The Daily Driver: 1987 Chevy Monte Carlo LS

[SSninja]

This build thread is going to focus on my daily driver, a 1987 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Luxury Sport that I picked up last September.

I'll start by backfilling everything that has happened from that point until now.


When purchased 9/2013
Bone stock (Well, except for the replacement exhaust) LS with almost no options other than A/C.




- 125,xxx miles
- LG4 5.0L V8
- 2.41 rear gears with a peg leg
- Blue split bench/column shift interior
- Manual windows and locks






Story behind buying the car:


“Forget this nonsense, I should just buy an old car”.
It’s a thought that’s crossed every gearhead’s mind, more often than not while performing a tune-up on or diagnosing the cause of a dreaded Check Engine Light for the rolling appliance that many of us use to get to and from work during the week.
If you’re like me, this initial sentiment then results in the following ritual:
- Twenty to thirty minutes of day-dreaming about how awesome it would be to drive a classic car every day
- An hour of cruising the local Craigslist, which always turns up “The Perfect Car” (I typically find this elusive beast five to six times per week).
- Another thirty minutes of rationalizing why this would be a good idea and why I should do this: “I can fix it with a ⅜” ratchet set, a flathead screwdriver, and a medium-sized hammer!”.
- Face the grim reality that I live in New England and commute forty-plus miles a day, which is why I bought a modern vehicle in the first place; begin drinking to drown my sorrows.
- Finish the maintenance/repair on the now-despised econobox and return to the house, where my wife asks me such difficult to answer questions as, “How does it take three hours for you to change the oil on that car?” and “Why do you reek of booze and defeat?”.


In reality, my wife is actually reasonably understanding of my automotive obsessions, and we’ve always had an agreement in place stemming from her absolute loathing of my Subaru WRX (A story for another time): I could buy any car that I wanted for a daily driver provided the following stipulations were met: A) I’d have to sell my WRX, B) The car could not cost more than the selling price of the Subaru, C) It had to be reliable enough to commute with daily, including in the winter.
There have been a few close calls, but I had never seriously considered taking her up on her offer until the weekend before Labor Day, when I again spotted the Perfect Car. This time around, the Perfect Car surfaced in the form of a stock 1987 Chevy Monte Carlo Luxury Sport with 125,000 miles, located ninety minutes away in New Hampshire.
I mentally went over The Agreement outlined above: Could I sell the Subaru? Yes. Is the asking price for this car less than the proceeds from the sale of the Subaru? Yup. Would it be awesome to drive and I could fix everything on the car with duct tape and WD40? Oh yeah! (I may have taken some liberties with the definition of reliable, but I obviously felt it fell within the spirit of the agreement).
Of course, there were the minor details that I hadn’t yet sold the WRX and that we were going to Maine for the long weekend. Being well aware of the wisdom that it’s better to act and ask for forgiveness later, I emailed the seller and set up a time to come look at the car in the afternoon on Labor Day. Surprisingly, my better half agreed to my crazy plan, I bought the Monte that Monday, and sold my WRX later on that month.




Exterior:



















Trunk sticker:






Interior (PERFECT dash and headliner):










No gauges though...







Crank windows! (Is it weird that I'm excited about this?)







Engine bay

















Now for some of the interesting historical stuff:




When we went to go look at the car, both Bryan and I were shocked by how rust-free the car was (Other than a little bit on the inner lip of the driver's rear quarter, the car is in fantastic shape, especially for having lived in New England its entire life).


Well, after opening the glove box and finding this HUGE mound of paperwork, now I know why!









Aside from literally every receipt for maintenance that the car has ever had (No, really):









I also found the original bill of sale and maintenance book, which was filled with copious notes (On a side note, the same woman seems to have owned the car from '87 until the early 2000s, which is cool)
















Body mounts were replaced in 1999 (Among other things)





The "lifetime" anti-rust plan (Think it's still valid? )





Anyways, I also found 3 receipts for body work that was performed on the car throughout the years (Mostly in the late 90s to early 2000s). Guessing the car was hit a few times, but having sheetmetal replaced would explain the lack of rust!




Receipts for bodywork:

[SSninja]

Fast forwarding a few months later to Thanksgiving, also known as “The weekend that I completely screwed up a suspension install and left my car on jackstands for days”.

It’s been said that you cannot truly understand an event until you also understand the people and events that led up to it, so let me fill in a little backstory:
Cruising around in an “older” car has been a blast. The car is dead-nuts reliable and it's been great to finally feel like I’m getting my money’s worth when using a parking spot:





However, there’s definitely been a few readjustments in my driving style going from a 2003 Subaru WRX to the LS, mainly due to the drastic difference in acceleration, braking, and handling.

