Our 1979 Monte Carlo Pro Touring Project

[UMI Performance]

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share a few pictures of the 79' Monte Carlo we just picked up for a new project. We chose this car because of the virtually rust free and untouched body, solid under carriage and original paint. This car give us a great start for our project. The car currently has a 350 0.040 over, 202 heads, TH350 with 11" TCI breakaway converter and 3.73 gears with a true lock posi, it feels very strong! Over winter we will be turning this car into a pro-touring machine with a full UMI suspension, lowered, front and rear brake upgrade, wheels, tires, seats and driveline modifications. Right now it is set up for drag racing so we have a little work to do to make it handle. We are also keeping this is a budget build, we are just like most of you and don't have thousands on top of thousands to invest into all our projects. So we will be keeping all our customers in mind as we build a fun pro-tour/street machine at a decent price! We will be doing a build thread and step by step installation of all the UMI products so stay tuned.



Thanks for looking,
Ryan
http://www.umiperformance.com

[BulldawgMusclecars]

Very cool! Looking forward to seeing more.

[SS PUNISHER]

Nice! Don't change the color plz! Some color matched 17s would look sick!

[Tony_SS]

Looking forward to it Ryan!

[SRD art]

Nice! Not only a g-body but an ultra unique one. Love the color!

[UMI Performance]

We are keeping the color for now to offer the sleeper look! Hopefully we will have some updates soon.

[UMI Performance]

We got the car up on thew lift yesterday and I snapped a few pictures of the car as it stands right now. The underneath is solid with just surface rust, no holes and frame looks great as well. I took a few pictures of the cut outs the previous owner installed.

We took the car for one drive and the transmission quit shifting already. We pulled the pan and found a ton of metal chips in the pan and filter. The transmission is most likely ruined, we are going to try a filter/fluid change first and see if that fixes it temporary.

[SRD art]

Yeah, I don't think a fluid change will help that one, lol!

Great clean start. Are you doing a frame out rebuild? These frames are incredibly weak. Boxing makes a huge difference, and you'll want to tie the front and rear frame rails together too if you're gonna beat on it at the track.

[UMI Performance]

Yeah, I don't think a fluid change will help that one, lol!

Great clean start. Are you doing a frame out rebuild? These frames are incredibly weak. Boxing makes a huge difference, and you'll want to tie the front and rear frame rails together too if you're gonna beat on it at the track.

Transmission is shot I am sure. We are going to see if we can patch it up for a few before test runs on the skid pad and slalom.. we will see.

For this winter we will be leaving the car together and just building the suspension, tuning up the driveline, interior, brakes and wheels/tires. The future may bring a frame off to this car. Over the winter we are doing a frame off on our 72 LeMans so we didn't want to tackle two at once.

Thanks for looking!

[UMI Tech]

On Thursday October 11th we took the UMI fleet to Penn State's test track for a day of data gathering and tire burning.



One of the combatants was our new (to us) Green Monster as detailed in the above threads.



As a quick summary, the Green Ghost has old school SBC power and can ignite the 235/60-15's at will. The 3.73's and mini-spool powers both rear tires but traction is still quite non-existent. The TH350 has a TCI Breakaway converter with 2200 rpm flash and works nicely for part throttle driving. Yay.

First stop was the skid pad. We wheel-measured a 200ft diameter flat skid pad as used by leading publications such as Motor Trend and Road & Track. The asphalt condition was worn but in relatively good condition. A few sections had minor cracking and ripples which put our shocks high speed damping to the test (mainly for the other cars - the Green Goblin had stock Monroe's on it). The temperature was 55 deg F with sun and brisk wind. Tire pressure was set to a factory recommended 32 psi. With factory suspension front and rear and Firestone Firehawk SS20 235/60-15's it felt like we were driving on ice. Between the 500 treadwear rating of the FireSTONE's and the healthy horsepower, we could hang the back end anytime we wanted. When driving sensibly the Green Weenie circulated around the skidpad at 14.2 seconds for an average of 0.608g and a tendency to push [understeer, plow, howl the fronts, etc.]. After Ryan, Jerry and I completed that session we installed our new 3044-275 Pro Tour rear sway bar and chose the middle hole of the three hole adjustable arm. The middle hole is considered an auto-x or handling setting. The long hole is for street use and the short hole functions as a drag anti-roll bar. Of course tuning and testing will yield the best results. Jerry was first out with the new bar and it was immediately evident that the increased rear roll resistance made the car extremely loose, as in dangerously loose, as in Jerry laughing the whole time with the back end hanging out.



