1984 Monte Carlo SS

[jimsmonte]

I am looking for some reasonable options/opinions to improve the handling of my completely stock 1984 Monte Carlo SS.

[JAWSS]

First of all welcome!! Its good to see another G-Body Monte Carlo SS on here. As you will find out everyone here loves pictures! I have not yet delved into the handling side of my 86 Monte SS yet but, I have found that these cars handle well with a nicely rebuilt suspension. I have replaced all factory ball joints and bushings with Moog components and the front and rear springs are Moog as well. On my 70 Chevelle I used the full UMI stage 3 kit and I love it!! If that is out of your budget I would suggest the Hotchkis Front and rear 1" drop springs and the Bilstein shocks along with the factory upper and lower control arms with the Moog ball joints and bushings as mentioned. I think you will enjoy those improvements more with a nice braking system upgrade/ re-build. I rebuilt my rear drums awhile back and added the 1998 - 2002 Chevy S10 Blazer front brakes and bled the whole system thoroughly. For a street car with no track time yet, it works superbly. If you have any other questions or Monte Carlo specific issues, check in at www.montecarloss.com as well. I am under the same name there.

J

[vintageracer]

Search "G body" on the this site.

You will find more than enough information to answer you question and keep you reading for hours!

Everyone has their favorite suspension package. With the search function you find discussions on all the current vendor offerings!

[BMR Sales]

Welcome to the site! We offer just about anything from sway bars & Bilsteins to all out tubular A-Arms, boxed rear lower arms, relocation brackets, adjustable uppers, etc. QA1 also offers coil-overs for the front as well.

[lsx80monte]

I am looking for some reasonable options/opinions to improve the handling of my completely stock 1984 Monte Carlo SS.

Im new here too. I just installed a 34mm hollow front sway bar from a 90 or 91(cant remember which yr exactly)camaro. Reduced some weight over the solid ones that come on our cars. Handling was much improved and it was only $30 from the yard. Oh I did buy some $20 poly end links cause the ones on camaro were shot. I wouldnt recomend kyb shocks. I will be upgrading to some bilsteins soon.

[mc84_zz4]

There are multiple options for our cars, and it all depends on budget.
Depending on your cars' condition and mileage, I would almost assume that it has 130,000 miles or more.
Based on that, the front end bushings are probably in desperate need of replacement.
www.p-s-t.com offers stock rubber, or poly-graphite bushings.
SummitRacing.com also has a full rebuild kit from Moog.

If you have a bit more budget, I would seriously consider a full suspension package, similar to the one BMR offers, there also are options from Edelbrock, UMI Performance, Hotchkiss, and my favorite site: www.scandc.com
SC & C has several offerrings including: Spohn, UMI, SPC, Hellwig, Currie, and more.
Depending on what your budget or how many steps you want to break down your upgrades into, one big package or several smaller ones...
Mark Savitske (SC&C) can offer you some of the best advice on what to put your hard-earned money into, and may even steer you away from buying parts that may not do much toward your goal, that was a first for me, a vendor telling me to keep some money...

I do believe that a front sway-bar bushing upgrade to poly or poly-graphite, new rear sway bar (pro-touring style), new shocks, new tires/wheels will seriously upgrade the feel of the car.
Replace the 15" wheels/tires for some 17x8" (4.5 backspace) and 245/45/17 tires all around, and it's worlds apart already, you can go even wider in the rear with 9" or 9.5" wheels and 275/40/17 with a 5.0" backspace.

18" wheels will work about the same, you just will give up a bit of sidewall, depending on how bad your streets are, it may or not be an issue. Expect the budget to demand an additional $500-$2,000 for a set of similar wheels/tires from 17' to an 18", depending on brands.

If you add to that: rear LCA, adjustable rear UCA, and SCandC's Stage 2 front end (tall ball joints w/adjustable front UCA) will radically change the steering/handling of the car. Add some coils and you got the handling covered.

The Bilstein shocks will manage the turns and bumps extremely well, if you want to spend more; QA-1 single adjustables are about 150 ea, Vredstein are about 200 ea, Varishock similar, double adjustables in any of those are of course higher, coil-overs even more, etc.
The budget can get pushed into nosebleed territory easily.

There are additional improvements such as a Lee Performance steering box (a huge improvement IMO, from SCandC), and a front frame brace (also SCandC) that can improve to the solid feel of the car.
Brakes are an entire budget topic by itself, as there are several improvements, swaps, or full replacement with 13" or even 14" rotors (www.scandc.com www.kore3.com)

HTH

[SicMonte]

Dave....great post!!! Very very very good info there!

This is my build up thread. Lots of pics and info in here.

https://www.pro-touring.com/showthre...oject-SicMonte