I know to many Pontiac Purists and Camaro Enthusiasts this might not sound good, but I am looking to convert a 1987 TA into an All-Wheel Driver amongst other upgrades to the car. I have been looking at diagrams and pricing parts to make this happen but I am hoping that someone out there would have some tips or tell me that it is just not doable. I feel that it might be and would have a whole host of benefits.
I also plan to convert to an independent rear end for better rides on long drives. I intend to convert this TA into an excellent grand tourer.
If you might have some input on this I would appreciate it. Thanks.

 

i dont want to discourage you or anything- but it doesnt seem economicaly worth it- for the cost to do that- will it really be worth it- these cars handle great- independat rears suck. look at the new GTO when you get on it look at the wheel hop it produces.

 

Anyway, to answer your question deuce, there are much easier and less costly ways to achieve your goals.

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...ghlight=%2Bawd

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...ghlight=%2Birs

 

The benefit to an independent rear is greater handling on smooth, slick surfaces, not to mention the potholes that our interstates tend to have.
Also, take a look at the LS1 conversion Bruce Hawk did on his 1992 Formula. I am sure that people told him that was not a great idea with 3rd gens not having a gigantic following like 1st, 2nd and 4th generation owners. Anyhow I am not looking to make the car resellable, but for my own personal enjoyment. The other upgrades that I would be looking at doing are: Install a 350 LT1 or at least bore out the 350 TPI and port and polish the heads. Also I will install a rack and pinion steering system on the car as well. I feel that AWD would just pull all of these elements together and make the car more than powerful enough, and handle as nimbly as a much smaller European Import designed for the Autobahn.

 

The key to the nimbleness is the smaller part, not the AWD part.

Ever driven an Audi A8. Not nearly as nimble as an eS2 or A4/S4 car.

<---- Audi Owner, and member of ACNA

There migh get some input on the IRS part of this, as a couple of people have converted and used C4 IRS parts on the rear. You won't find anyone who has converted to AWD. Realisticly, if you have the fabrication skills to pull off converting to AWD, you likely wouldn't be asking this question in this forum. If you have ever looked at the nuts and bolts of an AWD car, you would undertand some of the major hurdles you would be facing. The biggest being the location of the motor, in relation to the front spindle location. You are looking at moving the engine forward likely 12" or more, and that is just getting you started.

 

Of course an IRS is superior to a solid axle in almost all categories, general ride quality and handling through rough corners being two of the most obvious. AWD is also superior in many instances...but like the IRS, the issue is feasibility; like Dewey said, Im not sure you realize how much fabrication and work this would involve. Where exactly would you put the front differential? Transfer case? Where would you move the engine to when the front drivetrain displaced it? There is barely enough room under an f-body for the stock drivetrain, let alone the addition of 50% more components. Actually Im not even sure how you would ever get the car aligned properly. Honestly, Id say go ahead and just forget the AWD pipe-dream, and if youre genuinely serious about an IRS...start saving, then make plans if you still think its worth it.

If this is a big concern for you, maybe you should consider a different car?

 

Just trying to throwout some ideas, but how far does a dry sump oil pan stick below the engine? More or less than a regualr wet sump system? Could that coupled with raising the engine a couple inches provde enough room for a decent front diff?

 

in a typical AWD system, the front diff is more or less bult into the tranny. You might check how the front diff is done on the sy-ty, but if you were doing some sort of transfer case with center diff in it, and a front diff, you would need ALOT of room, and it would add a ton of weight. trans tunnel as it is in the f-body, I cannot image how you would a transfer case and make it fit.

 

Pound up the floorboards. Who needs passanger seat?

Are most AWD cars setup in FWD manner with a driveshaft to the back? (oversimplified, of course)

 

This legacy next to me (boss's car ) the front is driven almost like a FWD...

 

Yeah, that's the exact car I was thinking about. My buddy drives a 97 legacy that got me thinking that.

Tranverse mounted engine/awd

 

I guess while you are at it, you could probably figure out a way how to stick a 4 banger with dual turbos in there. Scrap the trans tunnel and find a transaxle from a different model. But at this point it may be easier to design entire frame/suspension/drivetrain from scratch and then take body panels from your f-body.

bottom line... nothing is impossible but....

as for IRS. I read somewhere that when 3rd gens where first being designed. GM did some research and comparison and for regular racing found that solid axle was actually better, so they went with it.

IRS definitely has some advantages. I've seen very detailed C4 IRS conversions online.