In some cases it had LR tire off the ground.



Talk about fun. The three of us averaged a best of 14-flat when driving sensibly. The 3044-275 improved our balance enough to achieve 0.626g although the tendency was to break the back loose immediately upon throttle-on. This may seem bad but we expect our 1.250" front bar to balance the rear roll resistance and make the car awesome. We expected this result when using such low roll resistance up front. With the massive oversteer we decided not to try the front hole on the 3044 as it would have just oversteered a lot instead of really a lot...

Next step was the 600 ft cone slalom (another MT and R&T test). It consisted of seven cones spaced equally at 100ft. With the Green Tomato entering the first cone at the industry standard 45 mph all kinds of hilarious stuff happened. Jerry was the unofficial "loose condition" test driver and attacked the cones like a man possessed. Possessed with laughter. At one point Jerry had the car so out of shape it was close to bicycling on two wheels.



When the smoke cleared (literally!) we knew we had some work to do over the winter, as if we didn't know that already. The good news is, our test event went well and showed that the Pro Tour bar fit nicely, worked nicely and functioned as intended.

We also tried a few drag style launches with the Green Giant. With the factory bar out back, the car would raise the left front all out of shape before finally settling into an out of shape mess. With the 3044 bar set to 2 of 3, it would launch straight and true.



When we got more traction via tires and UMI suspension, we anticipate need to move the bar to the shortest hole for more of an anti-roll drag bar effect. If that proves to be too light, stay tuned for our 1.250" solid anti-roll bar debuting in a few weeks. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter at the top of umiperformance.com for the latest product announcements.

In summary, a stock suspension Monte Carlo on Firestones and worn out suspension doesn't work very well. It does however bring a smile to your face. The Pro Tour bar was a step in the right direction and we were thrilled to have it work so well on its maiden "hardcore" test. The best part of test day was how much we learned and the data we gathered. Look for the Green Monster to be awesome when we head to the track in April 2013. It will be lower, meaner, and faster but rest assured, it won't be greener.

[Rick Dorion]

Cool. I'm, looking forward to your front bar for my Bel Air.

[SRD art]

Very cool that you have the place to test things as it all comes together. Looking forward to more test results as things get beefed up!

[Rick Dorion]

Are there plans for an adjustable rear bar for the 65-70 B-bodies?

[HELLCAMINO]

Awesome write up Ryan......hey, hope you can make it to Hershey Park Giant Center next weekend (Saturday or Sunday) Oct. 27/28 for the last SCCA Autocross event I talked to you about at Carlisle.

[UMI Tech]

Are there plans for an adjustable rear bar for the 65-70 B-bodies?

Hey Rick.

That project isn't on a list yet but your question is how we develop our product ideas...

[Tony_SS]

Thanks for sharing... looks like a blast! Green eggs and ham looks good!

[Trans]

Car reminds me of the **** I take when i eat spinach and green beans lol!

[Mudweizer]

Nice car! Look forward to the updates

[dsapper]

As for part ideas, I have quite a few. I just built a pro-touring grand national. There is tons of problems with the frame flexing. We custom made a bar that bolts between the two rear frame rails to stiffen things up. SC&C makes a front triangle brace for the front frame of the car but its overpriced for 3 straight tubes and has fit issues with grand national intercoolers. The crossmember selection is weak and is missing any option for grand nationals with the single exit down pipe. Spohn makes a good pro touring rear sway bar but there aren't any modern options for the front end

[JAWSS]

I am looking forward to more updates on this one. My first GM V-8 RWD car was a 79 Monte Carlo. It was Black and had a nice Texas sun baked gray interior with bucket seats and console. I know what you guys are capable of, my 70 Chevelle has every part offered from you guys on the front and rear suspension and I love it.

J