Ok I can find 3800 Series II engines all over the place around here but they are all in FWD cars. I am asking some of you who know more than I do about the internals of this engine if the short block will be a direct bolt on for my Camaro. My car is a 1999 and the lower end is bad on my car.

Are the pistons the same?
Is the cam the same?
Will the heads and intake from my Camaro bolt right up to a 99 Buick Riviera Vin K 3800?
I know the heads, intake, Oil Pan, timing cover, and all pullies are different is there any thing else I need to look out for?

Please help me here I need an engine bad.. If anyone reading this has one and is in puget sound area what do ya want for it?

Thanks guys
Massey

 

Massey,
Take a look at this link for fit of engines. Gorn gave me this link when I was looking for a donor engine. It tells all the cars that the 3.8 eng is compatible with.

http://paceperformance.com/index.asp...D&ProdID=96139

 

Awesome it looks like all of the L36 vin K engines will work. I heard the heads wont but this site says they will. Well I have an engine at the wrecking yard waiting for me, I think I need to jump on it and get started fixing my car. WOO HOOO It should only take me a couple of days to get this done!! Thankfully I have access to a garage, cherry picker and engine stands.

Any other advise from those who have done this would be greatly appreciated. I have done the V6-V8 swap but not FWD V6 - Camaro V6 swap.

Massey

 

just a suggestion but if you have digital camera, take a few snap shots of your engine with all the stuff on it before you take it apart. That way, you have something to reference when things don't go on like you thought they were suppose to! LOL. For me, its easy to get a little confused at times.

 

I have the V8 step by step if you want it. Shot me an PM with your email. Its in PDF format. Its 90% the same as the V6.

If you are working is a "regular size" garage plan out your space. Remember the part you are removing is as wide as the car and a good 4 feet with the trany off. Had I backed my car into the Garage then I could have just opened the door and rolled the Kmember assembly out in the open it would have saved me a few hours.

Sounds like your in a hurry but it is a great time to add headers

The above link did not work right for me? I think they changed their website.
http://paceperformance.com/index.asp...&ProdID=282722

 

Yea I was thinking the same thing but as I am right now I cant even afford this but I HAVE to have a car to get on base with. I am going to be keeping Sarah's old engine and rebuilding it and then the headers are going on the car.

Massey

 

Don't forget to switch over the ground cable before you put everthing back together. Its a real pain. I think that plus not planning how I was going to move stuff around added about 5-6 hours to my swap. LOL I hate that cable!

 

Thanks for the note Gorn I will remember that. I was going to try to leave as much on the engine as I can durring the swap, kinda like they do in the dealerships.

Massey

 

You mean like this, Thats my 96 3.8 sitting next to my 02

 

Well here is an update.

I found an engine... Yard sold it out from under me
Found a parts car with a 3.8... Guy would not sell the engine yet.
Found another yard that finally gave me a good price.
Guy parting out the car calls me 2 days later and says he will sell the engine... too late already bought one.

I got the bad engine out of Sarah in about 6 hours and a couple hours later I had the tranny seporated and the engine ready to take appart.

The new engine is out of a 2001 Bonnevile that had an interior fire so I dont know how many actual miles are on the engine but the carfax of the vin shows the mileage at about 78K at the time of loss. Compression on the engine shows 185 each hole with about a 2% variance (yea nice strong engine) I have found that the knock, cam and crank sensors are the same between the engines so I will not have to swap them out.

The part of the whole deal here that has been killing me is cleaning out the parts that need to be swapped over between engines. The oil pan came out of Sarah's engine had about 1/2 inch thick goo inside that was mainly bearing material. The gasket on the oil filter mounting was not being too cooperative comming off the mount so I am going to have to play with that for a while. And the longest time spent so far has been cleaning out the oil pick up screen. GM wants too much for one, O'reilly's wants $45 and it will take about 10 days to get. So I emptied a can of brake cleaner on it and now it looks like it came right out of the box brand new.

My work schedual will not allow me to get any work done on the car till next Wednesday, but I am hoping to get everything moved over to the new engine in the little time I will have before then.

Massey