Series II L67 Grand National??!!??
- Thread starter xXch0dyXx
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GBGN1
stroked
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- May 26, 2001
Too bad thread seams to be dead. Just got my hands on a 08 series 3 3800 . Cheap. 68,000 on it. Its a n/a but ill work with the compression. Clean out the bowels and get Some cometics to lower it a bit and may run Alki. Im going to get the car running again. one way or another.
Compression isn't an issue with a good turbo and intercooler. I am running 9.4:1 as well. I would however recommend you find another engine. The 04+ N/A engines(L26) have much weaker rods than any of the other 3800 engines. I would rate the 97-2003 L67(supercharged) rods the strongest. The 07-03 N/A L36 and 04+ supercharged L32 I would rate similarly, with the L32 rods probably a bit better due to larger wrist pins. Lowest I would rate the rods in the engine you have. I personally would never use a 2004 or newer N/A engine with boost. I have seen too many guys loose a rod and take out alot of expensive parts with it. The newer engines use powdered metal forged rods, when they came out they were significantly cheaper from GM, so I doubt they made the change due to strength, but more likely for $ savings.
I have read every post on this thread and haven't seen post using the series II or III block and using ported LC2 heads, intake, pulley set-up, and headers. Just get kit to bolt 2004R to the series block. Would this option be a good route to take to get the stronger bottom end or would there be issues. The only thing I don't have any clue on is, will the LC2 cam and lifters work with newer block. In other words, can I just leave everything that I have under the hood only removing LC2 short block and installing the series II or III short block plus change oil pan. If it won't work next thing would be, is it a simple fix to get it to work or just not do able. I happen to have a very low mile series II supercharged engine out of my wrecked '01 gtp and wanted to do this swap only with the hopes that it would be a much stronger block and not worried about any hp gains. Thanks.
murphinator
Member
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2008
apples and oranges your not going to bolt 3.8 heads , cam or anything on a s2/s3 3800 it was a clean sheet design just like the ls v8's vs sbc
It wasn't really a "clean sheet" design, such as the LS series V8 is to the old small block chevy. It was in fact the highest state of evolution that the Buick V6 attained before it was discontinued. The last mods to the block construction design were in the late 80's, when the block changed to a more "on center" style which means that technically you probably could get LC2 heads to bolt onto the block, but there is no intake manifold to use to hook them together. When GM powertrain morphed the Buick V6 into the 3800 the "on center" spacing was the first big change. When the Series 2 and 3 came along, there were further changes to deck height and then cylinder head design such as the order of the valves which make cam swaps tricky too. Some of this I learned playing with a Series 1 L67 from a 95 Riviera and the rest from asking questions around here and other sites, along with wrecking yards and measuring tapes.
Bottom line is, its not worth using the LC2 hardware if you have to custom fab an intake and custom grind a cam for the right spacing, etc... Better off turbocharging the 3800 engine I think. The heads can be made to flow very well and there are strong crank/rod combos to be had as well.
ok so that will entail a custom cut driveshaft. I need to get my welding skills up to par so I could fab the headers. I would definitely want to do this because of the cost. Much cheaper than an aluminum block setup.
murphinator
Member
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2008
Wiki's opening paragraph about the series 2 and how different it was from the previous offerings
Introduced in 1995, the Series II is quite a different engine. Although the stroke for the 3.8 L engine remained at 3.4 in (86 mm), and the bore remained at 3.8 in (97 mm), the engine architecture was vastly changed. The deck height is shorter than the Series I, reducing weight and total engine package size. This required that the piston connecting rods be shortened 1 in (25.4 mm), and the crankshaft was also redesigned. A new intake manifold improved breathing while a redesigned cylinder head featured larger valves and a higher compression ratio
Introduced in 1995, the Series II is quite a different engine. Although the stroke for the 3.8 L engine remained at 3.4 in (86 mm), and the bore remained at 3.8 in (97 mm), the engine architecture was vastly changed. The deck height is shorter than the Series I, reducing weight and total engine package size. This required that the piston connecting rods be shortened 1 in (25.4 mm), and the crankshaft was also redesigned. A new intake manifold improved breathing while a redesigned cylinder head featured larger valves and a higher compression ratio
Absolutely correct. But the bore spacing was not changed, and neither was the cylinder head bolt pattern. By shortening the deck height, it changed the requirements for the intake manifold, and then they went ahead and redesigned the heads for valve arrangement and then the cam to match.
Cutting the deck height on a Buick design definitely would cut weight, which they did. All of the old deck heights were patterned off of the Buick small block program that went into production beginning in 1961. As the years went by, Buick saw no need to redesign anything and it saves money to stay consistent. GM powertrain had to redesign in order to stay competitive and still keep us (the customer) happy. They wanted to just kill the 3800 outright more than once and replace it with the 60 degree Chevy V6 platform, but no one went along with it at the bottom end (consumers) or the top end (stock market advisors and chairmen of various boards.) Its such a great engine that the Chinese are making them in Shanghai today. Strong and reliable, just the way I like them!
Cutting the deck height on a Buick design definitely would cut weight, which they did. All of the old deck heights were patterned off of the Buick small block program that went into production beginning in 1961. As the years went by, Buick saw no need to redesign anything and it saves money to stay consistent. GM powertrain had to redesign in order to stay competitive and still keep us (the customer) happy. They wanted to just kill the 3800 outright more than once and replace it with the 60 degree Chevy V6 platform, but no one went along with it at the bottom end (consumers) or the top end (stock market advisors and chairmen of various boards.) Its such a great engine that the Chinese are making them in Shanghai today. Strong and reliable, just the way I like them!
Thanks that was the thing I needed to know. So that would be why I haven't seen any LC2 heads on the 3800's. Have read about others using 3800 long block in there cars and some others using just the 3800 heads on there LC2 because the heads are so much better. Thats where I thought the heads could be swaped either way, but no one did because the 3800 heads where that much better you would just use them insead. Thanks again for info to clear that up for me.
GBGN1
stroked
- Joined
- May 26, 2001
From what I understand the stock 3800 flow pretty well but can be cnc or ported for more flow . zzperformance and intense have ported heads. But I know of some feiro guys with stock heads hitting 500 hp with a mild cam and a matching turbo. Im just planning on cleaning up the ports.
"More Boost"
Major Member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2005
ugh, you guys make my head swim with all this info..........
Havent had much time to get on the boards this year for updates. After we installed the new 6266 I havent had time to get the car tuned on the new snail. So it will now wait until a new externally gated DP is installed and we will head back for the follow up. (Did not want to port the new 6266 WG hole to get the boost down to the same level for accurate comparison)
Will have more updates this year and track times. Might even make it to a couple events so people can see it and answer some of the questions rolling around in their heads.
*Enter shameless plug* Any interest in a swap ready 3" dp : - )
Will have more updates this year and track times. Might even make it to a couple events so people can see it and answer some of the questions rolling around in their heads.
*Enter shameless plug* Any interest in a swap ready 3" dp : - )
