specs of 3.8 turbo engines???

turbo3.8aussie

New Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2004
hi all,just wanted to know if anyone knows where i can find out the specs of your 3.8 turbo engines?as i have one fitted to my 1999 model commodore ute here in australia and would really like to turbo it but dont know if its the same engine as the states,any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Probably would be difficult to get all the parts you need or if you have the expertise. It takes quite a bit of changeover and knowledge just to change a normally aspirated (carbeurator) 3.8 Buick motor to a fuel injected turbo version even if you lived right here in the States. Is your motor carbeurated? Is the distributor in the front? What year engine is it......
 
I believe he has the same engine as the 3.8L Cameros,Grand Prixs and all other clones...the Series II 3.8L


His Ute is made by Holden which also makes the new GTO for Pontiac....;)
 
thats the one!

well thanlks for the replys guys.now my engine is 1999 model!dont know if that helps or not?it is a efi naturally aspirated 3.8,and yes its made by holden the same pepole resposible for the pontiac gto or what ever you guys call it!here in australia its the holden monaro!.does anyone know where i could find out the exact specs of the enigine???bore,stroke,rods,pistons,compression ratio etc??????.
again any help would be great,thanks guys!.
 
Well, if it's a 99 engine, I'm sure it's different than TR 3.8s. Even 1988 3800 series are different, yet the bore and stroke and other dimensions are the same. I'm sure you can find the info you're looking for by going here.......www.gnttype.org ;)
 
thanks for the help.

well guys thanks for the help,seems the turbo engines you guys run are not the same as the 3.8 we get here unfortunately as our crank wont take to much of a hard time before it breaks and i think yours is much stronger.looks like i,ll just have to wind up the boost till it breaks and work from there as a base line!.thanks for the help.
 
I did some research on the 3800 Series II a few months back.

Basically, it is a whole different engine from the old 231. Only the displacement is the same.

However, there are two versions sold in the States, the regular 3800 Series II, and the supercharged version found in the Grand Prix GTP and Bonneville and a couple other cars.

According to what I could find, the only difference internally between the two is the pistons and connecting rods. The supercharged version has forged rods and dished pistons. The supercharged versions also have slightly modified heads (fuel injectors are stuck into the heads on the supercharged version, NA version has the injectors in the intake manifold). Valvetrain is a very nice roller setup, and cam is the same for both versions.

The pistons and rods were like $650 list price new from GM here in the States. According to GM, the 3800 Series II with the dished pistons can take 12 psi of NON-intercooled boost without knocking on U.S. 93 octane pump gas. The only reason Pontiac isn't putting Turbo-Regal power down with this plant is Cadillac won't let them have a transaxel that can survive under that kind of power. They don't want their front-drive DOHC Northstar cars trumped by a 12 valve pushrod V6.

Converting your NA 3800 to turbo would be a relatively simple matter of replacing the rods and pistons, fabbing some manifolds, slapping the turbo on, and tuning the fuel with something like an S-AFC
 
thanks all.

well thanks for your input kendallf,the engine i have just purchased yesterday here was a 1990 3.8 v6 which i have now found out is the series 1 engine and you guys had them as a front wheel drive over there but we got them as rw drive here in our commodores,i,ve had a few other emails from guys on here now who really seem to know there stuff and its all starting to come together now!.
the engine i have has 8.5 to 1 comp in n/a form so i,m going to just push it till it breaks and go from there!.my only benifit is (a)i got the whole complete engine and loom for $300 and (b)its going into a datsun 1200 ute that weighed 730kgs to start with before i gutted the thing to weigh about 600kgs now i hope!so souldnt need to make to much power to get some really good numbers from the thing!am coming to the states at the end of the year i hope so i,ll buy up big then!thanks again for your help mate greatly appreciated!,DAMON,MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA.
 
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