 

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I know that the GTO has been given an IRS for a good reason. Off the line its not not quite as good as a solid axle (differing about .02 of a second in the 1520 or so.) But like I said I am looking for a better ride quality than the solid rear delivers. An independent rear allows each wheel to track the road seperately, so that is what I am wanting to do. Thanks for the input on the AWD idea, I am going to drop that. It seems that I would have to either drop the solid, proven Chevy Small block to make it happen, or re-engineer the entire front end of the car. I will stick with Rear Drive as is. The main mods that have been decided are:

Rack and Pinion Steering
Conversion to LT1 Fuel System
Addition of Turbo to LT1, aiming for about 20 lbs. of boost
Port and Polished Heads
Addition of Funtional Ram Air Hood
Addition of True Dual Exhaust from Flowmaster
Conversion to IRS
Full interior Restore

If people could give anymore ideas I might put them in place. This project is going to take at least a couple of years, mabye a little more.

 

In my honest opinion, the only way you could do this would be to fabricate a whole new chassis from the firewall up. the parts already exist from gm for your AWD dreams: AWD Astro's and blazers have them. but you are looking at alot of frabrication time, unless you are an engineering major, your not likely to acomplish this goal any time soon. But if you are, i believe, it IS possible. all it is is cash and time, in that order.

 

You're going to have fun with the rack an pinion; why do that?

What are you talking about "lt1 fuel system" ?

Ditch the stock heads and go aftermarket.

You'll have to be creative with the dual exhaust. Doesn't happen alot, but it defiantely can be done.

 

I thought rack and pinion was instead of power steering. People used for drag only cars so they could remove the pump and free up few more horses. If this is what I think it is, your car will feel like a truck, not a sports car because ratio is much larger.

I'd go the other way. Find hi ratio gear box from IROC/WS6 packages. lock to lock 2.25 turns of the steering wheel.

What exactly again do you want from this car? This is the first thing you need to answer and try not to lie to yourself. Are you building it for handling, raw horse power, or driving a lot of highway miles. Track only? will you ever drag? autocross? road race? With current gas prices, your 5.7 with turbo ain't going to be too friendly on your wallet.

Are you planning on lowering the car? probably not since you were asking about AWD . These cars don't really have room for dual exhaust system. Every setup I've seen, the pipes where just hanging there and it was pretty close to the ground. Now lowering for those people.

I'd say go with hooker headers and a single decent 3" cat back system with muffler that splits into two tailpipes. There is a little hp difference between this and dual, but I doubt you will notice it.

About the turbo, you'll need to check with power adder people (I am not one of them), but 20 lbs sounds like a lot for bottom end you are not planning to change. Usually when people put a turbo on, they try to lower the compression ratio of the engine to 8-8.5.

Don't forget about the computer. With that much turbo, I am pretty sure it will have to be reprogrammed. Might have to also get a different cam. Again just throwing out warnings, not an expert.


If you really are going to do all this and plan on taking several years, how about just do a complete restoration. Strip everything, fix the body, freshen up suspension (which should probably be done anyway) and then figure out what kind of engine and what kind of power you want.

 

Duals on a 3rdgen would be able to be custom fab'd up. Most Midas kind of place won't touch 'em because you'll need to relocate or delete the cats. On a high hp car it'd definately be more beneficial to run duals over the single 3". The 3" isn't the be all end all.

 

dual exhausts do have their place and yes they will give your more hp (10-20? don't know how much over a good 3" setup). When I started planning my car, over a year ago. I wanted to do duals, but after reading things and looking at everything I've decided to go with single 3".

Again, it all depends what you are building the car for.

Most likely dual exhaust will not help on the street and may even hurt because larger pipe cross section at part throttle under typical city/highway driving may not produce enough scavenging.

Then again. I am still working on my first car and didn't even get to engine/exhaust yet, so what do I know. Everything I wrote here is what I've seen other people say on this board. Just providing another point of view

 

The 4th generation cars as wel as the C5 corvettes used Rack and pinion because it was more precise the the old system that was in the previous cars for about 20 years.

On the True Dual exhaust, it will not be hard at all to do that. In fact, that would probably be the easiest part of the project. I will have it going through 2 High Flow cats and end in 4" chrome tips at stock locations or the old ones. (Looks good where they are.

edit:
One mroe thing, on the LT1 Fuel system I will be basically be taking a motor out of a 1997 TA to do the work on. I chose Lt! because it has a lot of potential and is a lot cheaper than a new LS1 out of a later model TA of 'Vette. (It'll save about $2500.) I know that this is going to be expensive, so I am going to have to balance upgrades and performance with my budget.

I found a wrecked 1986 Corvette in town and am now talking to the owner about purchasing the rear end from him. (Gotta get things going.)

edit 2 to undead: You'll be surprised to know that my brother is a 3rd year Mechanical Engineering Major at Texas Tech. In case anyone cares, probably not, I am just a Network Administrations Major, basically going for a BCS(Bachelor's of Computer Science.)