With 2.41 gears in the rear, I am convinced that the person who ordered this car realized the gearing needed for a competitive run at Bonneville but failed to grasp the importance that horsepower played as well. 160 horsepower and those gears translates to a driving style that is less “shoot the gap” (AKA “typical Boston driving”) and more “put on your blinker and hope that you have enough running room to slowly slide over into the next lane” when slogging through the typical highway commute.


The gearing and lack of horsepower also makes for interesting stop light encounters: Ever had an elderly woman in a late 90’s Crown Vic give you a knowing smile and then try to holeshot you? That’s my Wednesday.


That said, once up to speed the LS absolutely loves cruising at highway speed; I really need to hook up a tach to see what I’m running for RPMs, but with the 2004r and a lockup converter I’d bet that the engine isn’t even sweating at 70-75 MPH.

So, the acceleration is on par with a cruise liner, and the handling and braking aren’t much better: While the SS and other F41-equipped G-bodies at least had the semblance of a handling package, my non-F41 optioned Monte came sans rear sway bar and with a set of softer springs designed to float over bumps (Difficult to find the actual spring rates, but they look to be in the 350 pound range for the front springs and 105 range for the rear). Along with the “Grandma” spring and shock package, the LS came with the standard 10.5 inch front discs and terrible front suspension geometry. Without getting into the details, let’s just say that I wouldn’t be taking off-ramps at speed as-is.


As I haven’t had much luck in tracking down a 7.5 inch 3.42 posi rear from an early Monte Carlo SS or an affordable 8.5 inch from a Grand National or 442 locally, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to positively affect the acceleration of the car anytime soon. But, with a little bit of work I knew that I could change my suspension and braking woes and decided to rummage through my assortment of G-body parts that I had leftover from my Monte Carlo SS. That car has been through multiple suspensions throughout the years, and I knew that I had a B-body brake setup and a set of Eibach springs collecting dust on a shelf in the garage. I also found an inexpensive set of 16×8 Iroc wheels on Craigslist and purchased a set of Bilstein shocks locally.


For those that don’t know, the B-body brake “swap” consists of a set of B-body spindles from a car equipped with twelve inch rotors, combined with the twelve inch 1LE rotor from a thirdgen F-body to keep the bolt pattern 5×4.75 (The bolt pattern of the B-body twelve inch rotor is 5×5) and a “tall spindle” control arm designed for use with the roughly one inch taller B-body spindle. There are several manufacturers of this style control arm, but I happened to have a used set of Hotchkis upper control arms, which are no longer made, that I would be using.

So, with the car being in perfect working order but lacking a little in the fun department, of course I got the itch to start replacing parts. After all, isn’t this why I bought an old car in the first place? Sure, the days were getting shorter and temperatures dropping, but what could possibly go wrong with a quick weekend thrash? Of course, in my case “weekend thrash” meant “starting on Sunday morning at 10 AM” and there was heavy rain in the forecast for that afternoon…



My '87 Monte Carlo SS is currently occupying my garage space, and with my driveway full I decided to pack up all of the parts and some tools and bring them to my parents’ house across town. After all, one-day job, right?




Ah, more parts. To recap, the plan was to replace the rear springs and shocks with Eibach springs and new Bilstein shocks, and to replace the front springs, shocks, spindles/brakes, ball joints, and upper and lower control arms. While I was in there, I planned on replacing the steering linkage as well.




Here’s a photo of the stock ride height, which measured in at 27 1/2 inches front. Not shown is the rear ride height, which was at 28 3/4 inches.




Knowing that it would be the easier job, I quickly ripped into the rear suspension. The drums and shoes had plenty of life in them, but looked original. Check out all of that undercoating; it’s about a half inch thick in spots and covers the entire frame. While it kept the car from rotting away, I would come to hate its existence shortly.




Quick comparison of the new Bilsteins and what are presumably the original shocks, as I didn’t find any paperwork stating that they had been replaced like the rear springs were. The original shocks weren’t doing much judging by the tendency for the car to wallow over bumps at speed.




New versus old springs (Which had been replaced sometime in the late 90s). The Eibachs are a tad bit shorter, but also firmer at 135 lbs/in vs ~105 lb/in for the stockers.


Breaking away from the photo montage for a minute: The rear suspension install went without a hitch, but it was now 11 AM. Keep in mind that sunset was around 5 PM and the rain was forecasted to start around 3 PM. I had yet to even break loose a single nut on the front suspension…





So here we have it, the front suspension. Unequal length upper and lower control arms, coil springs, and single piston 10.5″ brakes, all covered in a thick layer of undercoating. Somehow I was still optimistic at this point.





The passenger side upper control arm came out without any drama, so I took the time to replace the rubber bushings, one of which was completely cooked from being too close to the header on my SS.




The bushings themselves easily slide out once the nut and washer are removed.




Quick shot of the cooked bushing next to a new one.




