3.8 Engine Replacement Options
 

Hi all. This is my first post. I've learned a lot reading through this forum and now I need help. I am the proud owner of a Green 98 V6 that I absolutely love. It's my first "sports car". I'm a professional Harley Davidson Technician.........HATE working on cars. I had a bad day today with my baby. She started blowing cold air through the vents and the water temp came real close to redline. As soon as I saw this, I started to pull off of the interstate.......but it was too late. The car shut down! Oil pressure was good, charge was good. Right before she shut down, she made a knocking noise. I waited about 30 minutes.....she started, but idled like sh*t. Had her towed to my mechanic. Said the water pump was shot. He replaced it. Now he's saying that she has a blown head gasket and that it's going to cost $1200. I love my car, but damn! After all of that, here's my question. Do I try to have her fixed or just go ahead and replace the engine? She has a little over 150,000 miles on her, so I know she's going to start to nickle and dime me to death. If I do an engine swap, what engines will match up (year, make, model)? I have a pretty small budget, so any help at all will help. Thanks for the time. Please help me get my baby breathing again!

Check out the V6 section there is a stick for this information. Your 3800 could have some life left in it but I would swap it out. The 3800 is one of the most common motor and newer low miles motors can be had pretty cheap.

Thank you so much Gorn. Been scratching my head over this one so much that I'm going bald!

If you are doing it yourself check out the threads in my sig to see what your in for. Looks worse then it is but not as easy as the older camaros.

swap it out with a low mileage series 3 engine. It cost me $1300 to buy a 05 engine with 42,000 miles on it and replace all gaskets (other than head which may be blown now), MSD wires idr. plugs, some sensors and all fluids. I am also selling all the parts i took off the new engine. I made back about $300 from that so far.

I went with a 02 Camaro engine because I could use almost all the parts. They gave me everything under the hood for $650. The only thing I used off my high miles 96 was the upper intake and TB. At the time I did not know the series 3 motor was an option , I found a low miles FWD Series 2 for $450 but I figured it was worth getting all those parts 6 years newer and less then 50K miles on them.

If I have to do over I would most likely do the series 3, but if sure was easy swapping the 02 in there.

I had no luck finding a good low mileage replacement so i went with a GM crate motor, 3 year 100 k warranty.

The best part of the warranty is if the motor does fail I don't have to pull it out, you just bring them the car and they pull it out.

Installing the new motor in my small garage was pain in the ***, so not having to do it if some thing goes wrong was definitely a +.

I thought GM discontiued the Series 2 replacment engines?

How could you not find one of the most common motors on the planet?

ya the 3800 is in everything buick pontiac chevy olds...

Buick Le Sabre
Buick Park Avenue
Buick Regal LS
Buick Riviera
Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Impala
Chevrolet Lumina LTZ
Chevrolet Monte Carlo (Z34, LT, SS)
Holden Commodore (VS, VT, VX, VY)
Holden Caprice (VS, WH, WK)
Holden Ute (VU, VY)
Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight
Oldsmobile Intrigue
Oldsmobile LSS
Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight
Oldsmobile Regency
Pontiac Bonneville
Pontiac Firebird
Pontiac Grand Prix

and the seriesIII

2004–2008 Pontiac Grand Prix
2005–2009 Buick LaCrosse
2006–2008 Buick Lucerne

They all had more miles than the one I was replacing. I found one with low miles and it had a cold start knock so i passed on it.