What do you guys think?

[Camfreek]

First off how is eveyone doing? I have not been on here for a long time. Still working on my WH1 got the short block done and thats as far as that went...

Been tinkering with the GN and I think I came up with a great idea, just want some input.

My Gn is fast but I had a buddys 03 Impala at my place, it is an old cop car, 3.8 under the hood and damn fast. It had a cracked head and we swapped it. I noticed that all the sensors and connections are pretty much the same as our GN's, yes they on't just plug in all the same but they can be spiced with are harness to work.

My thought is, why not grab a harness and a ECM from say a 99-02 GTP, which is already a boosted car, and adapt that GTP harnes with the GN harness, so it will plug in, and use the coil pack from the GTP as well?

It seems to make sense, the ECM is so much faster and up to date.
So say a better ECM, and coil, and better over all performance?

Not sure if it will work, but it really could open our cars up.

His Impala can keep up with me all day long and it is a N/A car, same engine, just newer version, I figure it has to be the computer that makes it so fast, I could be wrong?

I hope you guys get what I am saying? What do you guys think??

 

[BRAD_PADGETT]

I am not being a smartass or condesending here. If you want the Impala or GTP performance simply go buy one. You will be ahead when it comes to your wallet. The opinion on the ECM is way inaccurate. Our cars with TT chips are light years ahead over a GTP or Impala chips. We have TT5.7, TT6.0, TT Speed Density not to mention other makers. I would define your goals and understand what you already have and evaluate which direction you want to go. There are many ways to achieve you goals. What are they? Brad

 

[novaderrik]

there is more to the performance of the newer cars than just the ecm. everything about the newer 3.8 is light years ahead of the mid 80's tech that was added to the early 70's engine in the TR's..
in addition to being faster, the newer ecms are flashable- with the right program, you can totally alter the spark and fuel maps as you drive down the road with nothing but a laptop computer. in that respect, they are a lot like the aftermarket ecm's (F.A.S.T, Megasquirt, etc)that some people put in their cars.
some people have put the newer 3.8 out of a Camaro in their cars, put a turbo on it, and gone insanely fast on stock shortblocks.

 

[novaderrik]

there is more to the performance of the newer cars than just the ecm. everything about the newer 3.8 is light years ahead of the mid 80's tech that was added to the early 70's engine in the TR's..
in addition to being faster, the newer ecms are flashable- with the right program, you can totally alter the spark and fuel maps as you drive down the road with nothing but a laptop computer. in that respect, they are a lot like the aftermarket ecm's (F.A.S.T, Megasquirt, etc)that some people put in their cars.
some people have put the newer 3.8 out of a Camaro in their cars, put a turbo on it, and gone insanely fast on stock long blocks with tweaked stock ecm's.

 

[Camfreek]

Yeah I mus be missing something, and maybe my thought was bad. I have a 98 3.8 or 3800 motor torn down and see no real huge differances between that and my 84 3.8 motor I have been building for my WH1. I know when a swapped my Ford F150 from speed density to Mass air, it was more tunable and a hell of alot faster on the low end. Kinda just got me thinking the ECM and stuff is out dated for us. Maybe not though. I know that my buddys Impala, is cranking out damn near 300 horse's without any power adders, kinda figure if I could get my GN to crank out that much with out a turbo and go from there the car would scare even the IC guys:biggrin:

I know the intake and throttle bodies are huge problems for us Hot Air guys, the draw thru system is not the best and the intake is a huge restriction in itself.

Just a thought for me, mabay back to the drawing board

 

[Jerryl]

Yeah I mus be missing something, and maybe my thought was bad. I have a 98 3.8 or 3800 motor torn down and see no real huge differances between that and my 84 3.8 motor I have been building for my WH1. ........... I know that my buddys Impala, is cranking out damn near 300 horse's without any power adders, kinda figure if I could get my GN to crank out that much with out a turbo and go from there the car would scare even the IC guys:biggrin:

I know the intake and throttle bodies are huge problems for us Hot Air guys, the draw thru system is not the best and the intake is a huge restriction in itself. . . . . .

I applaud your out of the box type thinking because without new ideas, we get stale.
The only way to find out is to convert and see how it works.
Not trying to discourage you . . . . . really wish someone would try it.

Having said that, the 87 ECM is not a restriction for the average HA enthusiast. There are many other things to spend $$$ on before doing such a swap.

If you want tunability, the TT SD chip is an awesome chip.
Processor speed of our ECM’s is not as bad as you may think.
The 87 ECM has gone 9’s and is doing 10’s every day in some cars.

Also, HP numbers are not how these cars got their reputation.
As Brad stated; Define your goal and work backwards from there. :wink:

 

[Camfreek]

I understand that the 87 ECM is good, but how many Hot Airs are running the streets with 87 ECM's and blowing off 9 or 10's? It took me forever to blow off a 10's pass in my 84 GN and now I have a blown trans:wink:

Yeah maybe to far out of the box on this idea, I just figure new school is maybe a little better then old school. Plus it would look bone stock.

Not really sure how the are getting 300 horses from a N/A 3.8 squad car


The way I did my GN was to tune it perfect without any boost, and get it to run as fast as I could and good as possible, then added boost and went from there. It seemed to work good.

I figure if I could get a better system as far as the ECM I could push it farther

Just my thought. I might just try it for the heck of it, a harness and ECM will only be about a $100 from a junkyard, and maybe some sensors and go from there

 

[Jerryl]

I understand that the 87 ECM is good, but how many Hot Airs are running the streets with 87 ECM's and blowing off 9 or 10's? It took me forever to blow off a 10's pass in my 84 GN and now I have a blown trans:wink:

Yeah maybe to far out of the box on this idea, I just figure new school is maybe a little better then old school. Plus it would look bone stock.

Not really sure how the are getting 300 horses from a N/A 3.8 squad car

Well, there are not too many hot airs that have ever ran 9's.
Plenty of them running 10's in the 1/8.
What I meant is that many IC'd cars run 10's with the 87 ECM.
Anyway, try it and let us know how it works.
You may be onto something. Good luck.

 

[charlief1]

In answer to your question, here's the info you're looking for. Very neatly done and he's got a pretty sweet set up.

http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/general-turbo-buick-tech/257876-series-ii-l67-grand-national.html

 

[Camfreek]

In answer to your question, here's the info you're looking for. Very neatly done and he's got a pretty sweet set up.

http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/general-turbo-buick-tech/257876-series-ii-l67-grand-national.html

Sorry but I am not looking to swap the engine, I am looking to update the system that feeds the engine.

 

[novaderrik]

Not really sure how the are getting 300 horses from a N/A 3.8 squad car

GM never built a naturally aspirated 3.8 that put out 300hp- i think the best NA one was around 200hp, and i don't know if the supercharged versions were ever rated at 300hp..
as far as i know, the only engine in the fwd Impalas that put out that much power was the LS4 5.3 V8 they put in them for a few years that was something like 302hp.