 

I've seen this unicorn! I have seen it.. It was in a hot rod magazine of GM's top 25 freaks or something. twin turbo'd vettes, the mid engine vette, the 86 or 88 AWD Camaro, with rear steering assist! I will have to look this up but GM did this they were thinking of marketing it in australia. They said the designing required to much additional fab to be " cost effective " but that would be the ultimate way to go!

 

Guys give up on the AWD already, it's very simple really. There is only 5" of space betweent the crank shaft and the bottom of the chassis, so there is no way to get a differential into this space. The SY/TY's were able to do this because the engine was about 8" higher in the chassis than a camaro. You can't raise the engine in the camaro because it almost hits the hook stock.

 

Take this with a grain of salt or however you please- but since you are asking advice on how to go about it (suggestions ,tips, and all) means you do not have the vision nor the experince skills of tackling such a project.Now with that said. I DO HAVE THOSE SKILLS- and I would never in my right mind butcher a car not engoineered for such and try to make something into an all out handling vehicle even when I am a suspension guru and know exactly the challanges I am facing. The AWD drivetrain you most likely choose will probably never handle the size and weight of your F-body to begin with.... I am not even going to bother delving into this further.Sorry, but it shows your naiveness just asking for advice.You are far better versed taking an already engineered AWD car and modifying that. You would only be looking at the cost of the car and maybe 10-15k into it. Modifying your f-body AND THEN still facing the challange of if you can get it to fit AND WORK BALANCED would take you R&D of upwards of 100K to get that thing working and I still gaurantee my semi-basic factory engineered 3rd gen will still clean yor ***. Sorry, just hard facts.I have actually engineered a '67 Mini Coopers to accept a Jag inboard disc rearend but that is so far involving making my own tubular chassis that the body merely attaches to. Its not even a '67 mini any more, Its a tube chassis race car with merely a Austin Mini body attached to it for the most part.

 

I have that issue to.. I was like Ahh cool... They should have had more pic's. Would be cool to see.

 

Don't lose hope- you can do a lot of cool stuff without going AWD...
http://www.musclecarworks.com/gmproj...%2024%20Lg.JPG

 

i think the easiest way of doing this is to buy a AWD car and swap body panels...

 

you could get a transfer case to fit if you had the 2.8 in there, but then is it really worth having awd?

 

Hmmm, some of these old threads make you wonder what happened to these people and their cars after 2yrs?!

 

Maybe the AWD is possible. Here in Australia we had a vresion of the Monaro (sold as a GTO over there) with AWD. It had an Ls1 and was auto only. It was called the HSV Coupe4. It would cost you heaps to get the gear over there though. (and over here for that matter)

 

I've often wondered why the big three dont apply AWD more often to sports cars... other than weight and the incredible cost associated with actually building the cars, it would be downright amazing to see a V8 powered car launch like the STI's and EVO's do at the track on street tires.... 400 lb-ft + AWD = sweet 60' times....

 

The main problem with the AWD monaro was it was heavier, more expensive and due to a tight fit for the exhaust manifolds, less powerful. This made it quite a bit slower than the rear drive versions, and being so costly, it wasn't a big seller. Besides, who wants a V8 that can't do a burnout

 

damn! you beat me to it. as he was saying you can't do a standing burnout with an awd car unless of course you can select between 4wd and 2wd, but there is a differnece between awd and 4wd 4wd you can usually pick between 2wd and 4wd while awd is an all time system where power is sent to the wheels which have traction. or something complicated like that i can't exactly remember how it works on my dad's subie

 

You haven't driven the right AWD vehicle.


This is no bullsh*t, My buddy Louie (Who happens to own Vertical Doors) has a bright red H2Hummer he bought direct off one of the owners of Paxton. I lit all 4 oversized tires on this thing from a rolling 25mph- it sounds like a 747 landing.



As mentioned above, I own a FWD Austin Mini Cooper S as well as have driven a few extremely built Scirrocos (Vw's) years back on a course and I do not like that out of touch with the road feeling you get spinning your direction pointing wheels. I got that same I don''t-want-to-be-here feeling litting up the front wheels of the Hummer yawing to the left of the road.

 

The Mitsu Spyder TT V6 with a 5 speed could do it (it was a 96 IIRC that I witnessed doing it).

 

no i mean a standing burnout, not rolling

 

i've been thinking about an awd T/A.. when i make my millions( ), i'll start the process..

but i will definetly attempt it.. i didnt "want" to be a mech. engineer for nothing.. but even though i'm pursuing construction management, i still have the mech. engr. in me..

