I've been looking and a can't seem to find a good place to find a new engine. id prefer used as I am a college student and just need my car running, around 100,000 or fewer miles would be fine

 

Check out the V6 tech section, The 3800 was built form 1995 to 2009. It is one of the most common engines in junk yards. There are tons of stories of overstocked junk yards selling engine with 30k on them for under $500. High miles motors can be found in you pull it lots. Keep in mind the non- supercharged 3800 in the FWD are the same motor.

https://camaroforums.com/forum/93-02...nt-info-57568/

 

i think i used carlisle salvage. 400 bucks, 60k mile series lll 3.8

 

The great part about the 3800 is even if you get a 100k motor and you do new intake and head gaskets its a good bet there is another 150k in there.

My project 96 motor had 48k on it. I put 100k on it and my oil pan was rusty. As an old guy that still shocks me. 150k motor that is 15 years old, No smoke, no oil leak. Back in the day when you pulled a 15 year old 150k motor you expected to use a putty knife as the first step to clean the layers of oil/dirt off the oil pan. Oil pan never rusted because they had a 1/8" thick oil based coating on them. I would bet there are still oil pans 10 years in the junk yard that have all their original paint under a 1/4" of grim.

 

Thank you, everyone, for the quick replies! the only question I have is would the supercharged 3.8 work or would it be more work

 

Not worth all the fabrication that is required. Much easier ways to get 40 hp out of a 3800. Topic has been covered 5000 times. It used to asked almost daily. If it was easy to do there would be 1000's of them running around.