A little update. As said at the top of this thread, my fuel pump was intermittently going out...well it finally sh*t the bed. So, the car is being towed to a local shop to be fixed. I'll post a few updates as to what it is they find wrong with the knocking. But obvioulsy to hear the knock, they'll have to change the fuel pump. So I am going to play the waiting game until i figure out what the "damage" is. Hopefully i'll be in the car next week and driving around again.

 

coulda, shoulda done the fuel pump yourself. doing it using the hatch method makes a 800 dollor job a heck of allot cheaper.

https://camaroforums.com/forum/93-02...-method-63702/

 

I got a decent deal at the shop, they only charged 500 to change out the fuel pump. Found out the knock is indeed coming from the motor. So in about 2 weeks, the motor will be pulled and completely disassembled. Everything is currently stock. The heads will be port and polished, intake worked, looking into changing the cam. If the cylinder walls are scuffed up then we may do a bore and just get as much performance out of that V6 as possible. May considering getting some dress up stuff to shine up the look a little as well. I figured while its out and im going to keep this car for awhile, I might as well do a few things to increase performance. I have a set of Pacesetter headers on the way. Since I have a lot of travel up, it would be the most ideal time to have this thing completely torn down and put back together. I'll keep updates coming.

 

Have you got a quote yet? If you spun a rod bearing you are looking at a crank kit. Scars are not as much a problem in the cylinders as out of round. It is normal for cylinder to wear out or round and if the motor is higher miles or used hard and it has more the .005" of out of round the cylinder should be bored over size with new pistons. I would expect if you need a crank kit and pistons and you are not doing the work yourself you are looking close to 6K. It is very easy to tie up 10 hours porting and polishing head and intake that would be another $750 ish and a Cam/lifters/rockers could cost another 1K.

Most guys, buy low miles used motors. Even guys that build the crap out of there cars. Musicmans runs 12 seconds flat and he is running on a used bottom end he picked from a yard. If you look around you can find motors with 10,000 miles on them for $500-$600. Since these motors are so great there are tons of them in yards. Heck even if you want to buy a low miles motor and rebuild that it could save you money because it may not need a new crank or pistons or any machine work, just new rings and bearing, upgrade those dam GM rod bolt and your are ready to go.

 

Alright, another update. Seems as if its kind of moving fast but since this IS my daily driver it does have to be quick. I have found another 3.8 out of a 2001 Camaro for 800 bucks. The motors will be swapped this week. Now that I will have a spare motor to work on. My mechanic believes it is possible to pull out about 350-400hp out of the 3.8. Looks like I will be geared toward that as a "project. I am going to do a dyno as is after the swap. Should be at about 200 from what the factory says (this will only to be a comparison dyno to show me what gains I got with the parts and labor added in). I know it seems kind of like a waste of money to build and fix up a 3.8 but I will be in Afghanistan for the majority of it. My mechanic wants to do this build and I don't mind funding it. I don't have much money into the car really aside from the clutch fix and the fuel pump and initial purchase of course. Only thing im bolting to the "new motor" is the pace setter headers. We may have some fun with this 3.8 rebuild. Once the swap is made, I will bring some updates as to what our final decision will be with the old motor. I like the fact of having a V6 NA pushing 350-400hp.

 

You realize that you will have to upgrade the trans and rear. Those base model componets will fail under that kind of Power. 350-400 is possible NA but the car will be almost impossible to drive on the street and good luck doing it on pump gas. You could get there for less than 1/2 the money with a LS1 and it would be very streetable.

Why did you go with an older 3800? For $800 you could have gotten a 2008 with less than 20K on it.

 

I went with the older one because it was the first one I found. Being that this car is currently my daily driver, i don't have the time to shop around for great deals. I ran across this 2001 3800 and heard it run. If i ran across a 2008 with that many miles i would have jumped all over it.

 

replace the head gaskets and both intake gaskets before intall.

 

Well, I am forced to start working on the car sooner than expected. Upon driving home, a rod made its way out of place and the motor locked up. The guy i was buying the motor from decided to rid of it before I got there. With that being said, the car is back at the shop that just a week ago fixed my fuel pump. They told me I should expect the car back by the 1st week of september. So, in the mean time, I just purchased an old 76' Chevy C20 for 500 bucks. Less than 70k miles on it and it purrs like a kitten. Its nice to buy stuff from 1st owners.

 

Correction, I thought I slung the rod. Apparently it was a broken wrist pin. Either way the engine is soup. The shop I have it at is replacing the motor with a much newer 3.8 that has just over 20k miles on it. I also get a 90 day warranty on it. For 2k installed and a small warranty? I really can't complain on that.