I had a Buick rendezvous '03 with the 3400 still a 60° engine. Also the 3400 is a more powerful engine and uses aluminum heads instead of the bulky iron heads.

Also iirc the 2.8 3.1 3100 3.4 3400 3500 and 3.9 are all the same block fwd or rwd, just different bore and stroke.

Here's some 60° info if you wanna read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General...2%B0_V6_engine

 

link me to a switch in a 4th gen, i cant find any, everything i see says the heads are different but will work with mods, cant find anything on the trans fit or the mounts.

 

Well I can't find anything about putting one in a camaro but it looks like the biggest issue is the starter. On the 3400 its on the front of the engine (looking at the car it would be the right side in a rwd configuration vs the 3.4 which the starter is on the left) but you can use a bell from a 2.2 s10 to fix that problem.

Either later tonight or tomorrow when I can get on a computer I'll check it out (now I just really want to know) but researching on my phone is a major pita.

 

Just a FYI, there has always been two version of the 2.8, 3.1 and the 3.4. The FWD version and the RWD version. They are NOT interchangable. The fact the RWD 2.8/3.1/3.4 can not be switched with it FWD brother is the main reason most people think you can not swap the 3800. Way back in the early 80's GM designed a FWD block that does not have conventional motor mounts. They rely on the upper rad support mounts found in a FWD. Early on in the 2.8 most of the internals where the same. But with the 3.1 the FWD version changes and by the time the 3.4 came around very few parts have the same GM part numbers.

Then newest motor that will bolt into a 3.4 Camaro is a 1995. GM only used the RWD 60 deg in the Camaro once they switched to the 4.3 in the S10 around 1990

 

hmmm


so the OP has advice on how to find the best bang for his short dollars and also which engine to slap in should he decide to go with the hurting Camaros


I'd say he received his "money's worth" from his post.

 

stay away from POS camaros, got it. Ive got about 2500 to spend, i figured it might be worth it to buy a running $1000 camaro(negotiated down from $1600) and spend 1500 fixing it up. but judging from what you are saying, its probably more worth it to buy a $2500 buick or saturn. tough choice, ill keep looking.

 

What is you skill level. Fixing up a car the has been beat and un-maintained turns into a restoration very quickly. These cars are parts car. If you buy it and try to keep it going you will just be delaying the scrap heap at a huge cost to yourself.

The trick to finding a good car on the cheap is to find a car that is very well maintained but it has one major problem. In many cases the owners do not want to fix the cars themself and it does not make sense to pay someone for the major repair.

Let say you found a cherry garage kept dealer service 3800 car with a little over 100K on it with a rod noise. Swap in a Used 3800 with 30K on it and you have a car ready to go 100,000 miles. Pick on the link in my sig Project 96

 

please do not put up defenses. Everyone here is trying to help you and we all have a passion for cars and trust me, we understand the emotional aspect as well.

With respect to "negotiated down from $1600" that is moot. The owner could have listed at $10,000 and you "negotiated it down" to $1,000.

For used, commodity items (cars fall into that) the list price does not matter. If the seller wishes to sell then the market (willing buyers and willing sellers) determines the value. Obviously, the sellers received no bites at their asking price thus they were not at market value.

If you really have $2500 ready to spend (exclusive of taxes and registration/insurance) then you should be out looking at cars with asking prices of $2500-$3000. You can be more selective vs with $1,000 vehicles.

good luck and if any of them are camaros, you know where to get advice and worst of all, the part most people hate; opinions.