The cross-shaft itself is offset, which is important to note as you’ll want the arm to be “shorter” when installed to avoid having to excessively shim the arm for camber and caster adjustments. Side note: Yes, the paint on the arms is hammered. Do I care? No: used parts going on a winter beater, remember?




You know it’s never a good sign when you need to break out the sawzall. Having to cut out the passenger side shock was a sign of things to come.





The driver’s side was much of the same story. More sawzall (To remove the sway bar end link and shock), along with undercoating everywhere.


This is where the photos stopped for the time being, as the process of “remove a part, clean all of the undercoating off of my hands, take photo, repeat” was really slowing me down. Plus, at this point I knew that I was in serious trouble as it was around 1 PM and I had only removed the shocks, upper control arms, and one spring. I still had half of the disassembly to take care of, plus all of the reassembly, with only a few hours of daylight left and rain on the way. Fudge.


Still, I was determined at this point to get everything together, so I called up a good friend of mine who brought over some air tools and we went to town. No photos as we were in full-on thrash mode, and the rain started to come down shortly after. A few hours in, it became apparent that A) Working in the rain sucks and B) I wasn’t going to get the car finished that night, which meant that I needed to figure out a way to get to work, which completely destroyed my plan of keeping this car reliable for every day use.





This, my friends, is what defeat looks like. Nothing like the sight of your daily driver up on jackstands in the soaking rain at 7 PM on a Sunday to cap off your weekend.


This is the point where I confess that I needed to borrow a car to get to work on Monday as my SS was also on jack stands due to another project. While I wish that I was adding this in for comedic effect, the only vehicle available was my mother’s Toyota Highlander, complete with scented air freshener and all ten radio presets set to easy listening (I didn’t even know that there were ten easy listening stations in the Boston area. You learn something new every day). A perfect 100 on the Lame-O scale, but it taught me a lesson about project planning.





Moving on, I took a day off of work later on in the week and managed to bang out the remainder of the uninstall that day and the install of all the new parts that following weekend. My friend Dundy is a hero for contributing his time and air tools. Here’s the dumping ground for all of the old parts as they were removed.




Here’s the finished product, which is already caked in salt after a few days of driving. Still a single piston caliper, but the combination of a bigger piston and larger diameter rotor equates to more stopping power up front. While the rear drums aren’t bad, I want to figure out the braking bias and see if it’s worthwhile to install rear discs eventually as well.





Shot of the Bilstein shock and Eibach spring installed. As the Eibach springs are much shorter than the stock springs, they went in easily without a spring compressor.




While the taller B-body spindle provides a better camber curve, here’s one of the drawbacks of the B-body spindle: Increased bumpsteer due to the change in position of the steering arm and the angle of the tie rod. Since this is a street car, the added braking outweighs an increase in bumpsteer, at least for me.





I stripped down the Iroc wheels and painted the centers a Gunmetal grey using Duplicolor paint. The centercaps are from a PT Cruiser.




Here’s the car back on all four wheels. The tires are a set of 245/50R-16 Falken all-seasons and will be swapped out in the winter for 15″ wheels and snow tires.




I think that the car looks lower, but after measuring I found that it’s sitting at the exact same height (27 1/2″) up front and only 1/8″ lower in the rear with the new springs, so the new tire height may be a factor in the new appearance. That said, the ride quality is firmer with the new shocks and springs, which is a good thing. No more porpoising over bumps.




I also went with a decent street alignment as well. The alignment is current set at -0.5 degree camber, +4.5 caster, and 1/8″ toe in.

[SSninja]

I made a resolution this year that I would attend autocross events on a regular basis with at least one of my Monte Carlos, but until this point life kept getting in the way, or as my friends put it, I was wimping out. So when I found out a few weeks back that the TireRack NorthEast Match Tour was rolling into town for June 7th and 8th and they were running the new Classic America Muscle classes, without thinking I pulled out my credit card and this happened:





Yeah, you could say that I was committed now.
Due to a scheduling conflict I’d only be able to attend the Saturday session, but I knew it would still be money well-spent and I planned to make the most of it.

Now for all the “small stuff”, like buying a helmet, getting numbers, and making sure that the car will pass tech. Just like going to the drag strip, there’s a basic tech inspection before you can run your car, and it’s very similar: No leaks, tight wheel bearings, seat belt, and the battery firmly held down, among other things. The battery inspection will prove to be important later on in this story. That, my friends, is called foreshadowing.


Again, pre-autocross checklist:
- Helmet
- Numbers
- Get car tech ready




Helmet for dork (Good call on the large). Check.




$20 worth of magnetic vent covers, duct tape, and spray paint for DIY numbers. Check.




Numbers cut out, painted, and tested for magnetic properties on the fridge (Much to my wife’s delight). Check.




Ok, so it’s now the Friday before the event, my helmet is in, the numbers are ready, and my car is ready to pass tech. Well, so I thought until around 10 PM on Friday, when I realized while out for my birthday party of all things that my battery tray didn’t have a hold-down because the bolt had snapped off. Crap.




