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Top Swapping and Spark Plug Question

C

CNorell145

New member
Alright ladies and gentleman, as you may have read in my other thread, my engine rebuild on the 3800 Series II did not work, engine blew again. Cracked a piston pretty badly. Took the engine apart, and one of the rod bolts was loose. Probably because we reused the stock bolts.

Anyways, I found a used N/A engine from a regal that has 64k miles on it. I am planning on top swapping my old parts after having the heads resurfaced. However I have a couple question about this process...

1) What exactly needs to be swapped over? From what I understand, I need the lower intake manifold gasket (metal preferred), my intake manifold, my heads with new gaskets, then throw on the supercharger and intercooler, and swap out the harmonic balancer to the S/C version. Am I missing anything? Also, what other preventative maintenance should I perform before I toss this motor in the car?

2) My cam is slightly scarred from the engine being blown, most of it is fine, although one lobe is mildly pitted. Can I just take this to a machine shop and have it reground?

3) Spark plugs. I have heard that I should use the automate iridiums, and I have heard to use the coppers. My mod list is as follows:

Headers & Exhaust
Full size intercooler (water to air)
3.1" Pulley
XP-Hot cam
Now higher compression due to the N/A engine
42# injectors
High flow fuel pump
Not stock springs (not sure of the poundage, and way to check?)
Lifters
Will be re-tuning it as soon as the engine is dropped in.

Which plugs should I use? I am leaning towards the coppers, as it seems they are better for modded engines.

4) Any other things I should do since I am swapping to the higher compression engine? A couple people said go back up in pulley sizes, although I would like to stay as close to where I am as possible, for maximum power. That being said, I also want something that is reliable...

Thank you in advance!
 


Alright, so it sounds like copper plugs are going to be the way to go for my application. The only thing I am unclear on is the gap. is this something that I should be adjusting manually, as he talks about in those articles, or should I just leave the gap at whatever it comes at?
 
New head bolts or ARP reuseable ones, new coolant elbows, rear engine seal on the motor (they like to leak oil as the bolts usually loosen up over time). Degree angle torque wrench if using stock replacement bolts since they are TTY.

I'd imagine a machine shop could check the pound rating on the springs. Either that or hit up a performance shop. Might even get lucky and have a part# or lb rating stamped into the spring somwhere. Might have to look close.
 
If you could provide one without too much hassle then yes, never attempted anything like this, so I want to make sure I'm doing it correctly
 


Yes, swapping from a supercharged 3800 series II to a N/A series II. I have an aftermarket cam that I am swapping as well.
 
Hmm, i know how to top swap for example taking a n/a series 2 and well top swapping a supercharger on to it. Now removing an engine to put a different one in. I have no clue, let me see if i can get some one over here to help you.
 
Well I'm swapping the supercharger and all necessary parts onto the N/A engine, then dropping it in. Sorry if that was unclear.
 
Definitely plan to go up pullys if you start getting knock. I want to say a 3.1 on a top swap motor would be like a 2.9 or 2.8 on a l67.

Hit up the how 2 section and the search bar, has all the info on everything you need to transfer over for the top swap.
 


CNorell145 said:
Alright ladies and gentleman, as you may have read in my other thread, my engine rebuild on the 3800 Series II did not work, engine blew again. Cracked a piston pretty badly. Took the engine apart, and one of the rod bolts was loose. Probably because we reused the stock bolts.

Anyways, I found a used N/A engine from a regal that has 64k miles on it. I am planning on top swapping my old parts after having the heads resurfaced. However I have a couple question about this process...

1) What exactly needs to be swapped over? From what I understand, I need the lower intake manifold gasket (metal preferred), my intake manifold, my heads with new gaskets, then throw on the supercharger and intercooler, and swap out the harmonic balancer to the S/C version. Am I missing anything? Also, what other preventative maintenance should I perform before I toss this motor in the car?

The standoff for the idler pulley, the coil bracket, fuel rail etc. Basically you want to strip the new block down to a short block, take off the front/rear covers and oil pan to reseal them. Then put the thing together as if it was a supercharged engine.

2) My cam is slightly scarred from the engine being blown, most of it is fine, although one lobe is mildly pitted. Can I just take this to a machine shop and have it reground?

It'll be smaller, possibly ruining the performance benefits. See what the machine shop says first though.

