CELEBRATING 20 YEARS!

This is a build I have always wanted to see, I just had this emailed to me from LSx this week. I would love to build something like this! The Monte Carlo here is being transformed into the best build we can imagine IMO!


https://www.chevyhardcore.com/news/...-secretly-packs-c6-corvette-performance/

I'm friends with Gordie the builder and have followed this build from the start. I've even been offered a chance to sit in the drivers seat which I will take advantage of if I can. Awesome build.

Lance,

With your knowledge and inside awareness of the build you should share with us some more details and performance expectations. Will he sell the car once done, or has someone commissioned the build?

What ever happened to Dan with the Schwartz chassis car? Did he walk away from everyone to avoid the competitive BS? That car was the best build to date that I'm aware of?

Ron.

Gordie and Aaron Oberle designed chassis brackets to use to adapt Corvette suspensions onto universal frame rails. Gordie built a Duster first and is now building the G6, plus a couple other cars for customers. Aaron is building a GTA using a similar plan.

They are using them to showcase how their kits work.

Dan is still around. Had a bout with cancer but is doing well now. He is still racing the Monte a bit, even had a little mishap with it at NCM last fall so it's currently being repaired and put back together. 2 years ago he built a killer little Willys truck for his daughter. Saw him and it at SEMA last year.

Very cool but the drawback (for me) is kind of what I assumed and after seeing the one picture in the article, that the interior will just about unrecognizable even when complete. But I doubt the owner cares

Here's a video on his Duster... Project Recycled...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LkgOW-5pwM

wow.

Hi Folks,

Intriguing! Whenever I see something this interesting, I like to make a list of pros and cons of what I see. Helps to track parallel lanes of thought development.

Pros
1. Better weight distribution: possibly close to 50%-50%.
2. Much wider track, apparently the same as a C6 minus possibly a deeper rim backspacing.
3. Better suspension geometry.
4. Better chassis torsional rigidity.
5. Ease of adapting various LS engines.
6. IRS and the numerous benefits that entails.

Neutral
1. Roughly conserved COM height aside from suspension height bias. A bit more precisely, the COM height of the sprung portion of the car's weight is roughly conserved.

Cons
1. $$$
2. $$$
3. $$$
4. IRS's limited anti-squat.
5. Simple, hacked-off wheel well perimeters with no pretense of the body extending out to the wheels scream, "I'm fond of the Dukes of Hazzard."

By the time I see $$$$$$$$$, I think, "I could do better for possibly less money starting with an electric drivetrain." The engine is still on the wrong end of the car. That's not to say at all, however, that the base chassis concept doesn't have a lot of merit to it.

Best,
MAP

I'm not sure the $$ part of it is that bad. Gordie built his Duster #projectrecycled under basically the same principle for $22,000 all in. I expect this one to come in around the same price. The bang for the buck at least track performance wise is there. Comfort wise and street manner wise will be on the light side but it'll be a monster on track.

Its a killer build for the money and for sure not a daily driver. If I had the car I could make a sweet set of flares and a well fitted dash and interior, to kind of resemble the street car appearance. These builds are based on low investment and function by the video and pictures. Skinning car bodies has become more and more popular. These guys have a good thing going I think.

Electric cars do nothing for me, I could careless how fast they are or any other positive. If it doesn't have a choppy idle with good exhaust note and some less desirable street manors what fun is it?

Ron

One thing is how much it cost Gordie to build it, and another is how much he would charge to do it for a customer. We too could go online, buy a $10k-$15k C6 rolling chassis, build a frame, and get an SS body for around the same total price. Also, if he sells only the chassis and drivetrain, then would the potential customer be willing to invest the considerable time and effort to adapt their donor body to the chassis?

In the end we either spend $$$ plus a mountain of time, or $$$$$$$$$$ for the finished product. If time <=> money, then no matter how you slice this, as the end customer, you're looking at $$$$$$$$$$.

About street versus track: with enough torsional rigidity improvement, let's say on the order of at least 3:1, the new package might have much considerably better NVH than the OE chassis when mated to the stiff tires prevalent nowadays. So, it might make a great daily driver too.

