I'm about to get a 1983 Monte Carlo with a heavily modded 305 Camaro Engine and transmission swap. It used to be used for racing so its pretty quick. But, now that it's coming into my hands I want to go bigger. I was wondering what engines would fit into this car with little to no modifications to the body/frame/whatever that would give me more power than the 305. Thanks!


I'm new to this forum so if I'm doing anything wrong, I apologize ahead of time.

 

There are other members who know WAY more about this than I do!
There is plenty of Engine space underneath that hood. With the Right Heads and intake you can go up to a 500cc if you can find one worth working on.

My Dream is to find a Black 4th Gen SS 86, 87 or 88, with Excellent Body and Interior and a Stock 305 in it. Dump the 305 and Computerize the car with a Corvette LS1 motor and Trans.
It will be my W/E car while my 02 SS will be my DD.

If you do a Search Here on MCF you will find some Excellent Examples of Stock and Modded 3rd and 4th gens. PM the Members who own them. This is a very Friendly and Knowledgeable site. I'm sure you can find the advice you are looking for. Good Luck! And Welcome to MCF!!!!!

 

Welcome to the forum!
A 305 is considered a small block.. any size small block will easily bolt in...
From an old style 327 to a 350!
Small blocks are easy to build sometimes its as simple as a different cam shaft, carburation and exhaust system.... as JC mentioned its easy to get as much as 500hp!

For example.... punchout a 350 30 over. a mild cam headers and 3" exhaust with a holley 500 2 bbl can get you up to 355 CU In.. and put out as much as 385 hp! add a 4bbl to that combination and you can get as much as 425 HP !!! or more depending on what you do to it.
It all depends on what you wanna do... I have done both styles of hop ups... 1 was for circle track racing...The other for street/strip use....
Hope this helps!
I'm sure someone else will chime in with more great ideas/sizes for you to work with..

Thanks for joining the MCF Family!
Pls feel free to post pics when you can...
and feel free to drop by the daily blog and join in on the conversations!

 

Thanks! That does actually help a lot. Right now she's got a 305 Camaro engine and auto transmission (dont remember what year it is) with a quad barrel carburetor, edelbrock cylinder heads, edelbrock exhaust headers, and custom dual exhaust. There's a few other things I'm forgetting but that's the just of it. I think I might go with the 327 swap at some point. I've heard good things about them. Do you know if the 327 is easy to work on?


Also, I will try and put pictures up tomorrow of it. Thanks for the warm welcome to MCF!

 

All the small blocks are super easy to work on.
Good Luck and look forward to pics/video of your progress..

 

Just a quick answer with out to much details
Any small block any size will bolt right in as you already have a SBC in the car.
Also a BBC will fit in with minimal mods.

 

I would skip the 327 and go for a 350 or 400 if sticking with a smallblock. Personally i would go 454, all you have to change is the flanges for the exhaust manifolds, otherwise its a drop in swap

 

84 cutlass I helped put together

 

LS swaps are very easy to do. A set of mounts, a trans crossmember, Set of swap headers, and a wiring harness and its ready to go. You can even keep it carburated if you wanted or convert it to injection.

Its really not terribly difficult and the information is out on there. All depends on your budget and how crazy you want to get with it

 

The most awesome thing about GM, in my opinion, is interchangeability. All the gen I (305, 327, 350, 400, etc) small block v8's are pretty similar in design from 1955-2000. Parts interchange from 55-86, then 87-95, then 96-00, but that's just the intake. Other than that they're basically the same from 1955-2000. They're all pretty easy to work on in carbureted form. Fuel injected is a little more complicated, but not too bad. One thing to remember when talking about motor swaps is buick, olds, and Pontiac have a different bellhousing bolt pattern than chevy. A 200-4r (which is the factory transmission for all Monte's with a 4 speed overdrive transmission 84-88 I think) accepts all GM motors. The old timers around here call it a vari-fit. It has bolt holes for chevy style and buick olds Pontiac style (BOP). You can also use a chevy big block if you want. Another great thing about GM is, unlike ford, small block, big block it don't matter the bellhousing bolt holes are all the same. So you can bolt up a 454 to the same tranny as your 305, but beware, the extra power may be too much for the tranny. That's just something else to consider when you're planning an engine swap. You can do an LS swap (98-up Camaro 5.7 engine they came in corvettes and a few other cars too) but that would require further mods and it'd cost quite a bit too unless you can get a wrecked LS car. A LS motor takes a different tranny but they make an adapter to bolt it to an old style tranny though. But you'd still have to modify the car a good bit. The newer genIII LS-type engines are more powerful and efficient than the old style small blocks(305 350 etc), but a carbureted small block will be the easiest route for you to take since you already have one in your car, not to mention you can build a 350 or 383 and have more than enough power it's just up to you which route you want to take. That Monte is a clean canvas and you can pretty much do what you want with it because these cars aren't hard to work on at all and they are so interchangeable. I hope this info helps you, let us know how it goes!