I knew that I had a spare battery tray and hold-down, so it was only a matter of getting up early and swapping out the parts. Of course, my “friends” did their best to make sure that I didn’t get up in the morning, but I managed to crawl into bed around 1:30, only to have the alarm wake me up at 4 AM. It sucked, but 20 minutes of work later I had a new tray swapped in and I was on schedule to get to Ayer, MA by 6:30.




I roll by the endless line of Miatas around 7 AM and get the car teched. I was told by one of the techs that “the rear end has a lot of play”, but luckily the other tech knew what a c-clip axle was and let me by. I also got the mandatory TireRack and SCCA stickers. Stickers means race car, right?





I was running in the CAM2 (’73+ Classic American Muscle, or “Pro-touring” cars) class, which was disappointingly light considering how many so-called “Pro Touring” cars are at the local car shows (Yeah, I’m talking to you). The other three entries were a ’95 Corvette, a 2002 Z06 ‘Vette, and a 2007 Shelby Mustang. Being in Heat 3, this meant that I would be hanging out during the first heat and working the second heat prior to getting in my four runs.




After working as a cone fetcher for the morning and getting a quick lunch, it was finally time for me to run.




Each heat has multiple classes running within it, and you grid your car so that you run with the rest of your class. Cue the “One of these things is not like the others” song.





Seeing as this old G-body was bone stock aside from a set of Eibach springs, Bilstein shocks, Hotchkis front upper control arms, and 12″ Caprice front brakes (This isn’t an F41 car, so we’re talking itty-bitty front sway bar, no rear sway bar, and no frame bracing that the “performance” G-bodies received), the goal of my first run was to just keep the thing on-course…




…Which, while it felt reasonably paced as the car wallowed about the course, resulted in a 90 second lap time. To put things in perspective, competitive cars were hitting times in the 50s to low 60s. As my buddy Phil told me that the announcer stated, “It was a tidy lap”.





Now that I realized that the car wasn’t going to instantly explode mid-slalom, I knew that I had three more laps to improve my times. Cue Lap 2, which while it still wasn’t fast, improved by a 10 seconds over my previous time.

Below is the GoPro video of that second run. Fast Forward to the 3 minute mark if you want to get right to the beginning of the run. Note to self: Install bucket seats as the bench seat is good for dates but not for keeping you upright during a slalom.









Sure, 80 seconds was still glacial pace, but a 10 second improvement is pretty solid and there was more to be found in the car as I was still not being overly aggressive with my driving. No GoPro video of my third run due to user error with one and a full memory card with the other, but I managed to whittle another couple of seconds off with my third lap.

Here is the fourth and Final Run. Again, improving over my other runs, with a 15 second total improvement from first run to last, but still not enough to get me out of the basement of the CAM2 class. Doesn’t matter, as I was pumped to still be improving.






Phil : “Go stand next to your car” Me: “What?” Phil: “Just go stand next to it and try not to look stupid” I failed, Phil. I failed.


Autocross to me is very similar to drag racing in that, end of the day, it’s really just you, the car, and the clock. With a finite number of runs, it’s less about what high-dollar parts you have strapped to the car and more about how far you can push yourself mentally to keep driving faster. I’ll admit that I’m not what you would call a good driver, so much of the improvement is going to be the result of tightening the Nut behind the wheel through more experience and coaching. Needless to say, I was hooked and planned on going to more autocross events throughout the summer.

[SSninja]

So, now we're caught up.

I'm attending the Evolution Phase 1 driving school this coming Sunday, and in preparation I installed the 36mm sway bar mentioned above. We'll see how it performs...


Looking forward to adding more updates!

[SSninja]

Here's the car in "winter mode".

Winter driving with the car was pretty awesome thanks to a set of good snow tires.




The gold wheels may not be everyone’s favorite, but I kind of dig them, if only because it will make it easier for the tow trucks to find my car when it’s buried in a snow drift.




The wheels themselves are 15″ thirdgen Firebird SE wheels wrapped in 215/65/15 Blizzak WS60s.






Next up, I start autocrossing the car....

[WallaceMFG]

My best friend drives an 86 Cutlass Supreme, and everything you've said about the thing driving like an oil tanker applies to his car as well. I still laugh every time we hit a bump in the car and it feels like we have hydraulics. I'm curious to see how it will do in an autocross, maybe I'll be able to get him to bring the Cutlass out to one lol

[SSninja]

After the Tire Rack National event, there was a normal New England Region event a few weeks later.


The majority of SOLO events for NER are held at Devens-Moore Airfield, which is a pretty nice setup compared to some of the parking lots that some other clubs have to make due with.




