Thought I would go ahead and start a project thread finally on my 76 2+2. I had been working on an 81 Malibu for some time, never got past body work, so it needed everything and was probably 3 years out of being ready for street/strip activities. Met a guy at a cruise in, said he was looking for one, and he had a clean Monza he was looking to trade. I Love Vegas and Monzas, well pintos and gremlins too, but I’m a chevy guy.
He looked at my car, it was super straight as I had been doing body work on it for about a year whenever I had the time. He wanted it, and me and my little guy head out to his place about an hour and a half away to see his car. I liked the car, it looked pretty good, and my boy liked it too, so we made a deal. I originally told him that the drag star wheels didn’t go with the car, but he swore up and down they wouldn’t fit right on the Monza if I wanted to tuck the tires in the wheel wells. Well, that was a lie, they were exactly the right size wheel and tire for the rears to tuck, but you live and you learn. He gave me a set of weld wheels in trade for the ones that “wouldn’t Fit”. I wanted the Monza really bad, so I looked right past giving him my wheels. Dumbass I am.
Got the car home, washed it as it was covered with dirt and threw on the new wheels. Already made a huge difference in the look. I borrowed a buddies extra 275x60 and weld wheel to see if I could use that size, but the tire was way to close for comfort, so it’s going to be a 255 when the time comes. It also had the 5 lug swap done. S10 axles, an auburn posi unit, and 3:73 gears. S10 spindles and brakes. I was pretty happy about that. Swapping the wheels, it has monza spindles, with drilled monza rotors for 5 lug. Dumbass.
Same guy I got the car from, is an engine builder. He had a healthy 355 for sale he was going to put back in the car, that he said he’d hook me up with at a good deal. It was a good deal, so I picked it up. The motor I was going to put in it was a 13 to 1 364 I had in the corner of my garage I was running on the street in my S10. I wanted to be able to run this car on pump gas, and the deal he gave me for the fresh 355 was cheaper than what I would have spent on going through the other motor to make it gas friendly. The next weekend, it was time to install the motor, with the help from my 4 yo of course. He’s a good little worker.
Car sounded nasty, and ran pretty hard up the street for test run. The specs on the motor were, .030 over 350 4 bolt main, forged TRW 10 to 1 flat top pistons, decent cam, camelback heads with 7/16 screw in studs, 2.02’s and 1.60’s.
Registered the car, and drove it to work for the first time. Went good on the way. Driving home, it spun a couple rod bearings. Tore it down, found it had cast pistons, .060 over not .030. Had it towed home for 170.00 bucks, called him up and he told me I must have spun the motor to high. Also said he never told me anything about what the motor had in it, but he feels bad so he’ll go back through the bottom end for free so I get back up and running. We don’t get along to good now….