Thread: 3800 Monte Carlo

Hello guys, I'm Neal Hanson and have been working on my natural aspired 3800. I have some questions for you. So far what have done is had the block bored to 20000 thoudnds over and put in JE Forged pistons (flat top) and rings. H-Beam connecting rods. Crank ground and hardened. X-P Hot cam. Removed the balance shaft and filled the gullys Put on double timing chain set. New oil pump with machined cover. New timing cover. I have ZZP heads stage 3 with the multi layer metal head gasket to put on. What kind of rockers should I use? LS7 lifters. L36 supercharger kit. would the 33# injectors be right for this set up? ZZP Headers with egr delete. What size down pipe should i use? No cat but what would be good to use for exhaust after the down pipe? Should i run an inner cooler? What kind of spark plugs should i run? The super charger has the 3.8 pully can i go smaller and how much? What are your thoughts on this build any concerns? Any tips or suggestions?
Thanks again.

Not sure on your experience level with the GM 3800, but did you assemble the shortblock yourself or have a machine shop do it? If you didn't have it align bored and whatnot then you may end up with the "200-mile motor". Meaning it will grenade itself in under 200 miles. The bottom ends on these motors are tough/expensive to get rebuilt properly, which is why most just get a used one and go from there. Rebuilding one of these properly isn't like a Chevy 350.

You could run an intercooler. You want the hottest spark you can get w/o seeing KR (knock). I would stick with the 3.8 pulley until you have the ECM tuned for the top swap. Even stock the S/C cars have knock. With a top swap you raise the compression which makes it that much more prone to knock. You need an Aeroforce or another way to scan the motor to see what the knock is, among other things. Once you have it tuned good, then consider dropping pulleys. If not then you could end up just chipping pistons and trashing the motor all over again.

If you haven't read the "Safely modding your 3800" thread on here, that would be an excellent place to start to answer your questions.

Slick2500, when you said: "In order to use rockers you would have to mil down the valve guides since you are running a cam already."
were you refering to some sort aftermarket ratios or that in order to even run the stock rockers that I would need to mill the valve guides?

And thanks for everybody for replying, been working a ton, had no time and I had issues getting logged on.