Electric: no problem SlowSS - forget that - just put the ICE in the rear where it belongs, like the C8

Best,
MAP

MAP, cars have went crazy from the factory now days, the new corvette is awesome and we can't ever make a G body one of those. When I think how fare to take a G body this post is about the best it will be. Although it's not a G body anymore it sure resembles one.

I will just implement to my G body AFX spindles, complimenting geometry changes and a true coil over suspension with additional frame support. And don't forget a power house of an NA engine. Racing auto cross races and drag strips doesn't have my interest anymore. I would much rather have a clean car than one that's tattered from abuse, different strokes for different folks, doesn't mean anyone is wrong or right, we all have our own ways and expectations from the builds.

Ron

Hi Slow,

Very sensible and reasonable point of view. Sometimes I need to take myself out of stratosphere mode and get my feet back on the ground.

So is there any word on how much he might charge for a G-body, and what one gets for that price?

Thx,
MAP

After revisiting that Chevhardcore site and taking a closer look at the photos, some further thoughts:

https://www.chevyhardcore.com/news/...-secretly-packs-c6-corvette-performance/

1. They had to chop-out the firewall and the entire floor extending into the trunk. No doubt the original rear fenderwells are gone too. Just this aspect alone of the build is major time and/or money.

2. 3:1 improved frame torsional rigidity compared to stock is a cinch. They might have even hit 10:1, suggested by the later shots that show more frame structure along the centerline of the car. No doubt the body will be hard-coupled to the frame, so NVH in this sense may take a hit. Or not - NVH is a complicated and oftentimes unintuitive thing.

3. Those hacked-out wheel openings look embarrassingly cheesy to my eyes. The cuts take out a bunch of body rigidity out too: if you look closely at the left rear quarter, you'll see they put a crease in the sheet metal above the wheel. Presumably new wheel well housings would fix that.

4. Any sort of body extension that would extend out so far as to cover the wheels might look very strange too, if not quite as cheesy. The difference in width between a C6 and an A/G body (on the order of six inches as I recall,) is simply too big to bridge with any sheet metal that's going to look stock. Or even stock-ish. Better to cut the body down the middle and widen the whole thing, especially considering how narrow the seats need to be to clear that large central frame box. How to handle the glass is beyond me: Marcus seemed to have something in mind years ago that would have surmounted this when I proposed my widened A/G body, but he never elaborated. Another option: widen the body right below the cabin superstructure, tapering the widening to stock at the extreme front and rear. I remember Paul C.has photos of a model of a racing MCSS with this theme. On the face of it, at any rate, the look is going to be somewhere between cheesy and very strange.

5. Done correctly, this could be a very driveable car on the street. But the cabin needs to get wider for comfortable seats with that large central frame box.

No matter how I look at this, I see $$$$$$$$$$. There's no way a customer is going to come in with an old MCSS and drive away with a finished car with all the goodies those photos suggest for less than $100k unless he's giving away his labor.

Of course, I'm open to being proven wrong, in which case I'd love to see his business model(!)

Best,
MAP

With C7's dropping into the 30k range, it would be hard to justify doing this.

Plus at what point does it stop being a G-body and become something else? Not much of the original car there.

Very cool, but not for me.

Great point. If all we're left with us is the exterior cosmetics, is it still an A/G body? I think it's become a given that if we want modern-day high performance in a configuration conceived more than a half-century ago, it's going to take radical surgery no matter what. And the cost will follow suit - it won't be cheap.

That's why I keep on saying that this hobby will eventually vanish as the cost of upgrading forever escalates, and the fans of the original design forever evanesce.

Radical surgery means, by definition, an exchange of a significant part of the car's original character for the enhanced performance we're looking for, to the extent original character and performance are mutually exclusive. And often, they are. So, we'll have to get used to keeping less and less of the car's original character to get that modern performance.

The saving grace here, however, is that I don't think we need to give up the car's appearance to do this. And appearance is, for me, the ultimate deal-breaker. I could be very happy with a car that looks like an A/G body, but handles and accelerates like a C8.