All in all about 130 drivers signed up for the event, and before I move on with the story I want to give credit where credit is due and thank all of the people that set up and ran this event, which in reality is everyone that showed up. What I really dig about grassroots racing is that it’s 100% volunteer based, with the racers themselves doing the hard work of keeping everything on the up and up so that they can continue using the site. I have a hard enough time getting 4-5 guys to show up for a garage night without trashing the place, let alone 100+ people and cars for 8-10 hours.


Where to begin with today’s journey? Let’s start with the results from the previous event, along with my preparing for this last event.



Out of 150 registered for the prior event, you might say I’m pretty far down the list. That statement would be mighty generous, as the person above me was driving a shifter kart. On the plus side, last time I looked those karts sold for more used than I paid for ye olde G-body. Then again, the “JB” class is for 8-11 year olds. So, there you have it, I was slower than an elementary school child. Totally not bitter about that.




Not to be discouraged by being beaten by a human being who has not yet discovered algebra, I focused on the fact that I had managed to pick up 15 seconds from my first to last run, and that I was really competing within the other drivers in the Classic American Muscle class. Sure, I was 12 seconds off the pace of the leader, but that gave me a goal for the season, which is to narrow the gap between myself and everyone else.


So, how to go about that? Throw the latest and greatest Pro-Touring parts at the car? Yank out the 160 horsepower boat anchor (Of which, I must admit that more than one horse has escaped from the ranch over the last 27 years) for a more modern powerplant? Nah, that’s too easy and ruins the whole point of buying a cheap car and keeping to a budget. Keep in mind that even with the purchase price of the car and the new springs, shocks, wheels, tires, and brakes, I’m still into the car for less than $4k. So, let’s throw on some used parts and get some more seat time.





Much as I know that improving the driver is going to net the largest gains, I couldn’t go without a few small upgrades. Seeing as my car came out of the factory minus the F41 handling package, there was no rear sway bar to be found. To the rescue came my buddy Steve, who for $25 hooked me up with a rear bar from an SS, along with the oh-so-crucial spacers that are needed to keep the lower control arms from crushing when bolting on the bar. I also sprang for $8 worth of new hardware from the parts store. Sometimes you have to splurge a little.




Mmmm, 27 year-old undercoating.

Here we have the aforementioned stock lower control arms, which luckily came predrilled for a rear sway bar. The bar itself isn’t very effective compared to a rear sway bar that is bolted directly to the frame, but I’m making incremental upgrades before spending $$$ on an aftermarket piece that may end up being too much bar.On a side note: As crappy as the rubber bushings are, unless you’re going to invest in a set of upper and lower rear control arms that fully articulate using a sealed helm joint or similar, I’d avoid “upgrading” to poly bushings. Poly will bind, and binding is bad for any sort of handling application that involves a four-link.




10 minutes of work later, and BAM: Rear sway bar. Guaranteed to help lower my lap times or put me off in the woods. Either one is equally likely.




Keeping my modifications limited to things that I knew (Well, hoped) would only benefit the car, I also sprung for a modified Chevy Astro van steering shaft to replace the worn out rag joint-equipped steering shaft that came on the car. Nearly a bolt-in as-is, the Astro van shaft have a U-joint at either end, the top one needing to be pulled and rotated 90 degrees before being welded back in place. Being a factory part, it’s also designed to collapse in an impact, which saves me from any painful Steve Irwin impressions. These can be picked up in most junk yards for short money, but given that I was in a time crunch I paid $70 shipped for one that was fully prepped and painted.




The shaft is nearly a bolt-on, with only a tiny bit of grinding needed on the column end in order to clear the bolt that tightens the upper end. Hard to tell from the photo, but we’re talking millimeters.




There we have it! Nice new steering shaft in a greasy and undercoating-soaked engine bay. While the steering shaft did get rid of a good amount of play, there’s still some left in the box itself, even after adjusting it. With the “Slow:1″ steering ratio, I’m not going to waste too much more time with that box and will upgrade to a 12.7:1 box from a 16″ wheel equipped third-gen F-body in the near future.




So there we have it. A few small modifications, a 5 AM wake-up call, and I was out on the track.
Notice the painters tape holding my $20 DIY magnetic lettering in place. Note to self: Next time don’t leave them curled up a ball in a plastic bag for weeks, you big dumb jerk.




One side note before continuing with our regularly scheduled programming: I found out that Mazda has a program that will pay out actual cash money for placing in certain regional and national events. Think I could slap on a few stickers and convince GM to pony up some cash for my 27-year old Chevy? Something tells me that they’d be more likely to pay hush money to stop me from showing up at more events…



So, just how did the Monte do this time around? Not surprisingly, I still finished in the basement of the CAM class, again 12 seconds behind the leader of the group.




