After giving it some thought, I have come up with a list of mods I would like to make to the monte, either on spring break or during the summer. This is for an 05 LS; I'll upload pictures next week, during break.

Tentative list (likely to change)

Under Hood
General Plan: polish what will look good polished, paint what would be overkill if polished

-Make FWI (relocate pcm with blazer mount)
-polish or anodize aluminum tubing

-Coils from S/C 3800

-Install front/rear strut braces (paint to match red body color)
-I have a promising idea to make mounts from aluminum; I'll test it before opening my big mouth. [Let's just say that I have NEVER read of using this method on any car forum.] (I'll test it on a couple w-bodies that are in the family first)
If it works, I would gladly make some for you guys, pretty cheaply if I can keep costs down on my end.

-Paint fender braces
-make polished aluminum ones eventually.

-polished intake manifold (port/polish while at it)
-Polish TB while off

-polished valve cover(both if I have the patience)

polished aluminum engine mounts
-from venture van, I have head some GP's may have these as well.
-(maybe) polished aluminum dogbones from early w-body.
-attempt to get engine to sit forward 1"
-Bushings for upper engine mount/dog bones.
-replace lower engine mount with solid or poly.

-Painted calipers, rotors

-Add fog lights
-paint bezels body color or black

Is that enough polished aluminum under the hood ? I'll decide when the time comes. If not, I'll polish the alternator housing.

Interior
General Plan: Black and gray scheme to match dash and door panels

-Tasteful under dash led lighting
-blue or green

-leather shift ****(GP or bonneville)
-custom made shift boot (made by me using oem as template)
-black with gray stitching to tie interior together

Window tint is going to be necessary with the added black.

Replace carpet with black from monte

redo headliner with black material that doesn't have fuzz ***** like oem
-either remove the one oh Sh*t handle or add one to the pass side, looks goofy with one.

Install black/gray leather (manual) seats from a tiburon (already have them and they will fit, after i make a bracket)
-they are from a coupe so I don't lose any functionality, they are very light and hold you in place better than stock. The rears will fit, but I may have to get fancy with the side plastics; the seat is about 2" less wide overall. As far as height, I'm not worried, they'll fit.

Before I do anything to the interior A newer seal is getting installed to the cabin air filter, I had one random leak one time and have never trusted it since.


Exhaust
General plan: Cheap, but effective; lower tone
-remove resonator
-maybe put glasspack in it's place
-muffler that gives better tone (heard good things about FM 40 series)
-eventual y pipe addition
-remove u-bend

It's mostly a list of appearance changes I want to make, with some handing upgrades and a couple performance mods thrown in.

I'm going to get most of these parts from a junk yard, including the aluminum parts that I'm going to polish; I want the car drivable during the long downtime of polishing the aluminum.

I have a few questions:
-Did all monte's have the same gray trunk carpet or did some have black ?

-Would the raised 3400 numbers on the polished intake manifold look better polished, painted, or ground off ? I like all options and can't choose- I may have to make one of each .

-How do you prevent polished aluminum from oxidizing ? Would waxing work even at engine temperatures ?

Lastly, what do you think of my list ? Constructive criticism never hurt, it's actually saved my skin a few times.

I know this was a long post, but it's nice to finally have an idea of where I want the car to be eventually.
I plan on making a write up of the more involved things on the list like installing seats that don't directly bolt in and maybe the headliner. I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to install carpet and the strut bars.

 

Sounds like a very nice mod list!

I have a leather cobra style shifter from a gp if your interested

 

Thanks!

I prefer the look of the t shaped ones like the monte/impala/bonneville/firebird/etc came with. I'm going to a pull it yard or two next week, if I can't find any I'll probably buy it from you, if you still have it. I've tried them in a GP and don't mind how they work.

 

I'm not advertising it so I'm sure I'll have it lol

 

Progress thus far:

I got the carpet, aluminum radiator mounts and fog lights (still need one bracket, may just fab it).

Fixed my seized ignition cylinder (with a used one) , going to get a rekeyable kit now that I know the cylinder was the problem. I don't want multiple keys long term.

I have both strut braces, I'm designing custom aluminum mounts. Should be able to make them relatively cheap. I'm also fiddling around with designing a trunk lid cover.

I'm strongly considering a locking fuel door project, had a whole tank stolen.

I have my eyes on a set of f-body calipers because the brakes are due anyway.

I'm still planning a black/gray color scheme, with polished aluminum accents, without being 'tacky'.

 

theres nothing better than coming up with a creative build list,i have about 4 papers laying around with build sheets because I change my mind so much,i plan on getting a whole set of rx8 seats for the front and back and doing some custom fiberglassing im also going with the black carpet too but im just going to paint mine with carpet paint or dye it

 

Update: I'm now going to be treating this as a progress/plans combo thread.

Today I cleaned the maf and throttle body. The idle is much smoother now, however the idle rpm is higher (1200) than previous (about 800 rpm). The computer probably has yet to relearn the idle. The tb is probably less sticky so it's "more open" at idle. I'm going to be running some gumout multi system through the fuel and vac system soon, hopefully will loosen some gunk.

 

The gumout multisystem is different from what I have seen from seafoam. There was no white smoke, only black and gray smoke. The PEA must have done some good cleaning gunk. I put about 3/4 in the tank the other day and the rest in the vacuum line today. The idle is back to "normal" at 650 to 700 rpm and it idles a hair smoother. A slight noise I had was eliminated. I'm a believer in PEA , polyether amine.
I'll probably use more through the intake next time.

I'm going to get rid of the smoke smell next. I thought the coffee and citrus odoban did the trick, but this heat wave brought it right back.

 

shampoo your carpet and seats real good then clean your plastics with some sort of cleaner,not armor all, and spray some odor eliminator in there,i also seen a thread on cleaning out your a/c to get rid of that old smell

 

Wow, that's a lot of polishing that is needed! Quite time consuming, but worth it.

As far as the smoke smell, I have heard botanical rodent repellant works well. But you can shampoo all the carpets, clean the interior, do whatever you want but if you're a nonsmoker, you'll always catch a hint of smoke every now and again. I'd keep the windows down, as much as possible.