Cutlass/Monte Carlo/Malibu Project

[prime]

Hello, let me start off by saying I'm a little bit insane here. So, you know, you're welcome to flame my idea's. But tips would be greatly appericiated, and active assistance to my insanity a little more so.

I am insanely into drifting, I also love ten second cars and old American muscle. One of my favorites, is the Cutlass Brougham. I do consider the Monte and the Cutlass to be pretty much the same car, they look practically identical aside from the slightly rising line on the rear fender of the Monte. I'm not to sure about the Malibu, but some done out ones have caught my eye recently, and while I'm not so much a fan of the stock look, a repaint and a different hood really make it stand out.

Now I'm not a new mechanic, I do have some knowledge and experience under my belt, though I'll keep my aspirations personal.

Bluntly, I want to make a Gbody drifter. To that end, I'd like some advice. There are a few gbodys on craiglist, most of them have 305's in them, but one of them has a 350. I'd like some advice on which I should get. The 350 is a comparable price to the 305's, so it may need a little more work, but thats no biggie. However I'm not sure whether the 305 or 350 would be more suitable for drifting. The 350 has more power for sure, so power over and spinning the tires would be easy. But its also a bit heavier and it'd tend to cause the rear to fishtail a little more.

I'd also like to know if anyone on here has put a turbo kit onto their Cutlass, Monte, ect, and how it worked out for you. What parts you needed to fabricate, if any, and what company you bought it from.

Lastly, I want to do a swap to standard. I've already looked through the standard swapping thread, and there's great info there, but from what I can tell they're all talking about 4 speed swaps. I'd like to swap for a 5 speed transmission, so I wonder if anyone else has gone through the pains of doing so, and what sort of transmission you used, and any specific things to watch out for when making the swap.

Thanks all, in advance for helping me achieve the G-Drifter, and props to the haters who're to stuck on their ten second cars. We live to drive, there ain't no right or wrong way, s'long as you don't come to a sudden and painful stop.

 

[Hemihauler]

If your looking for a car, i have a solid Cutlass for sale. Its in the for sale section, has a 307, but i have 3 350's that all turn over and came out of good running trucks. Also i have a car trailer with the ability to deliver. One stop shopping trip. Just an F.Y.I.

 

[84cutlassjuggalo]

Let me start off by saying I like your idea, thought of doing it my self befor but the amount of time and money that it will require is emense. Not trying to flame the idea but the things you will have to upgrade will be the suspension. We all know our Gbodies arent the best suspension so you will have to up grade that and no half assing the suspension for sure. Also the camber angles well they will obvi have to be as negative as youd liek (will look soooooo wierd on a g bodie haha) and also you have to think about the weight of these cars (3000 + Lbs). A 350 will a pretty good motor and fro the rear end i suggest if you could get one a hurst olds rear or maybe a ford 9" rear. The main thing is the sway bars. From what ive heard they go on thoes car easily. As stated i wanted to do your idea but wouldnt have enough money to do it right becasue for the every now and then drifting in the parking lot or deserted road but not fro a competition drifter. Aswell if you plan on making it a competition drifter ( you never said you do or not) you will have to take into consideration that there are other cars you could take such as ae86s (my personal favorit, Rx7s, 240sx, Silvias, miatas, even R32s will be competiting and most of thoes cars weigh much less than a gbody and are able to handle corners much better. Also we all know the fate of most drift cars is crashes and being near totaled sometimes so you also have to ask if you really want to risk another g going to the bone yard. If you are wanting a good drift care check outthis forum and see if you can pick up some of thier rigs they sell mainly 86s but there are fcs and fds 240s and etc sold on it. www.club4ag.com

 

[prime]

I know its not going to be easy, or cheap, but this I want to do. Ideally I'd like to give the car enough power to at least start to make up for its weight. I also plan on replacing both the front hood and rear trunk lid with carbon fiber replacements. I may also do the same with the fenders, using aluminum fabrication if I can, carbon fiber if I can swing it. The body is made out of pretty heavy sheetmetal, and replacing that will be an awesome cutback as well. I'll also look heavily into reducing the unsprung weight of the vehicle. I might be able to swap out the brake rotors for thinner, lighter ones, and current technology would allow for the same endurance. Ideally I'd like to switch both front and rear to a lightweight disk brake setup.

Additionally, and this is why I want the manual swap, since I'd favor the swap to the five speed and I'd have to be modifying the console anyways, I could relocate the ebrake to a handbrake instead of a floor brake. This would help immensely in maintaining the G-Bodys balance through a drift, along with the manual transmission and the any powerful engine.