 

I have a C4 with the stock IRS, and I've got my share of thirdgens, so I'm very familiar with the handling and the ride of both.

I can tell you this... I'd never waste my time putting an IRS into a thirdgen if it's just a street car. The difference in handling between my C4 and my IROC is not that dramatic, and most of my IROC handling woes are due to the old tires. The Corvette also rides just as rough as the IROC, so there's nothing gained on ride quality. The ONLY time that the Corvette's rear is noticably superior is when you hit a bump with the inside wheel while going around a corner. In that situation the solid axle will unload and the rear will give up grip. With the IRS, it helps somewhat, but not as much as you'd think. The stiff sway bar still transmits a lot of movement to the other wheel. If you hit a bump with the outer wheel on either style rear, the axle will unload. On smooth pavement, either can grip extremely well.

Where you could find benefit is in roadrace applications where you don't mind running a lot of negative camber. Just for the fact that the IRS allows you to do this, you can realize some benefit, but on a street car, you can't run enough negative camber to really benefit from the IRS.

 

Wasn't one of the big things about the third gen was that when they came out they could out handle the Corvette.

 

Well, it may have outhandled the 82 Corvette. The 84 was still a significant improvement over the 82-84 Camaros, though a lot of it had to do with the tires. It's very easy to overdrive the p215 60 15 tires that came on those old Z28s. The IROC's handling was a huge improvement over the Z28s, and it was primarily due to the better rubber.

 

I'm am by far no expert on AWD, but if anyone were going to do it, wouldn't it be logical to look into the Cadillac Northstar engines? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Northstar_engine

Personally I think it would be badass and a bit old school (think chopping and sectioning) if someone fabbed a full AWD rolling chassis and made the camaro body panels fit it like a factory car, even if it meant going a little wider or making the side panels longer.

Could come up with something really sweet and one-off like when Darryl Starbird chopped, widened, etc. a 41 Lincoln to make it fit a Lincoln Contiental drivetrain: http://www.eurekaspringschamber.com/...ylstarbird.htm

Mathius

 

no the northstars are front wheel drive engines aren't they? it'd be pretty difficult to mate a fwd engine to a rwd tranny, or if you're talking about transversely mounting the engine and running one shaft to the back and one to the front, the front would probably stick out past the bumper. i think ideally to do a 4wd conversion you would move some of the firewall back at least a foot so the k member and engine could move back to make room for a front axle. and then run a conventional 4x4 setup with both front and rear exles with a transfer case.

 

Hmmm,There are quite a few rodders that mate the N* to RWD trannies, can't be that difficult. It's actually easier than mating a SBF to a Power Glide, whihc a lot of racers have been doing, especially as of late. The N* uses a modified small corportae bolt pattern, as in 60* V6 or 4 Cyl pattern, IIRC the 3800 in the late model F-body also used this same bolt pattern.

 

Yep, the BOP pattern as it is called .

 

i agreee

 

The Northstar is a 60* engine like the 2.8 3.1 and 3.4
There are plenty of adapters floating around to mate these to some beefy transmissions

Any fiero enthusiest site will sell a load of them

Side note the 3800 uses a 90* bellhousing

Not getting into the debate for IRS and where its good points are other than theres a reason why no major drag racing team uses them and why ANY high end exotic or road racing team uses them exclusively over a solid axle

Back on the AWD topic, I dont think its feasible unless your very good at machining your own drivetrain and making them handle a decent amount of power.
I could see you making a small diff hardmounted to the K member on each side of the engine but where would you send the axles to? Theres alot of frame and other components in your way
After you jumped those hurdles youd have to make your trans have 3 output shafts, again feasable with something like a modified 4x4 unit and once more you would have a hard time fitting it in the already tight trans tunnel

A secondary soultion would be to saw everything off infront of the firewall and build a tube frame around a FWD style engine/trans

Maybe a 3000GT AWD trans adapted to fit a decent power engine, or even use the original engine



If you somehow manage all of those feats, youll have to completely redo the front and rear suspension to accomidate the new weights and weight/power transfers



We're not trying to discourage you from doing something different but theres alot more to it than jsut taking your old parts off and bolting new ones on

 

Nope, BOP is an acromym for Buick Oldsmobile Pontiac, which was used on V8 engines from IIRC the '60s to the early or mid '80s. The 60* bolt pattern is commonly refered to as the "small corporate bolt pattern".

 

3800 uses the 60*, the 3.8 uses BOP.
Quote from Wikipedia :
Sorry, I had them backwards (the name, but I know what bolts to what .

And the N*:

 

And why is that important?

 

if you want to clean off your tires before a run down the strip