1985 Monte SS with a ZF6

[SickSpeedMonte]

Hey guys,

I'm Bernie, and I'm pretty excited to join this forum after browsing around for a little bit.

My baby is a 1985 Monte Carlo SS that was my first car and I have been working on for the last 5 years. It started as a bone stock car in alright shape, and my daily driver. Since then, I have bought 3 other cars for daily driving (sold two of them) but the SS is sticking with me till the end.

It's got a 260 hp 350 GMPP crate motor with a Crane cam, all the bolt ons, and in dire need of a set of decent heads. I bought the motor at 17 when the rings on the original 305 started creating a blue smoke screen. The motor actually isn't as slow as I was thinking it would be though, trapping 98 mph in a 3750lb car (including me), so it should be around the 320-330 mark with the parts that I have on it.

I also ditched the slush box in favor of a 1993 black tag ZF 6 speed, which I later pulled and replaced with a blue tag so that I can have Bill bulletproof the black tag one day.

The car has been lowered 4" in the front with spindles and springs, and 3" in the rear with A body springs. I relocated the front inner fenders, had a custom mandrel bent 2.5" exhaust made up, and a bunch of other little things to make it driveable at this ride height.

Rolling stock consists of 17X8 and 17X9.5" American Racing Tracstars with 235/45/17 and 275/40/17 tires.

I fab'd a console for the 6 speed shifter out of fiberglass and covered it in padding and vinyl. That's probably one piece on the car that I want to re-do now that I have had some experience. It doesn't look bad, but I think that I can do better.

Paint is a 3 stage. Black base, violet toner, and clear. In the shade it looks black, in the sun it looks deep purple, and there are hints of blue in there too. Photographing it is very tough and it looks different nearly every time.

I've taken it autocrossing a few times (I definately want to go more, but it's hard to find time). I ran right on par with the modded WRX's

This is the only shot with the new paint. The rest were a 2 stage "bright violet" by DuPont. Then some 86 year old lady decided she didn't like my car so she re-designed the driver's side while the car was parked.










I've painted the overflow and washer fluid resevoirs since this shot. And got rid of the fan shroud, it's an old shot






I need to get some updated shots of the engine and interior, but you guys get the idea