Me and my G-body cause

[EagleEye]

hello all. my name is bob. i can't believe it took this long to find this forum.
a little bio.........been a mopar guy my whole life. did the whole musclecar thing til it was priced outta my relm. did the truck thing for last 10+yrs or so. felt it was time for a fun car(i was a shelby daytona lover forever as a driver). looked for a convert or T-top car for me and the wife to have fun in. had an 87 GP w/a power sunroof about 15yrs ago. not a mopar but i loved that car. so i made a plan and a list of cars i have always wanted. i just happened to come across this grandprix, price was right, had options i wanted car is in overall decent shape.
next was plan......what to do. i've always thought GM should have put a TPI of some sort in G-bodies at one point or another.

i've always loved the pro-tour cars. cars are meant to be driven. i love smokin the weenies as much as anyone.
i think the car that did it for me was TonyL's corvair. i remember seeing it in a mag awhile back and i said. that is so cool and so different.

so here i am.......my grand prix is getting the pro tourish treatment.
love handling cars, braking cars, fast cars....
will be doing a suspenion and brake upgrade.
not sure on motor. wanted a TPI G body for long time. but LSx's are looking nice. not sure i want to tackle the electronics tho.
i've also looked into keeping the 3.8. what upgrades are avail? yeah, me neither.
so who knows, the book is completely open and nothings been written.
i'm looking for ideas and this IS the place i've been looking for.

so in a nutshell....me and my GP are happy to have found this place.
now the story begins...............

[TPI Monte SS]

Welcome to the site from a fellow G-body owner! I have an '88 Monte SS, built on a budget (mortgage and family will do that!), and its a LOT of fun. I've been into G-bodies since I bought my first '85 SS back in 1991. Your GP looks like it's in great shape and nice to see factory buckets in there! They have the coolest dash out of all the G's, IMO. Good luck with it!

[Norm Peterson]

The latest issue of Hot Rod magazine had a feature covering a four day thrash of eight different crate engines into a Chevelle. The point being that you can apparently get LS crate engines almost as plug and play.

The better EFI conversions for the "traditional" SBC aren't all that hard to hook up, though you are in for a "learning process" as far as tuning is concerned, assuming that you don't stick with a 100% OE TPI engine.


Norm

[twosaturns]

sweet. they can be made to look real smooth. I had a '78 (IIRC) GP w/ the 301 pontiac. real comfy car, but they are heavy w/ all that pseudo luxury stuff.
anyone who tries to get by w/ the V6 wil ultimately go w/ a V8. get a 5.3, 6.0 or 6.2 truck/escalade motor in there, lighten the car a bit if you can, and lose the vinyl, JMO.

[EagleEye]

thanks fella's

like i said, not sure what motor plans are. i've got some research to do to see if i even want tackle this conversion. i'll also check to see if any guys here are near by that may know.

what issue was that?

vinyl top? it all depends. mines completely wasted and weathered.
i'm going to look atta parts car again that has all the trim i would need to eliminate it.

btw, i am keeping all the pseudo luxury stuff. i kinda like all those neat little toys. comes age, comes wisdom. lol

[Norm Peterson]

Probably the October 2008 issue (that's the HRM issue that's closest to the top of my "already read" stack of stuff). They didn't go into a lot of detail regarding hooking up all the different engines with their different ignition and fueling interfaces other than to mention that they built the car with enough extra connections to do it nearly as easily as swapping an engine out for an identical one.


Norm

[wicked68]

nice.

my first car ever was a GP 1978 SJ model

I remember disconnecting the air conditioning and flipping the air filter cap to make it sound meaner on my low budget at the time.

then I put the imron paint job on it - lol

well mispent $ in youth - but it was a cool car at the time.