Was talking with a friend today...

The last time he saw me was last year when my UIM had failed and my motor had hydrolocked. (It hydrolocked in his garage) We randomly saw each other today and he's like how's the car? So I'm like the motor survived and he was amazed. He was talking about how he's seen many 3800s get to huge mileages, particularly ones of NA variety. On Facebook today I also saw that the INTENSE guys were talking with some oil company doing tests on an L36. Here's the quote:

"Had a interesting conversation this afternoon with a test engineer that handles industry standard motor oil certification. One of their test engines is a 3800 L36. They run it for at least 100 hours per test with the coolant at 240° F, oil temp at 300°, and incoming air heated to 190° to see if the test oil breaks down. The engine is purposely run lean and timing is varied to manage temp, often getting over 10 degrees of knock. And this test is repeated over and over again using the same engine. While we don't advocate abusing your engine, info like this helps illustrate the strength of the 3800 platform!"

This makes me feel real good about the engine and all but the party pooper in me can't help but think that the only reason these motors survive *dang* near anything for so long is because they produce the power of an electric toothbrush. Now I'm no expert on engines by any means but can someone sort of... Talk me up out of my 3800 mood rut? Educate me a little bit.

Well they were powerful for their size in 1998-ish. Since they didn't do a thing to increase horsepower, that changed by 2008, it was pretty weak in comparison by then. I think they're so tough just because of the bottom end mainly, they used the same bottom end on the N/A as they did the S/C. So they were designed to handle a lot more power than the engine would be capable of (unmodified), like you pretty much said.

02NavyBlue said:

Well they were powerful for their size in 1998-ish. Since they didn't do a thing to increase horsepower, that changed by 2008, it was pretty weak in comparison by then. I think they're so tough just because of the bottom end mainly, they used the same bottom end on the N/A as they did the S/C. So they were designed to handle a lot more power than the engine would be capable of (unmodified), like you pretty much said.

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The rods and pistons in N/A and S/C 3800's are differnt though, which is why they have differnt compression ratios.
So no they don't have the same bottom end.

Oh then just go by my first two sentences. They're tough nonetheless. You can topswap a N/A and the bottom end will hold up just fine.