That said, I’m motivated for a few reasons:
1. While the last event was set up to allow the higher horsepower cars (Of which mine is not one, sad to say) to stretch their legs, this course was tighter and in my opinion a bit more challenging. Still, I hung in there.
2. Unlike my first event, I went hard from the get-go, which shows in that I improved less from my first run to my last run. I also finally nailed a cone, which pissed me off about as much as I thought it would.
To give you an idea of the course layout and what it’s like piloting a boat around it, check out this video of my second lap of the day.







These 320 treadwear Falken All-seasons performed to the best of their ability, but are not exactly designed for autocross duty. That’s a good amount of rubber that I’m pushing from the edge towards the center of those front tires. The fair amount of understeer and my less than skillful tackling of those sweeping turns probably has something to do with that.




Although I love me a spicy chicken sandwich as much as the next warm-blooded American, I need to stop eating crap food for lunch during the break. The laps after lunch were much slower, some of which I attribute to wolfing down 2000 calories worth of obesity before strapping myself back into the car.



So, what’s next for me and this heap?
- Continue working on my driving. Watching the videos I took of each run, I need to better set up between elements, as well as figure out how to better enter and exit those long sweeping turns. Having a slow steering ratio, less than appropriate tires, and a bench seat isn’t helping either, but the driver still needs to improve.
- Install a better steering box. There’s some play in the current box, and I’m spending a good amount of time fighting with the wheel.
- TIRES. TIRES. TIRES. No Hoosiers for me as I need 200 treadwear, but better tires are a necessity. This will be a big expense even with a set of used 16 or 17 inch wheels, so I may not get them installed for another event or two.
- More supportive seats. Yes, I love the bench seat as well for daily driver duties, but I’d like to have a seat that I can swap in for autocross. Keeping with the budget theme, I’m going to stay away from an expensive racing seat and see what’s out there for factory takeouts from another car that I can use with some slight modification.
- A larger front sway bar. To be honest, I’m not sure that a larger bar will help with the understeer versus correcting my driving style, but from those in the know that have well-handling G-bodies, I’ve been told that the larger bar will help with the front body roll and help more than hurt. There’s a 36mm bar from an F-body in the garage with my name on it, so expect to see that installed before the next points event.



Oh, and if you need proof that more supportive seats are needed, check out this video of my buddy Phil going for a ride along. For extra entertainment, there’s my completely and utterly pissed off profanity at the end when I botch a slalom and nail a cone on what would have been my best run of the day (Pre-Wendy’s motivation-killing lunch)

[Dons67]

love to see guys enjoying their cars -- and i got excited over vent windows so i get the cranks

[instro84]

cool, gotta get the buick running so i can get to some track days.

[SSninja]

Thanks guys!

It's been a lot of fun so far, as slow as it is.

[mc84_zz4]

Congrats Dave! Wait 'till You start closing the gap on the rest of the cars in your class, then you'll have some people ticked off for beating them up in a granny car with wheels. (Big grin)
Keep up the good work!

BTW I have some F-41 frame bars if you want them.

[SSninja]

Congrats Dave! Wait 'till You start closing the gap on the rest of the cars in your class, then you'll have some people ticked off for beating them up in a granny car with wheels. (Big grin)
Keep up the good work!

BTW I have some F-41 frame bars if you want them.

Thanks Dave! Good to see there's a MCSS.com contingent on here!


If you're talking about the F41 bars that connect the front crossmember to the frame horns, surprisingly my car already has those. Didn't think those were used on the non-F-41 cars (Which my car definitely isn't from looking at the sticker in the trunk).

[carguykeith]

Nice build from a fellow manual window G-body! For cheap factory seats that bolt in I think 3rd Gen F-body is your best bet, maybe grab the steering box while you're in there. Also you really should be able to find a monty SS rear with better gears and a posi pretty easy, the 8.5's are getting hard to find for a good price but the 7.5's are still pretty cheap/ plentiful.

[SSninja]

Yup, I've already tracked down a box from a third gen Firebird with the WS6 package, so it should have the correct steering ratio and internal stops for 16" wheels. Just need to find the time to install it.

Even the 7.5 rears are expensive around my area. Everyone seems to want $500+ for them, which is crazy as they were selling for $100-200 only a couple of years ago.

[TERTZA]

Hey SSninja... loving the Monte and the IROC rims make a big difference visually... I dig it.

I've just picked-up an '86 442 and was looking for some IROC rims as well, but I did have a question for you:

I'm fairly certain those rims are stamped "Front"/"Rear" in the castings, were you able to work with the factory offsets for your LS or did you have to source 4 "fronts" or 4 "rears" for those rims?

-Terry

[SSninja]

Hey SSninja... loving the Monte and the IROC rims make a big difference visually... I dig it.

I've just picked-up an '86 442 and was looking for some IROC rims as well, but I did have a question for you:

I'm fairly certain those rims are stamped "Front"/"Rear" in the castings, were you able to work with the factory offsets for your LS or did you have to source 4 "fronts" or 4 "rears" for those rims?