Back to this project: the increased width is probably driven by a desire to keep the swap simple by not having to narrow a C6 chassis. That's very understandable. And coupled with the package's reduced ride height (4-ish inches compared to a stock MCSS?) we get reduced lateral load transfer in a turn, increasing maximum transverse acceleration. But, we could keep the stock width of the car stock and get the same benefit by reducing the sprung mass' COM, and although I'm not trying to tout electric here by any means, I will say that electric accomplishes that and more. I mentioned putting an ICE in the rear for better weight distribution to suit a street car, but can you imagine trying to do that with an A/G body? The rear seat would be gone for sure.

Anyway, we keep on circling back to the theme that big performance gains will mean big surgery and big $$$$$$$$$ no matter what. Sad to say, that's 2020 for you.

Best,
MAP

Fortunately there is a lot of middle ground from "stock/original" to taking a C6 chassis and putting a body skin on it for optimal performance. Some people are happy with bolting on better/improved parts and seeing/feeling the results of that. And some still and will always enjoy hoping in a stock version and cruising around in it.

It's nice to see different builds and approaches to these cars, I sure wouldn't mind driving it but assume it would pretty much be a C6 with different sight lines from that racing seat. Not surprisingly I'm also in the "very cool but not for me" camp with this, even if I had the funds for it ready to go I'd probably rather do something else with that money. I think once the interior/floor is basically gutted it loses too much of what makes the car appealing to me and what the car is, or it's soul. In some ways its a nicer (ok much nicer) version of what some stock car guys do with g-bodies, taking roof skins/body panels and putting them on some chassis or back on a caged/tweaked g-body chassis.

Hi PB,

Yes, I keep on thinking about the bleeding edge of performance while ignoring the huge middle ground where most of us could live happily ever after. So hope, after all!

But I keep scratching my head when I see that Monte with wheel openings looking for all the world like they were cut by a third grader with a crayon that got carried away with a Sawzall. The shapes of the openings look awful. "Circle track" and "Dukes of Hazzard" again...

I think the only option left that makes any sense at all is that this is a "look" that the builder thinks is distinctive for his brand, and isn't too offensive for the potential buyer. Plus, he can apply it to any car, so it's a minimum-fuss solution.

But talk about a look that violates the car's original character!

Anyway, for me too, I'd pass, even if I had the money burning a hole somewhere. I firmly believe that a 4" increase in maximum body width is as wide as you can go without transitioning into an unacceptably weird appearance.

Best,
MAP

As someone that loves to fabricate, I appreciate the build. If it was me I would split the car in half widening the entire body then flaring the wheel openings similar to a GNX but with steel. In personally would need to retain the OEM look and interior with a fit finish close to factory. I would never do anything like this to MY SS though. The car means way too much to me, heck I can't even stomach knocking in the frame rails and mini tubing it. This execution will evolve most likely with more refined examples as others dive in. All in all I'm stoked to see this as I have always wanted to see a C6 under a Monte Carlo.

I agree with Travis. It's cool that folks are willing to go to the extreme with a G-body. However, I have multiple sentimental attachments to mine and just couldn't take it to that extreme. I have to admit, it's been used and abused at times, but I'm bringing it back out with minor suspension mods and a little tamer engine to be more "driveable". I never thought the handling was terrible when it was stock, but about all the spirited driving I did other than a straight line was hitting the on ramps a little faster than most. I may feel differently when I get it going after driving a G8 GT for the past 10 years - lol

Also agree (and I'm not really a Vette guy) - before I would drop the coin on something like a frame swapped Monte, I'd drop the dime on a low mileage C6 (I can get in and out of it better than a C7) and throw a Magnuson on it (or buy a high mileage one on the cheap and build a 427 with killer heads and smallish cam). Maybe do some bang for the buck suspension mods with sticky street tires and call it a day..

My two cents, build what you want, to each his own.
Got to give the guy credit, he has the desire and talent to do a build like that. So the cost of such a build for him is parts. I know for the thousands of hours I have in my car the return would be about 2 cents an hour when the car gets sold. We have all seen the 100 grand street rod build that sold for 30 grand.

