Our 1979 Monte Carlo Pro Touring Project

[Zoomin]

I just ordered a set of your A -arms with the tall spindles for my Skylark on the Black Friday sale. Did a lot of research before pulling out the credit card and your products have a nice following out there. Nice to see how you guys actually use your stuff.

Good luck with your Green Machne.

[UMI Performance]

I just ordered a set of your A -arms with the tall spindles for my Skylark on the Black Friday sale. Did a lot of research before pulling out the credit card and your products have a nice following out there. Nice to see how you guys actually use your stuff.

Good luck with your Green Machne.

Steve, Thanks for the reply and I am glad to hear we were able to earn your business. You will be very pleased with the items once you receive them. If you can post some feedback once you get them we always like to hear it.

We are slowly working on the Green Machine, unfortunately the busy season has slowed us down a little but we will have some updates shortly. Thanks again!

[UMI Performance]

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for the lack of updates but we are finally getting back on this project and preparing it for spring.

The first steps are:

- Install and design C5 front brake swap
- Swap Transmission
- Install front suspension, then rear
- Wheels and tires
- Rebuild rear end

Right now we are working on the transmission swap. The TH350 and TCI torque converter in the car are shot, both need replaced. We are replacing the TH350 with a TH400. We choose the TH400 because we have a brand new never used TCI TH400 Street Fighter on the shelf

We are swapping the transmission now and I update as we make progress.

[UMI Performance]

Making a little more progress on the Monte project. Last week we had two new pieces of equipment come in (CNC Laser Cutter and CNC Turning Center) so it didn't allow us much shop time for working on cars.

Right now we are working on building the front brake bracket to mount the C5 calipers. The hub and rotors fit good as you can see below. You will have to cut some of the spindle. Once the kit is complete will have more pictures to share.

[Zoomin]

I'm running behind on my Skylark project because of other crap like you guys, so I haven't started it yet but will be soon. Nice to see you guys back at it again.

[UMI Performance]

Viking front and rear shocks just came in!

A Big Thanks to Viking Performance for coming aboard and helping with our G-Body build. With the Viking front coil over kit and rear shocks we will run the front of the car 2 to 2-1/2" lower and drop the rear 2" with drop springs.

More pictures to come of these babies installed and in action!

[UMI Performance]

We coated the old headers today. We decided since the headers were in decent shape and we knew they fit the car well we would reuse them. Also this helps to keep the project in mind of "pro budget". There were a few holes in the headers so we welded them shut and sand blasted the headers. We then took the POR-15 gray manifold paint and coated the headers with a couple of nice thick layers of paint. They turned out pretty good for not a lot of effort. The paint was $35 for the can and we still have some left.

[UMI Performance]

The rear end is out and we are preparing it for a rebuild and powder coat as well as welding in the axle tubes. We will be rebuilding it with Moser components and leaving the 3.73 gears.

[CodexGigas]

Nice. Can't wait to cop the Stage 4 Kit from You Guys for My 85 Cutlass.

[UMI Performance]

Nice. Can't wait to cop the Stage 4 Kit from You Guys for My 85 Cutlass.

Excellent to hear.

We will also be installing our Stage 4 kit on this car. We are started this weekend and I will have pictures posted this week.

Thanks for looking,
Ryan

[UMI Performance]

We would like to give a huge thanks out to Moser Engineering for helping with our project, our goodies just showed up! Not only did Moser supply great American made products they also spent a lot of time working with us on what we need. If you need a contact rep for Moser please let us know and we will be glad to help you.

