V8 OR RWD W-BODY

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[Hotlap]

Thanks for the Reply Guys, I'm a Newbie here. Sappy I've always wanted to do the same thing, and finally have gotten to that point. I bought my 92 in 93, so for the past 13½ years I've wanted this. This first ½ year I enjoyed the Car, it was a rare Model so you Guys with the Dale Earnhardt Edition 5 Speeds can thank me for making your cars appreciate!
The Lumina was a very Dependable Car, and I had even thought about hopping the 3.4 DOHC up, but the mods are Expensive and imho the gained hp is not worth what the same money put into a V8 can do.

I have a Rebuilt set of 3.4 DOHC Heads Completely assembled that I'll probably never use that I bought along the way. Still in the boxes, anyone needing a pair?

[Coyote_Rage]

well I got a touch of wood thinking about the creation aspect of it.

[latemodelnewbee]

I had a crazy ass idea about taking my 92 part car Z34 and making it RWD and putting a DOHC LT5 motor from the ZR-1 corvette. I wanted to make all stock looking execpt for bigger tires, but thats just a pipe dream I almost 100% sure i'm not going to do, unless I win the lottery

[OLD SCHOOL GP LE]

WOW now thats how the Lumina Z34 should have come from the factory! thats sick a RWD Lumina!. I think the first gen W-body Grand Prix coupe would be very nice in RWD as well I think the Coupe GP looks like it should be RWD. And the V8 sound definitely goes with the cars styling

[dohcfiend]

if you pull that off, it would be the ULTIMATE SLEEPER until you started it...lol.

that is awesome. props x8. you are my hero.

[86euro]

I like your idea, I just hope you complete the project
I'm curious why you cut the body at the rear quarters though. If you are planning on joining the car back together with the same length, that was a bad place to make the cut. Do you plan to reuse the lumina interior panels and dash? That would be cool.

[LeftVentricle]

I think the first gen W-body Grand Prix coupe would be very nice in RWD as well I think the Coupe GP looks like it should be RWD. And the V8 sound definitely goes with the cars styling

Then feast your eyes on this link!

[Hotlap]

86euroI like your idea, I just hope you complete the project
I'm curious why you cut the body at the rear quarters though. If you are planning on joining the car back together with the same length, that was a bad place to make the cut. Do you plan to reuse the lumina interior panels and dash? That would be cool.

I'll complete it alright. The car will be a Trans Am inside except for the Door Panels and Head Liner. This car will be a two seater when finished.
The Lumina wheelbase is 6.4 Inches longer than the Trans Am, so the body had to be shortened. The center of the car was the Best palce to remove the length.


LeftVentricle, that is an awesome Build. I personally would have never stuffed a Cadillac motor in anything, Northstar or not, but that's just me.

[Hotlap]

This past Saturday my son and I started in on the Rear of the Car. After removing Frame, wheel hubs, rear floor pan, and a bunch more stuff we laid the Rear clip on the Chassis:


After trying to Align the Roof and the Quarters I found that the two were not going to go together as planned. I chose to go with the Roof top for Alignment.


The Quarters were off by almost 7/16'ths on their height.
Here are the clamps I got from Kerry in place. To get the best possible Gap we got the two side as close as possible with some spots touching. Next I took a 1/32 wide cut off wheel to the Gap, then one by one moved the clamps to the spots I already ran the cut off wheel through. Next cleaned those spots, then notched out a slightly bigger opening for each clamp. Last we Pushed the two panels together with the Clamps in position where the notches were. This worked really great and let us Fuse a lot of metal together without filler.



My Son did a really nice Job welding the Panels.
Here is an Example:


Afterwards we pulled the Clamps and used filler rod in those areas.


(Sorry Should have rotated that one)


On to the Drivers side....
I did not take pictures of the Frame being welded back together, nothing fancy or different to show there. We Mig Welded the Frame.
In this Shot you can see the Side had to be cut again to align everything, I was not happy at this point. Everything ended up working out pretty good though. The top right section of the cut had to be heated up first. After getting it Hot we were able to align the window frame. After getting the window frame in place I altered the cut out panel to fit back in. I still have some rust areas to patch yet at the Bottom But, here are the Clamps holding it in place.


And here is the Quarter after Weld:



This Weekend we do the other Quarter and start putting flanges on the Wheel Hubs.
Thanks for your time.