I'm pretty sure this will actually work pretty well, if I make the proper weight cuts and adjustments, I could even see it being at competitions. Mustangs are around the same weight, and they're pretty popular domestic drifting cars. Speaking of which, I've seen 4.9 liter all aluminum mustang engines with factory twin turbos on them. I'd like to know if anyone has experience with these engines, or swapping the turbos on them onto a larger 350? If so thats another option I'd like to look at, I'm not sure how much power the aluminum V8 itself puts out with a twin turbo, but if anyone knows and has any tips on increasing that, it could be my best option. It'd cut off a lot of weight from the front.

As for the suspension upgrade, well, I'd have to physically stick my head under the car to get any idea's. I'm not certain what sort of front and rear suspension a Cutlass uses. Same for the Monte and the Malibu, so I'm not sure where to go there. I'd be unsurprised to see a front McPherson Strut setup, but knowing GM, the rear could be straight up leaf springs. That'd be trouble.

Also yeah, how much are you asking for that cutlass and any of those blocks in your possession dude?

 

[johnny79]

I don't think gbodies would make good drifters. They are notorious for loose back ends, I'd imagine breaking loose the front would be difficult with such uneven weight distribution, but I could be wrong.

 

[84cutlassjuggalo]

it sounds as if you know what you're doing but id make sure this is something you can do cause after gettin carbon any thing you can and doing 1/4 of the work for weight reduction its too far to change it unles you wanted a carbon fiber 10 second car.

 

[prime]

There are techniques for drifting with heavy understeer and heavy oversteer. The Cutlass, because of the power of the engine, yes, is more likely to oversteer. That means you have to be more subtle with the controls when drifting, and there isn't a lot of time for secondary reactions. That meaning, you don't really have time to correct yourself, you have to do it well the first time or its not gonna work. I imagine it'd be like driving a rather heavy MR2, or to be a little more accurate, drifting with a Fiero LT1 conversion. Quite honestly I'd love to do a Fiero LT1 conversion, but I don't have anyone to help me with that sort of modification and fabrication, so I'd rather stick with something thats workable fairly stock and modify that.

Since the Cutlass has a heavy driveline and rear axle, its weight distribution is actually fairly good. This could be improved with a 4.9 Liter Aluminum V8, it'd decrease the weight distribution in the front and bring the car closer to a true 50/50 weight distribution and neutral balancing. It's alright for the front end to be a bit heavy, as you can use it as a fulcrum point, and you don't really 'need' to break the front wheels free to drift. They always follow your line of exit, so you're control input makes them do exactly what you need them to do, vary the angle and degree of drift. Given the heavy front end, however, if you did want to break them free, I don't see it being much of an issue. The only difference between the Cutlass and more typical drift cars, is you'd have to drop a bit heavier on your LSD to get the fronts to break, which I suspect would be rather exhilerating. Instead of a sedate sounding car, you have a roaring monster blazing full tilt around a corner.

With good tire and suspension choice and modification, I really could see drifting one stock, the only major change you'd need to make initially is the ebrake. You'd need to move it to a more accessible location. You don't NEED it to drift, but it helps maintain your balance, especially if you put in a little to much throttle, you can use it to balance the power out at the rear, keep yourself in the drift without powering out.

I have other options to. If I lighten the car with carbonfiber, but it throws the weight distribution out to much, I could try a fiberglass trunk lid, or throw the steel trunk lid back on. The thing is heavy, I have no doubt that it would help out a lot. I'll have to use wide rims and low profile tires, you don't see that on Cutlass' a lot, but given the car's weight I'd need them to prevent to much roll over. Want to lose grip, not tear the rubber off the wheels.

I'm sure more will occur to me as I work on the car. The first choice though, is crucial. I need to know whether to got for a 350'd Cutlass, a straight stock 305, or grab the stock and try to swap it for an alluminum block to save weight. These first considerations are going to have a huge effect on what other moficiations I make on the car, where and how to lighten it, what kind of suspension and tires to use to drift, and what kind of peformance benefits to bolt onto the motor. I'd like to remain carbureted if possible, so I could see switching to a larger carb or a 4 barrel carb. However I'm not to familiar with carbed vehicles, so any advice here is more than welcome. I'm sure you can imagine the other things, making a huge list isn't going to help much. Feel free to present any idea's or advice.

 

[84cutlassjuggalo]

I'll have to use wide rims and low profile tires, you don't see that on Cutlass' a lot,

beat you to it :lol: i already got low profiles on out law style rims on 88 cutlass (sadly selling back to my cousin ) and the low profiles look extreamly nice and flow with the car really well even the big tiger paw tires i got on the back look well with the lows

 

[Oldsmoletick]

Have you seen the 4 door malibu drifter yet? If not either check it out on cardomain or Google it, lol, sweet ride.

 

[84cutlassjuggalo]

whats the link to the car domain one?

is there a different link then this one ?