In his Duster video he mentions Aaron Oberle as a close friend who drove the Duster at LS Fest. I'm thankful that i had the opportunity to meet Aaron and actually get three ride-a-longs at UMI King of the mountain event this past Fall. Aaron's 65 Malibu has a Mast LS, a frame designed/build by Aaron and gets around an autox course very well. I can see how Gordy and Aaron play well together.

Do I like the stock car wheel wells look, not really but again to each his own. Do I like the huge tires on the car, YEP.

Several years ago at Super Chevy there was a early 60 red Vette that had a C5 chassis/driveline under it. It was impressive at the time, very expensive build but you wouldn't know it visually from the outside. That's more my speed, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Bob

I agree that if the body is going to get 6" wider, then the best way to do that is by widening as much of the original body as possible. But ultimately the body needs to taper back to original width at the front and rear so that the factory front and rear fascia pieces and bumpers can fit. The biggest obstacle is the windshield and rear window. How to deal with that? Graft a 6" section of glass in the middle of each with a silicone elastomer butt-joint bond leaving two very ugly witness lines? I wish we could get Marcus back here to share his vast custom-fabbing knowledge. Btw, that chassis is probably going to be 100-150lb heavier than a stock A/G body. The engine, if aluminum, may be about 100lb lighter than an SBC, but there's easily 200(+) lb of extra mass in that very substantial frame. And I don't think that extra mass has been spent in the best places to gain maximum rigidity - for example, I think that big central box inside the cabin is unnecessary and its benefits could be duplicated by a growth in the side rails. What a great project for some FEA mechanical modeling! Even building scale models could yield a lot of insight, as Herb Adams used to advocate.

I think I've seen efforts to narrow a C6 chassis too, along the lines of deeper rim backspacing and/or shortened control arms and axle halves. I'd concentrate on the best combination of C6 narrowing/MCSS body widening to get the job done, and I suspect the "sweet spot" of that compromise would be a 4" growth in body width, concentrated at the location of the wheels. Zero growth in cabin width, and get rid of that big central frame box, so wide, comfortable seats can still fit. That way the package can be tuned for the street and the track, instead of just being relegated to the very specialized, and thus small, niche market of track use alone.

Here's a concept drawing of an MCSS stretched by 3.5"; 4.0" would still be feasible:



I wish I could say I currently own an MCSS that I wouldn't want to hack (and how I can appreciate that sentiment,) but imagining myself in your shoes as I easily can, I would buy another A/G body expressly for this project.

Basically I agree that if we want the best bang for the buck, buying a used Corvette makes way more sense. I remember some posts with Mark Stielow where I basically asked him why he was contorting himself in so many difficult and expensive ways to make a first-gen Camaro perform well when he could just start with a Corvette, but he answered something to the effect that it boils down to a love for the original car.

So for Mark as well as for us, if we want to have Corvette performance in our cars, it's going to cost some major coin.

Any news about how much Gordie would charge for a turn-key MC(SS) modified as we're seeing here?

Thanks,
MAP

Speaking of narrowing the C6 platform, this company seems to offer very nice options:

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/bolt-corvette-irs-suspension-project/

They offer narrowed IRSs and narrowed front suspensions based on C5 and C6 chassis. Plus a mid-engine option to mount an ICE right where the MCSS back seat area is, of necessity turning the car into a two-occupant driver. I found the "type IV" conversion most interesting, because it's a mid-engine S10 (same track and wheelbase as an A/G body,) that uses a Mendeola SDRS rear.

I'm sure this is $$$$$$$$$ too. At least the resulting car wouldn't look like Fred Flintstone built it - forgive me.

Best,
MAP

There for a while I was trying to design something similar. Wanted to narrow it so the wheels are tucked in, or flare the fenders a bit like GM did on the Monte they built. Also I made the front frame so it wasn't so straight, thought this would provide some crush zone if ever in a front end crash. Yea I know, lower front crossmember isn't attached. Thought maybe if I ever bought a front cradle I would incorporate it, but have it narrowed a little bit.

According to Google, the width of an 87 Monte SS is 71.8 inches. And according to Cleveland Performance, the outside dimension of rear tires is 71 inches. So it wouldnt take much narrowing to make it work. You would have to use deep backspacing wheels like the OEM Vette ones.