Hello GbodyForum

[doood]

Welcome from Houston. That's a nice clean Monte. I am on board with your swap. It will make your car much more enjoyable.

Thanks for the support. The area around the timing cover on the junkyard engine has heavy greasy mud, so I will take that timing cover off and change the gasket. Does anybody have suggestions about what parts I should replace while I have the engine on the stand? I'm going to put the holly 302-3 pan, tube, windage tray...

 

[pagrunt]

I see there's a great pull&pay out there in Pgh. We're actually right over the river in NJ. I have so many questions, but I'll ask in time... I'm going to need a rear and they seem quite pricy; I have 2.41 gears without limited slip; really is a grandma car...

First suggestion I'll give is to cross the Pa/NJ boarder & don't look back.

 

[303'505rollin]

Grandma cars are the best to start with, most of my rides were elderly owned always maintained no kids in the back seats, enjoy a great starting point

 

[BuickBroke$]

Thanks for the support. The area around the timing cover on the junkyard engine has heavy greasy mud, so I will take that timing cover off and change the gasket. Does anybody have suggestions about what parts I should replace while I have the engine on the stand? I'm going to put the holly 302-3 pan, tube, windage tray...

Nice project, very clean car. I went with the 302-2 pan and Holley mounts. Pan is nice, just make sure to rotate engine and check clearances. Mounts were ok, looking back it would have been easier to make my own. Your DBW would be fine, a lot of people swap them but I can’t figure out why, it was easy to modify my stock pedal and have zero issues with it so far. Also, the 4l80e is a better trans no argument, but if you are staying naturally aspirated then you’re fine with the 4l60e. I have the 4l60e behind my 5.3 and 78mm turbo and it was fine for a while with 220k miles on it. It finally went and I had it built by a reputable place and it’s holding up fine behind 10psi.

 

[blk7gxn]

I've wanted to build a car since I was a pre-teen. Got this 1983 MonteCarlo with 22,000 original miles on 3.8l V6 and THM250 trans in Reading PA at the start of the Plandemic. Part of me thinks it is a crime to rip the low mileage smog motor out of this beautiful car; on the other hand, I feel the 300hp truck motor with overdrive is the configuration God intended for my MC. Got this 2004-2007 5.3l LM7 and 4L60e trans from a Philadelphia junk yard - supposedly low mileage (<120,000 miles). My plan is to purchase the following:

1. https://www.holley.com/products/eng...nsmission/level_2_ls_swap_kits/parts/VK090023
2. https://www.holley.com/products/fuel_systems/fuel_tanks/muscle_car_efi_modules/parts/12-306 (apparently I can hook this up the the factory fuel line to the engine bay all the way back under the trunk)
3. ECM and harness from these guys (https://www.psiconversion.com) because I bought a 2000 TransAm cable throttle body to replace the electric throttle body (don't want electric pedal)
4. etc.
5. etc.

I'm a total noob, but I'm going to take my time, watch youtube, leverage this community and make this MC great again. I'll post some pics of the interior later - it is in excellent shape, but a bit sun bleached. Door seals are even good. Of course I bought the american racing 17x8 with 4-inch offset torque thrust 2 and 235/45ZR-17 to replace the homely OE steel wheels and hubcaps - stuck one in the trunk as a spare.

Mike

Welcome Mike! Beautiful original survivor!! They are only original once, but on the same token, its your ride, do what makes you happy and enjoy it!!!

Will

 

[5spdCab]

Scaryjello, welcome to GBF from Seattle, Wa., looks like a good find, can't go wrong with whatever you decide.

 

[doood]

Nice project, very clean car. I went with the 302-2 pan and Holley mounts. Pan is nice, just make sure to rotate engine and check clearances. Mounts were ok, looking back it would have been easier to make my own. Your DBW would be fine, a lot of people swap them but I can’t figure out why, it was easy to modify my stock pedal and have zero issues with it so far. Also, the 4l80e is a better trans no argument, but if you are staying naturally aspirated then you’re fine with the 4l60e. I have the 4l60e behind my 5.3 and 78mm turbo and it was fine for a while with 220k miles on it. It finally went and I had it built by a reputable place and it’s holding up fine behind 10psi.

Hello - so I'm curious how you modified your stock pedal for DBW in the G-body. I've seen some guys hack up g-body accelerator pedal linkage and weld to hacked truck accelerator pedal, but it didn't look particularly robust. Since you mention machining your own engine mounts (the plates?), perhaps a modification that you consider to be easy might not be for typical hobby guy. I see DBW pedals (cadillac) for sale new for < $150 - If someone had experience with an off the shelf pedal that I could install without hacking it up, then I would definitely go that way. Do you believe I will have trouble getting full throttle body butterfly open with the stock pedal and a new throttle cable from 2002 GMC? I figure that modifying the length of the throttle cable IS something that me (typical hobby guy) could do no-brainer. I'll take any suggestions and would love to see pictures of your accelerator pedal installation.

 

[BuickBroke$]

Hello - so I'm curious how you modified your stock pedal for DBW in the G-body. I've seen some guys hack up g-body accelerator pedal linkage and weld to hacked truck accelerator pedal, but it didn't look particularly robust. Since you mention machining your own engine mounts (the plates?), perhaps a modification that you consider to be easy might not be for typical hobby guy. I see DBW pedals (cadillac) for sale new for < $150 - If someone had experience with an off the shelf pedal that I could install without hacking it up, then I would definitely go that way. Do you believe I will have trouble getting full throttle body butterfly open with the stock pedal and a new throttle cable from 2002 GMC? I figure that modifying the length of the throttle cable IS something that me (typical hobby guy) could do no-brainer. I'll take any suggestions and would love to see pictures of your accelerator pedal installation.

So I used the dbw just because it came with my engine and I didn’t want to change anything since this was my 1st LS build. I would think you could find the dbw pedals for free as it seems most guys discard them for cable. The pedal mod was super easy, just cut off the rod of the old pedal and cut off the dbw pedal, fit them where I wanted it and welded them. I was careful not to heat it up too much since there’s electronics attached. Instead of just welding the pedal to the firewall I chose to build a threaded mount so if something happened I could swap them out easier. Nice part is that you can put the pedal where you like, the factory throttle pedal is set back waaaay to far for my liking so I fixed that, and I like that it looks stock using the factory pedal. Mine was a truck pedal so it was way too far into the trans tunnel, not sure about the Cadillac pedal. I’m very happy with the dbw, no issues at all.

 

[BuickBroke$]

Not sure why it rotated two of the pics, they weren’t like that in my phone.

 

[mclellan83]

Not sure why it rotated two of the pics, they weren’t like that in my phone.

Don't drive yourself crazy, happens like that sometimes on here. Does it on other sites too, for some reason they really prefer portrait views