let you sell it. Even if you like the looks- you can buy a fairly quick RWD vehicle (used vette, camaro, goat, etc) for $25k and have 0 of the aforementioned concerns/hazards and still have the monte for cruising.

 

Hi `Joey,
I agree 100% with Bump'in Monte `Chad, but

if you have the $'s > Time ?

Wish you good luck on doing what is best
for you & your relationship 4-$ure