Thanks 'Space!

That's the other nice thing about finally having my own house/garage. The garage is attached to the house, and I've got it fully linked in with the rest of the house alarm, so it has all the same detection capabilities as the rest of the house (along with the cell reporting thing to the monitoring station). So I don't have to worry about thieves nearly as much anymore. I don't see someone taking time to get the alarm deactivated (especially since it has multiple redundant features to make that very difficult)- breaking in (picking a lock, breaking a window, etc)- and disabling the car alarm on any of the three cars just to steal them. Especially not when there are plenty of nicer cars left outside 24/7 (one guy I know in the neighborhood parks his Rolls Royce Silver Spirit outside). If they're just looking to steal tools and such- there are plenty of people who leave their garage doors wide open with plenty of stuff on display.

My thought about those is to drill a hole in the top of the hood directly above the hole on the bottom- then get the nuts rattled into that corner, use a magnet to move them over the original hole so I can hold them from the top- thread the bolts in so I know they're centered and lined up correctly, then either epoxy them in place from above, or fiberglass them in place. Lastly, I'll just patch the drilled holes on top of the hood.

 

Great update, and congrats on the move!!! Definitely agree warmer climates are a place to be.

I hear ya about the long work hours/days, been there, done that...but work comes first, or else no money for toys and hobbies when we do get free time, especially in todays economy.

Glad to hear you do have some extra time now to play with the cars.

I must say though, even with all the issues you have one of the nicest 5th gens around!

I'm sure you will get all the kinks worked, out keep us updated as you go along...love the new brake stuff, can't wait to see that on the car, I wanna do something similar one day...

Also very jealous of the 2 car garage!!! Cars look great in the pics, keep the updates coming!

Joe

 

Nice to see an update on how things are going! Good luck on getting the monte back to life, it'll be really badass when you do =D btw what type of supercharger is on her?

 

Actually, its a 3 car garage- but the 3rd bay is a shorter length- just enough to park a W body in:

(pic from when we moved in)


It's a Whipple 140AX:

http://www.whipplesuperchargers.com/...sp?ProdID=1162

It's a larger supercharger than the stock M90 (it puts out 2.3L of air per revolution instead of the stock output of 90 cubic inches per revolution or about 1.47L), and its a twin screw supercharger design (it has a male and female rotor instead of two matching rotors):



This allows it to compress the air internally as well- unlike the normal roots blowers that just move air from one end to the other, so they're supposed to be a good bit more efficient than regular roots superchargers too.

 

Ohh gotcha thanks. I've been toying with the idea of upgrading to an aftermarket supercharger for the monte but I'm not familiar with what all is out there for our cars...changing the supercharger wouldn't be able to happen for another year or so though

 

As far as positive displacement superchargers go, there aren't many options. The easiest, and best bang for the buck is the gen 5 M90 which comes off the 04+ GTP's (they had L32's instead of L67's). These are the same size as your stock one, but just a slightly more efficient design (similar to buying a ported stock gen 3 M90). The only thing you would need to change is to an L32 lower intake manifold, and then do a different throttle body (since the L32's came with drive by wire, you need a cable driven throttle body, and the L67 TB doesn't bolt up without an adapter).

The next most common would be the 140AX (used to be the 2300AX) Whipple supercharger. Animul Performance built a small run of adapters for the underside and TB, and an overall poorly put together kit:

http://www.wbodystore.com/grandprix/...NEW!-p-25.html

Obviously they're no longer for sale- and Animul has dropped in and out of the forums for years- so there is virtually no chance of it ever coming back to production. However, used adapter kits do pop up from time to time on various forums. Also, it is possible to source your own kit with standard production parts (Yella Terra IC/lower adapter, PRJ throttle body adapter, Yella Terra snout and pullies, and some other custom fab work)- but it is pretty expensive- the IC is like $1k or so, the snout and pullies are like $600-700, the TB adapter is like $600+ (and you still need a 4 bolt 90mm LSx TB which is $300+), plus the actual Whipple unit itself- so its definitely very pricey to get into. Plus, the only way to see big gains are if you're already pretty maxed out on an M90 setup (ie you already have cam/heads/IC/headers- and your cam is pretty big).

The next most common is probably the MP112- Intense racing used to sell an adapter to run these- and they still pop up here and there. More common is the M112 adapter which uses the longer internal guts out of an M112 (like on a Mustang Cobra) and puts it into your stock M90 case with an added rotor spacer section.

The least common is the Kenne Bell setup (which is also a twin screw blower like the Whipple). As far as I know, only two kits have ever been made- one for the Bonneville land speed car, and another for Intense's BAD SSEI Bonneville (although they may be the same kit, I'm not sure). I saw one pop up for sale on 3800pro a couple years back, and it was snatched up pretty quick.

I also heard a year or two ago that someone was working on an adapter for the new TVS style eaton blowers (on 3800pro)- which is supposed to be more efficient than a normal roots blower like an M90 or M112, but less efficient than a twin screw like the Whipple/KB. Not sure what ever came out of that.

That's pretty much the only options for upgrading to another positive displacement superchargers. That's also why a lot of people that want to upgrade, just go to a turbo setup. They make more power (no parasitic belt drive loss), and have less install complications (other than the gen 5 swap, most of the other setups above are pretty rare, and there isn't much tech support for them).


On another note- I got some new lighting up in the garage. Still have some cleanup to do, and more lights to add later at the other end of the garage (for waxing and detailing and such)- but they make it 100x easier to see in there now:

 

You never can have too much light in the garage thats For sure.

 

When's the Impala gettin boost?

 

No doubt about that. I'd still like to do another 2-3 flourescents across the back; but have them on a separate switch. Not sure if I'm going to do that yet or just wait until I get everything set up how I want it.

Sometime in the next year, I'd like to rip out all the drywall and cabinets in the garage and start from scratch.

I'd like to put a dedicated breaker box inside the garage (the main one for the house is just outside the cabinet covered wall) so I won't tie up a bunch of breaker slots in the main panel with my garage stuff. Then I'm going to set up my 220 plug for my MIG, a 220 plug for the air compresssor (still not sure what model/type I'm going to go with)- outlets all over the garage (right now there are only 3, and 2 are in badly located spots), add a small hand washing basin up front (it butts right up to the laundry room so that'll be easy to hook into), and do air hardline in the walls for a cleaner look. I'd also like to add either track lighting or aimable recessed lighting for both main bay engine areas, and for the work bench.

Plus, I'd like to rip out that partial wall separating the smaller bay, and just do a single support beam at the front of the current wall (how many other houses out here have it set up)- so I get a little more room to open the car doors.

Just need to get a few other rooms in the house finished up first so I have some spare funding for it.


Actually, I do have all the parts for a top swap sitting around. I've got the old fully polished gen 3 M90 that used to be on the monte, plus all the other parts I've accumulated as spares and such. I also even ordered all the gaskets for the project back before we moved.

At this point, I'm not sure if its going to happen or not. Right now my wife is using it as her daily driver, and she doesn't really care either way. She is supposed to be getting a new job much closer (5 minutes away vs 1 hour)- and if that goes through, she'll probably start driving the GP, and I'll go back to driving the Impala since I'll have the longer drive. If that's the case, then I'll definitely put more effort into getting that done so its not so boring to drive. Only thing its got right now is a custom tune I did, but that's just not enough to make it exciting to drive.

 

Hey chad i still want that polished blower and the rest of the kit. Good to hear from ya tho, i 2 once had my system stolen. Now i my system is 4x better.