1983 Big Block Monte Slow Build (Lowered Expectations)

[Supercharged111]

i gotta say even though i'm mainly a monte ss guy, the basic monte cl is just as bad *ss, IDK how to describe it but front is a lil more snubbed & straight up cool unlike the LS, wish seen more of these on the rd as hotrods, THEY GOT IT ALL! i see more 68-72 non ss novas on the road than these and its a shame.

I've got to admit some G body ignorance here as I'm not familiar with the non-SS trim models. This thing was originally a very depressing VIN9 V6 turd. At some point it got V8 swapped, then it got a 383, that burned up and my dad got the thing and stuffed the 454 and TH400 from a motorhome in it with a Comp 256 cam, some unknown long tube headers, an A body radiator, and a Ford 9" rear end. In some ways it reminds me of my 92 Crown Victoria that I'd 289/C6 swapped, but this car is just drives so much tighter that it's not a one to one comparison.

Today I managed to get the dash brain box rewired satisfactorily. Last night I got to digging and found this mess.

Removing the bezel took some effort. Shocking as it was held in with 1/4 available fasteners. This shot doesn't do justice to the hackery that was inside.

Here for the most part was a split of what I thought I would use vs what I wouldn't.

Much better. My dad had ID'd all the wires correctly and extended them down to the box, but he seemed to have a couple of redundant sources for a few wires. Not to mention a penchant for these damned vampire taps. These things were ridiculous. Actually beyond ridiculous. F me.

So on the far right are a few bits of redundant wiring, the taps are what they are, the top left is the excess wiring trimmed after the box was installed at location, and the bottom is the tach wire I inherited with the car but that has been replaced with the stock oil pressure dummy light wire.

All that to say that the cluster is now dead. I must have a blown fuse or something, will investigate tomorrow.

 

[Supercharged111]

Cluster is alive, gauge fuse was blown. Easy kill there. Today's goal was to get this puppy back in the trailer which I managed. To get there I had a few items to check off. I got the knee panel dealie cleaned, painted, and installed. I got the 2 momentary switches mounted cleanly and soldered, installed the headlight plug (mix of silver and butt connectors as my soldering iron tops out around 18ga), dealt with fastener issues on the inner gauge bezel, ID'd a few mystery connectors, and got the tach functional again by using the now defunct oil idiot light wire. Here's a before and after of the mess of wiring I dealt with.

Granted this is not quite how I inherited the car, but really all I did was clip a couple zip ties that held the mess above your feet. Here's how it looks now.

I think that panel was a repop. It was grey and I rattle canned it gloss black to match what was there. Sooooo much better now. If you look closely you can see those 2 momentary switches poking downward. You'd never know they're there once that outer bezel is zapped back on. They're pretty neat, you can set a digital output below the Speedo and tach of your choice with them in addition to being able to program the other various functions of the dash.

Something I knocked out earlier today was reinstalling the inner door panel guts.

I ended up doing this twice because I had to yank it all off again to pop 2 rivnuts in for the 2 screws that do all the work when you yank the door shut. Was a perfect opportunity to install the lower rubber seal on that pagrunt made me aware was a thing. No good pic of that but it's on there now. I also found the mirror cable adjuster dealie laying in the bottom of the door and got it hooked back up and working too.

 

[Supercharged111]

Now that everything was plugged back in and working it was time for a long overdue bath. Last time this poor girl got a splash was 2019 and she cleaned up nicely. Nowhere near a show queen, but scraping a 1/4 inch of gunk off the thing was very satisfying.

As you can see, goal met but I missed a few spots. Next up I'll get that passenger side weather stripping installed, blower motor functional, and a new headlight switch in there. Problem with the latter is I suspect I lack hardware to get a functional headlight switch installed as is. We shall see as the days tick on. . .

 

[Supercharged111]

Today I went after the alignment. Spent a bit of time on it, but it's pretty damn close now. This is the stack that was required to get an known amount of camber and -0.3 degrees of camber. I think the one side was over 4 degrees positive. My dad never did get the thing aligned after those arms went in, it had 4-5 total per side.