-Terry

Thanks! I sourced four FRONT wheels, although technically I could run two FRONTs on the rear and two REARs on the front due to my B-body brake swap. The 1LE rotor pushes out the hub far enough that the 16x8 REAR fitment wheels barely fit. I know this because I was running a set of GTA wheels like this (REAR on the front and FRONT on the rear) when I had this exact brake setup on my SS.

[SSLance]

Another convert...

Can't wait to hear the report back on the Evo School.

[TERTZA]

Sweet Dave, thanks for the info!!!

Keep posting pics and updates... SUBSCRIBED!

-Terry

[bonecrrusher]

Looks like a nice big course.

Cool car - and keep up the steering mods!

[SSninja]

Given what it is, namely an old lady's car that I've slapped a few bolt-on parts onto, the Monte has faired better than expected so far at the local SCCA events. Sure, at this point in time I'm still 12 seconds behind the leader in my class, but when the leader is a 2002 Z06 and the other cars in the class are a supercharged '95 Corvette and an '07 Shelby, I think Grandma and her 160 horsepower 305 SBC is allowed a little leeway. Alright alright, my being a crappy driver isn't helping either, but this latest update will show my attempts to shed some bad habits and learn a few new tricks.

Seeing as I'm committed to sticking with the Regular Joe budget because, well, that's what I am, adding more power or better tires still isn't in the cards, but I was able to scrounge up the spare cash for a few performance upgrades, namely a 36mm front sway bar and a day of driving instruction from the guys at the Evolution Driving School. As with the other New England Region SCCA events that I've attended so far, the Evo School was held at Devens-Moore Airfield in Ayer, Ma.



The Evo School guys were in the area Saturday, July 12th and Sunday, July 13th, each day hosting three schools: Phase One, Phase Two, and Challenge School. Each school builds on top of the other, with the Challenge school having participants challenging their instructors to beat their lap time in the participants' vehicle. Seeing as I'm still pretty green, I signed up for Phase One, which gives you time with an instructor to learn your car as well as improving on your driving ability. With 24 laps versus the normal 6 or so that you get at a normal SCCA event, it's fair to say that there's more than enough seat time for the money.

Before we get to the school itself, let's take a brief photo tour through the 36mm sway bar install.


The sway bar itself is a 36mm hollow unit off of a later model third-gen F-body, which can be picked up for $50-75 online. That coat-hanger thin bar above it is the stock 25mm bar that all non-F41 G-bodies were hindered by.




A quick close-up shot of the stock bar versus the larger bar. Safe to say that the larger bar will do a heck of a lot more to limit the front body roll that the Monte was exhibiting at the last event. As to if this will help or hurt performance is at this point yet to be determined.




Since the F-body sway bar bushings will not fit in the stock Monte sway bar brackets, the solution is this poly sway bar bushing from Top Down Solutions. While it started life as a 34mm Energy Suspension bushing, Top Down Solutions widens it to 36mm before shipping it out to accommodate the larger bar. Shown to the left of it is the stock 25mm Monte bushing. Yeah, it's a big bar.




Unlike every other "small" project that I take on with this car, the only thing that broke during the install was one of the sway bar end links. Bit of a bummer as I just bought these last fall, but that's what a winter in New England will do.




A five minute walk to the parts store and $20 later, I had two new Moog end links and the sway bar installed.




With the sway bar installed and tested via my favorite on-ramp, I felt like the car was ready for autocross the following weekend.





Evolution School



Even being an all-day event, each Phase is limited in regards to attendance to give each driver as much seat time as possible. Looking at the list, the Monte is a bit out of place, but what else is new?




Here's the Monte all set to go, GoPros and all. Not shown is the massive amount of crap that I brought with me, including a floor jack, stands, socket set, allen keys, and spare front brake pads. Some people keep jumper cables in their trunk, I keep half of my tools. Live and let live.




After a quick tech inspection, I was let loose on the course for three runs to get some baseline times down. As the airfield was divided up between the three schools, the Phase One course was roughly half-sized, running at about 25 seconds for a quick car versus the approximately 50-60 seconds that same car would run a normal-length course. The course was laid out with a slalom, Chicago box, a sweeping turn, and what is quite possibly my least favorite element in the world, a skidpad circle. You know what an understeering, slow, heavy car doesn't need in its life? A freaking skid pad.

The plan for the day was to set a baseline by yourself, then alternate runs with each of the two instructors for the remainder of the day. We also had a working lunch where we went over what everyone learned as well as some autocross chalk talk with the instructors.

So, how did I do? Let's start with the video of my first run. While instructed to take it at half speed to learn the course, note the late entry and sloppy slalom work, massive understeer in the skid pad and just generally bad hand positioning and driving technique. Keep in mind that I actually thought I was doing ok at this point...





