Hello all, new member here I was wondering about a race I was challenged to in my monte carlo. This is my father's car which he passed down to me and I gotta say it's a beautiful ride better than the 99 honda accord I had lol. But long story short a friend of my gf saw my car and challenged me too a race saying she could easily sweep me with her volkswagon suv. I need thoughts and help here I'm not the biggest race guy but I'll be damned if I get sweeped by an suv. I'm now replacing the transmission and doing minor upgrades till I figured out the full plan. ANY advice would be appreciated by you guys.

Tldr: Gfs friends challenged me to a race and i don't wanna get sweeped. Thank you all!

 

The description is far too vague for us to give any advice, we'd need to know the year, model, and powertrain of the suv. Theyve been selling suvs in the US for more than 20 years now with everything from I4s to v8s and even electric. Plenty of their suvs could easily beat a NA Monte Carlo, but there are also plenty that couldn't in that open ended spectrum.

The other thing to keep in mind is horsepower has gone up quite a bit since the 2000s. Even our base model v6 Traverse makes 300.

 

First reply so i apologize if it looks kinda dumn but its a 2007 tiguan pretty sure base model but I hear the car has a sport mofe should have full details tn also do u have any advice too give the monte some edge in this situation I'm veen thinking supercharge it right before we race but anything would help

 

A bottom end Tiguan should be slower if stock. Sport mode doesn't really mean anything - I don't know anything about VW SUV sport mode, but in many cars it just firms up the shifts and re-maps the throttle, it doesn't actually add any power / performance at wide open. Even if it does add a little (say if it holds rpm a bit higher before shifting), it'll be fairly negligible relatively speaking (i.e. it doesn't magically make a 16 second car run 12s).

No offense, but spending $1k+ on a supercharger (assuming you mean a L67 top swap) seems kinda crazy just to beat your girlfriend's friend's regular passenger car in a one off race. How much are you racing for?

Given probably half the new cars on the road today could beat a NA 3800 monte, it just seems unusual to be worried about this one specific car.

 

Hello and I just read the replies,
FIRST! i just saw the car and its not a Volkswagen suv.
Its a golf gti drivers ed 2014.
also second I put 100 dollars down so its not much money on the line
​​lastly i want to do more to my monte carlo but I figured I wouldn't have to do much to win but I want the monte to have a little more kick to it I'm actually looking into getting a camaro soon too but I want too make this classic car have some speed to it. It's pretty quick imo but I would like too do something to just give the edge, any ideas and thoughts on how the race will go.

 

Thats a big difference, lol. Is it stock? Turbo 4 GTIs are pretty common to see modded and they respond pretty well to it.

Even stock vs stock you're pretty outmatched assuming they're a good driver. Those make about the same crank hp as a monte, but are a few hundred pounds lighter plus have a manual transmission.

The supercharger you mentioned is a good route. Its the cheapest way to boost these cars, but it is a lot of work as you have to nearly strip the engine down to the bare bottom end. A turbo would be an easier install, but even used theyre going to easily run 2-3x what a supercharged top swap does.

 

Hey that turbo idea sounds good would I have to rebuild Trans or can I use the stock one I'm about to pick up?

 

It's possible and has been done quite a bit. The power level and usage of the car will dictate how long it lives for though. For a street only car on street tires and a base level turbo setup with occasional usage, you'll get pretty good life out of it.

But if you start regularly hitting the track, beating on it hard on the street, or start really turning the boost/ power up - that lifespan will shorten substantially. Unfortunately these transmissions aren't particularly over-desgined in stock spec, so they don't take well to being pushed well beyond their limits.