Rear bolts pretty well maxed out. Car goes straight down the road and right now probably 1/16" of toe out as I snuck those last 2 on the passenger side after I was done to achieve the same negative camber on both sides. This was all the spacers I could find in the trunk, including a bag of them that I hogged out with a grinder. I'll need to go after toe again when I get the new not stripped out steering wheel adapter in and center the steering wheel. Something else happened too, I think this was the first time the secondaries opened on this thing. I wanted to see where it'd shift WOT when not blowing the tires off. At first it was around 2000 RPM. Dafuq? Alright lemme turn around here and try manual shifting this thing. Same, WTFO? So I'm in 2nd, let off, lean back into it and all of a sudden the cherry bombs finally let out a sound I've never heard before and I realize I just felt in my foot that the secondaries had just opened up. Mind you my foot was buried here. I've always felt that the pedal travel is way too short in this thing, I don't think it can open that carb all the way as it sits. There isn't an iota of slop in the cable though, I'll need to do some more head scratching on this. It's not that big of a holdup though, I was able to drain the bowl pulling through 2nd gear. I'm not sure if that means I need a bigger pump, needle/seat, or both?

 

[Supercharged111]

Today I removed the gas pedal, put it in the vise, and bent it up for more travel. I bent it a little too far and somehow also closer to the brake pedal, I need to yank it again and move it out of the way. I got WOT upshifts north of 3000, but still not where they should be. I then rigged up a jumper to provide 12V to the kickdown solenoid. The best I got was this.

So time to see what to do about the governor, the thing was still building steam when it upshifted. B&M wants $100 for their kit. I had one years ago, I think I paid $40 for it? Gonna double check it's not still in the garage somewhere but I'm pretty sure I unloaded it for money. Also, this thing is running even better now than it ever has. The idle is so high I may turn it down some, before I was thinking I'd have to open up the little air jet bypass dealies. Maybe I managed to blow some carbon out of the thing with these little short pulls.

 

[Supercharged111]

Today I got my mitts on some weights and springs to play with for free fiddy. They did not respond how I thought they would at all. In fact most of the day I felt like I shot myself in the foot over and over. At the end of it, I had slightly lighter than stock (after steering heavier, not realizing it, but also the car not shifting sooner) weights in it (verified when I got home), same profile, in and of itself has me upshifting at 3850. Swapped the stiffer stock spring out for something lighter and got this.

Or rather, that's where I lifted because the thing ran out of gas. I'd dumped another 5 gallons in it so I don't think it's a fuel level issue. It would run out just north of 4000 when kicking it down to 2nd and trying to wind it out. I figure it got through 1st quicker and that's why it was able to hit 4600 then. If you've been following my thread then you know the tank is immaculate and the sock didn't have a crumb in it back in December. Unlikely to now, this is really the first time I've gotten the thing up to highway speed and put any sort of heat into it. It cruises nicely and some math with a freshly calibrated speedo has me at a 2.73 rear ratio which I figured it was that or a 2.4X. Suits the car just fine, off the line it has no traction. So I need to get this fuel issue dealt with first and foremost. After watching an L19 Dyno pull Holdener did I suspect this motor's happy spot will be right around 5000 for a WOT upshift. While I only hit 4600 once, it really didn't seem like it was done yet so I'll leave the governor for now, though I suspect I'll bump spring pressure some and maybe drop weights one more.

 

[Malibu795]

I haven't dug through your build thread, cam/head play big part in shift point, generally stock heads are done about 5000

 

[Supercharged111]

The stock intake is probably the worst offender of all, but just because you're past peak doesn't mean it's time to shift.

If you upshift the stock engine here (a stock GenVI with Performer RPM intake and 750 carb in blue) at 5000, you recover at 3000 in a TH400 (assuming no converter slip) and look at how much less hp you're making there. Your 1-2 recovery RPM at 5500 is going to be 3300, you're still down 40hp from where you shifted. So even though the engine is falling off, and I agree stock heads choke at 5000 max, that still doesn't dictate a 4500 RPM upshift. It's worth mentioning the 2-3 recovers a bit higher, so that needs to be factored in as well. Seat of the pants should give me a decent idea, the cam in here is advertised as 1000-5200. Next up I'll gather the bits to tape a fuel pressure gauge to the windshield and find out what's going on there. Based on some initial googling I don't think a stock needle/seat are the holdup on this combo. I'm betting the pump is just weak and it's looking like a stock 30gph is probably sufficient for this thing as is.

 

[Malibu795]

So what's your BBC build?

 

[Supercharged111]

So what's your BBC build?

This particular engine is a bit of a mish mash. It's a Goodwrench crate replacement with low mileage. Has a GenVI short block, GenV heads, MarkIV 4bbl intake, 800 cfm qjet, long tube headers, and a comp 212/218 .480" cam.