I managed to knock that 35.058 down to a 32.626, but I knew that it was sloppy and I just generally felt like the car was unstable. This is where the first instructor came in to give me a few pointers on getting the car to do what I wanted. With never having been behind the wheel of the car prior, he was able to rip off a 31.9 second run without breaking a sweat while also giving me some great pointers on weight transfer and using that to my advantage. While watching the video, note how he is calling out where he is transferring the weight during each element of the course.




The first bad habit that I had to learn to break was trying to perform two actions at the same time, such as braking and steering, which was completing overcoming the tires' ability to grip. This can all be explained by the circle of traction:



This concept simplifies to the idea that only so much traction is available at any moment for a tire, and this must be split between cornering and braking/acceleration. You can have both acceleration/braking and turning at the same time, but the two added together cannot be more than the total available traction. Increase one of the forces (Cornering or braking/acceleration) and you’ll decrease the amount of available traction for the other. Notice that North and South represent acceleration and braking respectively, with East being a right-hand turn and West a left-hand turn. Using more traction for braking will result in less traction for cornering, with hard braking (Think “At the limits of locking up the tires”) resulting in virtually no ability to turn the car simultaneously. The same applies for acceleration. Remember this the next time you’re doing a rolling burnout in a parking lot and there’s a pole up ahead…

I spent the next few runs practicing weight transfer and thinking about the circle of traction, but while I was getting smoother my lap times weren't decreasing and something just felt "off" with the car. Sure enough, just after finishing my last lap one of the other drivers that was working the course came over to me and said, "Hey, so when the instructor was driving your car, a whole bunch of these little u-shaped metal things flew out from under your car. I hope they weren't important..."


So, there's not too many "little, u-shaped pieces of metal" that come standard on a GM, but here's one of the little guys that went flying. If you correctly guessed that it is an upper control arm alignment shim, then you probably have the same stomach-dropping feeling that I did at that moment...




Popping the hood revealed the extent of the issue. Kids, that's an entire stack of alignment shims that's missing from the rear of the passenger side upper control arm. If you don't know, those are used to set camber and caster for that wheel. Yup, I unknowingly drove at least 5 laps like that. Yikes.




But hey, I brought a floor jack, stands, and tools, so no problem right? Sure, except that I didn't think to bring alignment shims and the nearest auto parts store was a 20 minute drive away. After having a few more than generous people offer me rides and/or the keys to their car, I decided to call up said big-name parts store and had a conversation that would best be told as part of an "Unknown Parts Guy" blog item. Suffice to say that the parts jockey was more than a little confused when I asked if they had alignment shims in stock and told me that I'd have to drive down to see for myself.




Rather than risking losing the rest of the day, I made a trip to the local hardware store a mile away and bought every 7/16" washer they had in stock. Total cost? A hair over $2 and I was back on the track without missing a lap.




If pressed to supply a guess as to the actual camber and caster on this wheel post-repair, I'd wager "Good enough".




With the repair done and lunch over, it was time to get back in the car with the other instructor. His time was spent going over "looking ahead" and setting up for the next element, which are two of the most crucial skills needed to successfully navigate an autocross course given the limited number of looks (Runs) that you get per event. End of the day, if you're not looking ahead to where the car needs to be next, you're going to mess it up and slow yourself down. As he put it, "Position First, Speed Later. Speed is of no use if you're out of control."

Here's one of the runs with the second instructor driving the car. His focus was on smoothness and looking ahead to be set up properly for the next element.




While my lap times only improved by a second or two overall, keep in mind that those two seconds translates to roughly double on a full-length course. What isn't shown is better hand positioning and smoothness that I also picked up.



This last video shows a before and after of my second run, which was my fastest prior to instruction, to my third to last run, which was my fastest "clean" run as I hit a cone on my two fastest runs. To me at least, it's pretty obvious that by the end I'm doing a much better job of shifting the car's weight, positioning the car, and looking ahead. Oh, there's also 100% less F-bombs that needed to be edited out in the After run. Seems that I'm a bit foul-mouthed when I drive...(Somewhere, my mother is shaking her head in disappointment...)





End of the day, it all boils down to this: While adding improvements to your car like I did with the larger front sway bar can't hurt, the biggest bang for the buck for an inexperienced driver like myself is to get some time with an instructor and cure yourself of any bad habits before they're set in stone. All said and done, the school was less expensive than a single 200 treadwear tire, and it helped me to smooth out my driving and shave seconds off of my lap time. If your local autocross club doesn't offer an Evolution School or other Novice school, I'd highly recommend asking for an instructor or other experienced driver to hop into the passenger seat at the next event that you're at. You'll be surprised by how much insight you can pick up from the feedback from a single lap.

In the next installment, we'll see if I actually remember half of what I learned at the July 20th NER points event that I attended. I should have that written up in a few days.