Creating an AWD Monaro.

I have thought about some more camber. Just don't want to destroy the tyres. Well not yet anyway.

I will see if I can get some good pics of the wheels. I am pretty sure that no one would pick them as being over track, after all they are the stock wheels. LOL But I just know they are on the limit of poking out the guards, so anything I can do to poke them back under a bit more is good.

 

The Adventra as is was bought at auction. Minus the binnacle gauges that were stolen at Pickles.


looks pretty good and and easy repair, but there was significant damage to the wagon area. Once opened the drivers side rear door didnt shut properly again.


With the rear bar now being NLA from Holden, pretty easy to see why they wrote it off. Still drove fine, gave it a lap of the block just to make sure driveline was all good with no scrapes or rattles.


Monaro got the job of towing the donor a short distance to the workshop. Its last gig to earn its keep as a rear wheel drive car.


Monaro engine and trans out. Easier to drop the whole lot from under the car.


Engine and trans dropped from Adventra.


Front view of Monaro engine cradle. Looks like a dinky toy compared to AWD Adventra one below.





No use for this any more. All the good bits have been extracted. Monaro front end was bolted back up to allow for easy moving.


Trans tunnel with AWD cross member is place but swinging in the breeze. Required the removal of the 2WD cross member bracket.


AWD bracket removed from the Adventra and welded in place in the Monaro.


Get that pesky carpet out of the way before welding, dont want the old girl catching fire.


Another view of the AWD cross member swinging in the breeze. Shows the position the the new AWD bracket needs to be welded in.


all done. Hard to see what is going on with the black paint, but AWD cross member in pace and all bolted up. Ready for engine and gearbox installation.


Installed. Used as much of the VZ stuff out of the engine bay as we could. Strut brace added as well. There was a few 'got yas' here. Lot of the accessories off the Adventra engine had to be installed on the Monaro engine. Would have been a lot easier to just installed the Adventra engine but wanted to keep the Monaro engine and number for rego purposes. Some of the pumps n stuff on the Monaro engine hit the AWD system, so had to be swapped out for the Adventra ones. Not a big deal, just a PIA.


Engine and gearbox from under car. Transfer case looks like it hangs way too low, but it is level with the engine cross member. Just the way the pic was taken.


Had to fit the Adventra Headers and Cats. 1, as the Monaro Extractors would not fit past the front drive shafts and the silly AWD cross member does not allow large pipes to pass through, even the stock Adventra ones have been flattened somewhat to get them to pass through. Will require a few mods to the cross member to open it up and get some bigger pipes through there



Engine bay finished with all the VZ accessories off the Adventra. Removed the VY overflow bottle and such, Cleaned the engine bay right up. Only issues with doing this was the wiring for the VZ engine fans was different to the VY system. So had to mix n match them all to get a system that worked.


My biggest fear with the build.... That the wheels would stick out too far and I would have to put a body kit on it. This is a VE wheel. The stock Monaro wheels sit under a little further and have since had 9mm taken off them as well. So while still not ideal, it is acceptable.


As the car sits now. Looks better with the new tyres as they fill the guards better. Dont want to (ie cant) lower the thing any more as with the Adventra suspension the lower control arms are already at a not ideal angle. It isnt bad, just not ideal. Will look into fitting all the Coupe4 stuff down the track, or even the possibility of going custom LCA's. But for now, just want to drive the thing and enjoy it.

 

Aim of the build was to do it as cheap as possible using as much genuine Holden stuff as possible. That way, parts are easy to get in future if required and the car is "what Holden could have / should have done.

Only thing we did that was custom was the rear tail shaft, we just cut n shut the Adventra one. But we could have bought a Coupe4 one, but being a tight wad, it was way cheaper to cut the Adventra one. But in all ways it is identical to the Coupe4. So essentially it is all Holden parts.

 

To fit the adventra front suspension into the VX you would need to drop the engine and box and fit the entire front K frame. For the back it would probably just be easier to drop the whole rear cradle and bolt up the Adventra one. Would raise the car up a lot. But would probably be worth just investigating at Pedders if they can jack up the original suspension. I would think that you should be able to get a couple of inches with the stock set up. Dont want to go spending more money than you have to.

But fit the whole Adventra AWD system for a really unique bash car. LOL Nothing would come near it on the dirt.

 

Next time I have it out of the shed I will grab a pic of the front of the car, it will show you how damn low the engine cradle sits, even as it sits now, I think you would have trouble getting a coke can under it, So I would have real trouble going any lower. But in saying that, those pics were taken with tyres that were nearly totally bald, it has new rubber now that is one profile series taller, so it actually fills the guard quite well... I will get some more pics and you can see what you think.

 

Still discussing what is next. Most likely a manual conversion. But dont want to use a T56 as not sure if it will take the punishment of the AWD system, and possible supercharging. So more looking at the T6060, but then not sure if it will fit.
Have also heard of a fella in Sydney that can get the flappy paddles on the steering wheel to work with the 4 speed auto, so looking at this option too.

All just talk at the moment as have no coin to do any more. But down the track it will happen.

 

Rest of the driveline seems solid.

Guy that built mine has a VZ AWD tonner, 6 litre supercharged. Running around 600hp and 1000 ftlb torque. He has a trutrac in the back diff and front diff is stock. No issues so far in 12K k's.

Was a TT Coupe4 in Sydney running 10 sec 1/4s on street tyres, with stock diffs.

The 4 speed auto is the weak point in the stock driveline if you want to run some big HP, but the rest seems solid. No issues with transfer case either.

 

Anyone know or have an alliance with a V8 Ute team in Adelaide? I am thinking of taking the AWD Monaro to another Hillclimb at the end of the month and the tyres those guys run would be a perfect size to fit on the Monaro rims. Just thought I could get a secondhand set and see how it goes with some sticky rubber.

Anyone??