Need advice on what to do!

[fonz3482]

Hello everyone,
I have a 84 monte carlo that I want to make into a great all around car. I love the pro-touring look, and the performance of a pro touring car can give. I probably will never do any pro touring races, so the car will just be street driven, and maybe be put on the drag strip or track occassionally. I currently have a good sbc, and bbc motor that can go in, so all set there. I did rebuild the stock metric trans which I was recently told kinda suck, but I do have a T-10 manual trans, or would upgrade to a better auto trans. Otherwise the car is pretty stock. So If you were me and had around $3000 to dump into the car, which isn't alot to work with. What would you do to point the car towards what I described above? Cars gotta be driveable after spending 3 grand til I can save more to do more upgrades. I am having a good friend help me that build circle track cars. So fabricating thing, and using some left over race car parts may help me out with my budget, but I see alot of guys taking parts off other style junk yard cars and putting them onto my car. So I guess I'm kinda looking for some money saving tricks!! Any suggestions or info would be a great help! Thanks!!

[srh3trinity]

If I had a G-body, I would call SC&C and talk to Marcus. He seems to have a good rep with the G-body guys for suspension needs. I would consider a C5 Corvette brake setup and go with a nice 17 or 18 inch wheel setup. Not sure if you could get it done for under 3K, but if you were choosy and patient and buy the right mix of parts and new/used stuff I think you could have a great handling driver.

[mc84_zz4]

Definitely give Mark @ SC&C a call.
I would forego the fancy brakes for now, you can stretch 2k to cover most of the suspension
front & rear without getting exotic, leaving 1K for wheels/tires.
The stock brakes (without any vacuum leaks) are puny, but will stop decently if they are not overheated.

Here is a cheat sheet:

Stock ft sway bar, add greasable poly sway bar bushings & end-links ($50)
SPC coils front & rear ($300)
Stage 2 SC&C front end w adjustable UCA($650)
Bilstein shocks ($250) KYB are cheaper, but the Bilstein are 2x better...
Rear UCA, LCA currie w /johnny joint ($600 ?)
Stock rear sway bar for now...
SC&C heavy duty chasis brace ($200) - optional but worth it

Just around $2,100 so far...

Some decent wheels/tires 245/45/17, 275/40/17 on 17x8, 17x9.5 (4.5 bs, 5 bs)
18's will run about $300-500 more for wheel/tire combo.
The challenge is to get the wheels/tires you like....

If you don't mind running some Cragar soft-8, they are pretty cheap ($300 all 4):
http://www.summitracing.com/search/Product-Line/Cragar-Black-Soft-8-Wheels/Wheel-Diameter/17-in/Wheel-Bolt-Pattern/5-x-4-3-4-in/?autoview=SKU&keyword=soft+8
or move some budget around, and get the MB wheels, for about $600 all 4 of them.
http://www.summitracing.com/search/brand/MB-Wheels/Product-Line/MB-Wheels-Old-School-Gunmetal-Machined-Lip-Wheels/Wheel-Diameter/17-in/Wheel-Bolt-Pattern/5-x-4-3-4-in/?Ns=Rank%7cAsc&autoview=SKU

or get some used wheels, but now you will have to play with the sizes and what you can find.

You can do a budget brake tweak, by getting larges calipers and rear S-10 brake cylinders for under $400, drilled/slotted rotors but that could wait, check out http://www.kirbanperformance.com/
They also have seat braces, and under hood braces.
You can also fabricate you own rear-seat braces for a few bucks.

There are options for brakes if you junk-yard it, and could score some C5 or LS-1 brakes cheap, then
secure some braces from fly-n-bye:
http://www.flynbye.com/catalog/c7_p1.html
more brake links: http://www.kore3.com/categories.php?cat=7

You could get some zq8 spindles (98-02 2WD blazer IIRC) and those can swap rotor and caliper for the 13"
rather cheap if you can find some locally

I would avoid the big-block, which are nice, but the weight penalty reduces handling potential.
HTH
and remember, I am GOOD at spending YOUR money...