I sense some head swimming of ideas lol.

Nitehawk has some good points. There are a ton of ways to approach it. Such as, I've done head gaskets on cars before. I take the heads off, clean them and do a visual inspect. I check the decking surface of the head for warping with a straight edge. You could rip your Monte apart and get to a point of deciding if it's worth continuing.

The only item I see possible concern issues with is the transmission. It's really hard to say what's causing the issues. I've read some adjustments in the PCM can band-aid the problem much like you mentioned with the shift kit. Just hard to say.

 

Ive been looking at my time table and budget and i think i might use the gtp for a top swap. Thats gonna eliminate most gasket issues and take care of any future UIM problems. Thing has good tires so i may take those possibly the wheel hubs if theyre any good. Once i put all my old parts on it and get it running N/A i should be able to get most of my money back selling it. While i want the tranny i doubt its gonna be in good condition with 220k although i will take the dif and axle for the swap. The only part i dont like is having to get 2 tunes from ZZP, hopefully i can talk them into giving me a discount on the second one.

This sound like solid thinking to yall or did the paint fumes at work get to me?

 

If you do this... Do some research before taking the HD trans parts. As I understand, they don't gain you much as they are not the weak parts of the trans (T.E.P. could probably better help confirm that).

As for the tunes and the swaps, not sure how well that will work. I believe the compression ratios on a L36 and L67 are different. So it's to the benefit of the L36 getting an SC top (as it requires less boost) and ZZP and a couple others have pre-canned PCM tunes for that, turning a L67 into an N/A car, I doubt anyone has a tune for that one.

You would be better off swapping the entire motor, perhaps with the trans if they are both in good condition. If you did that, you should have no problem getting it tuned, I would think....

As for swapping the wheel hubs from the Grand Prix on the Monte, don't do it. The effort it takes to pop them off and swap them, and unknown age, not worth it. I'd recommend getting a good pair of Timkens and pop those on the Monte brand new.

 

Well that grand prix was a huge POS. Went ahead and tore into the monte, both heads are good, just filthy. Got the heads, LIM, and valve covers soaking in watered down purple power for a few days.

While I have the heads off i think im gonna do some real basic porting following these guidelines Basic 3800 DIY Head Porting Guide
Probably going to gasket match them and the LIM while im at it. Got coolant, oil, oil filter, gasket set, plugs, aluminum LIM elbows and new head bolts sitting in the back seat, gonna try to get it all done and put together by sunday but with my work schedule that may be difficult.

The monte will live and will hopefully be stronger afterwards. While i have it torn down to the block are there any repairs or easy mods i should look into?

 

If you want to stay NA, you could look into an HV3 intake insert... other than that, you already said port the heads and LIM... the only other thing is a top swap...

 

Not a bad time to swap the rockers either.

 

I'm eventually going to cam it so that's a no go.

I'm most likely going to stay N/A for a long while. I've heard that modifying the intake runners has nearly the same effect as the HV3, just not as much gains.

 

Ported TB and headers ftw.

 

TB has already been done

 

What's the eventually time frame? Why not cam it now that the whole top-half is off the engine?

Rockers are something that you can always demod and sell. The 3800 falls on its face in the upper RPM powerband, it's nice to have the rockers and hv3 to give you that power back.