I'm new here and not sure if this is the place I need to be but hope you can help me. My husband and I are wanting to start a new project for drag races. He is a pretty big motor head BUT not so much with the good ol American cars that I LOVE. My husband was into the Jap. cars for as long as I can remember. We currently have a Eagle in the garage that is being rebuilt for him to race but I need something American. When it comes to mechanics he knows his stuff but the technical stuff he isn't too sure on. At least not enough to start the project. Me, I'm just starting to do the dirty work myself. Ever since I was a lil girl I've loved the Trans Am and Camaro, which is what I want to race.

With this project I don't want to give it away just by showing up with the car on the track. Everyone knows how great these cars are! So, what I am trying to find a way to do is take my 2000 Grand Prix and only use the body but pretty much everything else is gonna be either a beefed up Trans Am or Firebird. Now from what I can tell is (if this is even possible) the Trans Am or Firebird will be what I need to use. So my first question is does anyone know if this is even gonna be possible?

Thanks!
Alysia

 

turn a grand prix into a transam.. thats a task, front k member, motor mounts, floorboards, rear subframe, re-engineer front and rear suspension, full roll cage, firewall, basically its alot of work because the transam is RWD and the grand prix is front wheel drive. It COULD be done but for the amount of time and $ youd would spend you could go faster with something else. youd be best off just modifying the grandprix stuff, you can make a fair bit of power with a 3.8l, forged internals, and either a supercharger or a turbo and intercooler, i kno a guy running into the 11's with a grandam. Food for thought

 

Ok I see what your sayin. you make some really good points there. We knew it would be alot of work and all and knew about the frnt vs rear whl drive. But some of the others you mentioned were the reason I needed to ask. Now there are just too many problems with the superchargers for the grand prix that I just would rather not mess with it. I haven't found much on the turbo though. I really wanted to start with that because my husband and I know a turbo like the back of our hands. (with him being into DSMs and all). So, I think I may go with the turbo. I would like to do a fmic if possible. So, here's my next question that you may be able to ans. How much would I actually have to mod. if I went with the Trans Am trans and rear end, but with out the full motor conversion?

 

i have a 2000 4 dr grand prix into the 13's on nitrous and stock tires this was the GT model (non supercharged). Im not sure where you got you're info that the superchargers are troublesome because there is alot of guys stock long blocks in the 11's and 12's with them. The eaton gen V's are pretty bad ***. The zzp car is twin turbo and in the 9's. To turn you're grand prix into a transam is really more work than its worth, when you can buy a rolling chassis transam for like 500 bucks in good condition. here's a couple sites that will help you out if you stick with the GP which i can help you out plenty with. and to my knowledge i'm the only grand prix gt in the 13's with stock everything accept for the nitrous kit and a tune. if i can get a analog-digital converter i'll put my vid's from the track on the internet.

www.clubgp.com
www.3800performance.com
www.intense-racing.com
www.zzperformance.com

 

To convert a front wheel drive car to rear wheel drive you go with a chassis from FJ Smith. http://www.smithperformance.com/ The majority of the converted cars running in SuperStock are an FJ Smith conversion.

 

There are quite a few guys around here running on stock GT with the supercharger or simply a stock GTP. The superchargers are just burning up too quickly usually within 3000 miles. With the advanced knowledge my husband has on turbos that would just be the best way for us to go. They last longer and if we do have one go out we can do most of the rebuilding ourselves so saving us more money in the long run. The time I know they can get. I've seen em do it. They will perform great. I'm just partial to the turbo. The other day I was on 3800performance and really loved one of the setups that they have. The big thing I want is a manual trans. We will be putting on nitro but want to wait for a while on that. With the feed back that we've gotten so far we have decided not to convert the whole thing. We're gonna add the turbo, trans cooler, nitro, and find a way to convert it to a manual trans. The trans will be the last thing we do though, would prob be more like next winter or something (that way we have lots of time to work on it, being in SD and all). I'll check out those sites you guys gave me and go from there.

Thanks for all the help so far guys! I've gotten more here than on the GP forums I've tried!!

 

Why not just get an F-body or build the GP. Makes no sense to spend so much time and money enigeneering something when its all done for you in another platform

 

Well first off, if people are only getting 3000 miles out of a supercharger they dont know what the F**k they are doing. I know a couple cars way over 130k on the stock one, and a few that have 40,000+ miles on modified or aftermarket ones. Either they arent filling them properly or with oil at all, or they are assemling them without checking clearances etc. As far as manual transmissions go, you MIGHT be able to bolt one up from a 3.4L grand am, but im not sure if its a direct bolt on or not. Turbo is a great way to go on those cars, as they share essentially the same motor as the GN's and turbo Regals. The reason you probably havent gotten much luck on the GP boards is because you ask alot of "dumb" questions....without doing any sort of research before hand.