Here is a little info on what we received and why:

Our Monte came with a pretty awesome rear end setup. It had 3.73's, a mini-spool (gasp), and stock axles. The mini-spool provided some good forward traction but also had the usual mini-spool troubles such as no differential action and the potential for disaster. Since we wanted to keep the original housing for budgetary reasons, we gave our friends at Moser Engineering a call for a solution. Their answer was a shiny new posi (Auburn 542040 High Performance series), a new rear cover to hold the bearing caps in place (Moser 7105), and their awesome Made In USA "Street Axles" with a 28 spline upgrade (more splines = more strength). These axles are 30% stronger than factory axles and will provide peace of mind while we're ripping around in the car. Sure, we could have gone full race but that takes a lot of $. We'll be detailing the proper way to set up the axle and get the Green Monster rolling safely on a budget.

[Todd in Vancouver]

OK remember you said it first in the above comments and I think the name should stick, "the Green Goblin". This will be a really cool build and with a name like that you can go wild with a funky colour scheme in different green shades. I've seen your kits in black and red but will you build a one-off suspension kit in green?

[UMI Performance]

OK remember you said it first in the above comments and I think the name should stick, "the Green Goblin". This will be a really cool build and with a name like that you can go wild with a funky colour scheme in different green shades. I've seen your kits in black and red but will you build a one-off suspension kit in green?

Thanks for the reply Todd! There is has been all types of negotiations here about the name, Green Monster, Green Machine, Green Goblin, Fried Green Tomato... all kinds of fun names haha.

We can do any color powder coat but we choose red to stick with our standard colors. If we do different colors we start getting a lot of request for custom colors, we can do them but really prefer not too. Red and green will clash but that is what makes this car ugly and nice at the same time

[UMI Performance]

We are starting the suspension build on our Monte and shot this picture before we started... I think it was a pretty good photo Lance our web admin does nice work.

We are installing our UMI Stage 4 kit on the car which includes Viking double adjustable shocks for all four corners, the front will be a coil over and the rear will have a 2" drop spring. The rear end will be rebuilt with Moser axles, differential and we will reuse the 3.73 gears that came in the car. Also we are installing C5 front brakes using a custom adapter bracket we built. The bracket C5 kit will be for sale shortly from us.

I will be posted some detailed pictures of the installation, they will come soon.

[UMI Performance]

We began the suspension overhaul on our Monte. Since we have the entire underneath of the car off this is a good time to touch up the floor and frame. To keep things simple we removed all of the loose rust and then wire brushed and sanded the underneath of the car. We will then use flat black paint and coat the underneath of the car. This works great because it prevents anymore rust and makes for easy touch ups when things happen. Fortunately the car is solid underneath with just surface rust.

Pictures below show the rear of the car before. Finished pictures to follow.

[83hurstguy]

You guys check the body bushing condition? My underneath had way less surface rust, and all four back body mount bolts had completely corroded away, the back half of the car was essentially floating on the frame! It's a crappy job, but necessary most of the time.

[UMI Performance]

Finally getting around to installing the suspension items.

We have a lot more pictures to share but here is one for now. Below is UMI front upper/lower a-arms, Delrin bushings, tall upper/lower ball joints and Viking front coil over kit with double adjustable shocks and 550lb springs.

[CodexGigas]

*Boing* Sexy

[UMI Performance]

Here are a few pictures of us prepping the rear end and welding on our #3010 relocation brackets as well as welding in the axle tubes. The installation of our #3010 relocation brackets is fairly simple and just requires an angle finder a welder. The angle finder allows you to set the correct orientation so longer or shorter control arms are not needed once the brackets are installed. Once installed you will then have four settings for the rear of the control arm, stock, 2", 2-3/4" and 3-1/2" lower.

Once the rear end is powder coated we can begin installing our Moser goodies

[UMI Performance]

We have a lot more pictures to share but here is two more for now as we install the suspension on the car.

This is our upper/lower a-arms with 1/2" taller ball joints along with our new Corvette C5 brake conversion kit.

First picture shows the aluminum conversion hub that will come with the kit, ARP studs and the UMI machined conversion bracket. The spindle does require cutting and we will show this soon.



Here is a completed installation picture of the C5 front brakes with our slotted rotors.