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Chance to buy a cheap 3800

G

Gingershrek

New member
So, my coworker with the 2000 Park Ave has decided to sell it. The trans won’t go into gear, engines running a little rough. She doesn’t want to deal with it anymore. I’m going to talk to her in the morning when she gets here. Hopefully she’ll take a couple hundred for it, but we’ll find out. Figured it would be a good investment to pull the engine and trans out, start an at-my-leisure build for the Grand Prix. Question is, would her series 2 engine be the same? I mean, I know it’s higher compression, top swap type stuff. But, rebuilding the entire engine, then the trans and upgrading it to handle a good amount of power, would it be a good idea? I use the GP as my daily, so it would be nice to build a good engine and trans setup for it. Plus, hers has a non-leaking PS pump and rack, new coils, new icm, crank sensor, wires, just a bunch of recently replaced items. What do y’all think?


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Since you didn't state what year your GP is not sure on the engine fitment, but most can be made to work. If you go down this road and assuming the Park Ave. is an Ultra hence the blower....

1. Do NOT touch the bottom end of the motor (or any 3800) unless need be. These engines are not as easily rebuilt as a Chevy 350. Lots of $$ and machine work is needed to ensure they live if you tear it all down. If not then you could end up with a ~300 mi. engine. Best to just re-gasket everything except the heads and timing cover and call it a day.

2. If you put this in your GP, do you have a way to tune it properly to handle the boost? There are some tunes around to get it in the ballpark but every car is different and needs fine tuning. Don't want to end up chipping pistons due to a crappy tune.

3. What kind of power levels are you looking for as an end goal? I'd wager a decent trans build will run around $2500 at a minimum depending on the power you plan to put to it.

4. Since the GP is your DD, do you have a backup in place to iron out the details while the GP is down for all this?
 
On all your questions, all handled. We have three vehicles, could have swore my profile was updated with my vehicle, must be Tapatalk didn’t update. Not sure.

GP is a 2000, Buick is a 2000, not sure why rack wouldn’t work, same subframe, correct?

Tuning, a close friend has a dyno, full service build shop, he hasn’t done many if any GP’s, but a few rails running this engine, tons of Subaru’s and GTR’s, and a few P1’s. It’s a matter of when he has the shop free, just started his Lambo build, so he’s deep in that.

On the trans, we have a local shop that’s done a few transmissions in the past for me, it will be a labor type deal, buying any and all HD parts I can from ZZP. I’m not even going to attempt to track down the 1” chain. It won’t be over the top at all, just a mild upgrade but more focused on extreme reliability and restoring to a clean car that is comfortable and does great on the highway. Track days, the FAA shut down our drag strip here years ago, citing possible debris on the runway.


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Oh, and why rebuild, she has just over 370k on it, with no knowledge if it’s the original motor or if works been done, it is 20 years old at this point.


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Oh, forgot, on the trans, mine is a little eh. I did the tcc solenoid, it helps the issue a little bit, but it’s still funky, I should have replaced all solenoids while in there. But, I figured pull the engine and trans if she doesn’t sell this thing to another guy. Anywho, I find out in the morning if the guy who asked first bought it. If he did, I’ll more than likely take one of my three day weekends, add some pto days and make it a week to pull my engine/trans, replace rack while in there, replace axle seals, oil pan gasket, 4th hub and clutches, shift kit, valve covers, lim gaskets, maybe port/polish the old m90, then go from there. It’s easier for me to do that stuff while it’s out of the car, laying down, sitting, up, down, hunched over, none of that works for me, according to the VA my back and knees are trash, and believe me, I feel it!!!


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ParK Ave is not a W body, lift the hood and look at the mounting setup. Also the car is bigger/wider etc. You'll enjoy pulling the motor due to the passenger side torque mount. If you get it, holler and I'll fill you in on what I can remember of how that f tard of a mount works. You'll absolutely love the rear trans mount, front one is easy to get at. It's a whole different setup and being a Buick and NA, you'll need to swap in drive/driven gears plus diff in order to get the proper ratio and different torque converter. Rear exhaust manifold will be different. Alternator and bracket may also be different. Heck even the AC bracket is likely to be different.
 
Welp, dude bought it. Meh. On the torque strut, the mounting I saw under the hood when I looked at it was the same as my car, two dog bones up top, trans and engine mount. I looked at that stuff because I didn’t care about the car, just wanted the engine and trans. It honestly didn’t look much different than any other. Maybe it’s small tiny stuff that just didn’t jump out to me.


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That’s really weird. Really weird. It was definitely a park avenue. And it definitely had the two upper mounts. I did change the coils, plugs and what not on the car way back when. Interesting.


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I could be mixed up, but, haven’t touched anyone else’s 3800 car recently. At least in the last couple years.


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Were you maybe drunk or high? PA's never got upper mounts bud, G, H and C body cars all had lower mounts and most of us wished we could add top mounts to help with movement because we could tear the front trans mount into pieces with one slap of the throttle.
 
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