3) Spark plugs. I have heard that I should use the automate iridiums, and I have heard to use the coppers. My mod list is as follows:

Headers & Exhaust
Full size intercooler (water to air)
3.1" Pulley
XP-Hot cam
Now higher compression due to the N/A engine
42# injectors
High flow fuel pump
Not stock springs (not sure of the poundage, and way to check?)
Lifters
Will be re-tuning it as soon as the engine is dropped in.

Which plugs should I use? I am leaning towards the coppers, as it seems they are better for modded engines.

TR6 would be my suggestion. You can try colder plugs, but I found the intercooler helped quite a bit with keeping the plugs burning the same after dropping 0.4" in pulley size. Downside to colder plugs is misfires at idle, less fuel economy and shorter plug life. As for gap, you can start smaller and try to open it up, or leave it rather open and go the other direction. I found 50 thou to work quite well.

That pulley might be too small. Think 3.3-3.2 for those mods. Though, the only way to tell for sure is scan and see how it does. There isn't anything special to tune for with an L36 block either. Just run 14-16* of timing at WOT, keep fueling in check and adjust pulley size while scanning for knock. The smaller you go without KR, the faster you go.

4) Any other things I should do since I am swapping to the higher compression engine? A couple people said go back up in pulley sizes, although I would like to stay as close to where I am as possible, for maximum power. That being said, I also want something that is reliable...

Don't let it knock. Don't settle for more than 1* here and there. Arguably, you'd want to find that 1* here and there, then go up one pulley size.

Thank you in advance!
Click to expand...

See the red.
 
Parts needed for top swapping:
Heads from l67
LIM from l67
Throttle body and sensors
Vac lines
Fuel rail and injectors(depending on the year of the na you might need the injector connectors)
Valve covers
All sensors (maf,map,tps,iac,) for the map youll need a top swap kit i orded mine from zzp its a wiring harness for the map sensor as they have different connections
I agree with new head bolts as well as they are one time use torque to yield
Icm bracket with tensioner and idler pulley
Second idler pulley by the harmonic balancer
Harmonic balancer from l67
Tuned for top swap pcm again people bash zzp for the ecm or pcm canned tunes but because you have modified add ons youll definitely need a real tune.
All gaskets from the heads up :
Head gaskets
Lim gaskets ect these usually come in a pack all together and they have literally everything from the heads up and are like 70-100 bucks. Felpro gaskets are what people recommended me.
Also yes torque wrench will be needed regardless.
Trouble i had on mine was removing the tensioner pulley assembly i broke mine, also dont put the tensioner on the icm on wrong because it will cause the belt to slip off (personal experience )
 
Last edited:
The OP has a 2000 GTP.

So the electrical is fine as is.

The PCM just needs to know about the injectors, and bump the idle speed to help out the timing chain. Also have the P0300 turned off. But if the OP's PCM was already tuned for that, it'll likely be fine.

Head studs are reusable. Head bolts are not.

L36 head gaskets are cheaper than L67. Couldn't tell you why, all I can tell you is that's what I used every time. Felpro MS98014T was the LIM gasket kit I used. Steel former, pretty nice kit.

The machine shop can likely check the spring rate of the valve springs you have.
 
Also like he said with kr, i got really lucky being at a high altitude i was able to have 0 kr with stock flow. But i had a pcm tune from zzperformance which supposedly killed knock a little bit. If you plan on running stock yes pulley up to a 4.0 but with those flow mods do as he said scan for kr and see where its at and move up or down from there. Compression on an l36 is going to need those flow mods to not have knock so your right on track
 


matt5112 said:
The OP has a 2000 GTP.

So the electrical is fine as is.

The PCM just needs to know about the injectors, and bump the idle speed to help out the timing chain. Also have the P0300 turned off. But if the OP's PCM was already tuned for that, it'll likely be fine.

Head studs are reusable. Head bolts are not.

L36 head gaskets are cheaper than L67. Couldn't tell you why, all I can tell you is that's what I used every time. Felpro MS98014T was the LIM gasket kit I used. Steel former, pretty nice kit.

The machine shop can likely check the spring rate of the valve springs you have.
Click to expand...

I just bought it as a kit from ebay for 78 and it had gaskets i didnt even need with also the valve cover bolt plugs or what ever they are called lol
 
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