Blown engine

[Need4Camaro]

2 paychecks from finishing my motor swap my car blows the motor...driving home and smoke everywhere ...I pull over and pop the Hood to find the engine smothered in oil and a huge puddle all over the pavement... also its been having rough starts for the last 3 weeks and has been knocking for the last 6 months...its finally finished...167,700 miles...long live the 3.8

[Cdr.Instigator]

Re: Blown engine

Man.. sorry for your loss!!

[PalmHarbor]

Re: Blown engine

Same thing happened to me, had to get a new engine which is a gas hog and has poor oil pressure. I think this engine is prone to this kind of fault.

[ACiFiC]

Don't give up!

[Rob Bell]

Re: Blown engine

I wouldn't necessarily agree that the 3.8 is just prone to this kind of catastrophic failure. Not too many engines from any manufacturer just blow up at random. There are many people on this board that have hundreds of thousands of miles on their original engines. There are millions of 3.8 engines out there in various cars that run fine for years and years and hundreds of thousands of miles

Are you the first owner? If not, do you know if the car was maintained before you bought it? Was it abused? Did it overheat? Did the prior owner open the engine and work on it? Maybe they screwed up the repair. Maybe they ran it out of oil at one time. Maybe they used the wrong grade of oil all the time. Maybe they filled it with coolant system sealer. Maybe they redlined it all the time. Anything could have happened before you owned it that eventually led to the problem that caused the catastrophic failure.

Before it blew up, did you notice low oil pressure or temperature variations? Or how about oil level and coolant level? Maybe the headgasket or intake manifold gaskets started leaking. Or did you notice drips or puddles of oil or coolant in the driveway? From your other post it sounds like it had random hard starts. I would think that prior to a failure of this sort, there had to be some warning signs. Maybe not audible signs, but there were probably warning flags that were there.

I'm not trying to harp on you here, but from the info given in your posts, it sounds like the engine was (except for that starting problem) just merrily going along and suddenly, out of the blue, it destroyed itself for no reason. It would be interesting to know what, if any, warning signs preceeded its untimely demise. Can you give us any history?

[PalmHarbor]

Re: Blown engine

I put in a new radiator, new hoses, new therm, new intake manifold gasket, new coolant and it blew a rod anyway inside of a month. I has 120K miles at the time. I would say if
you have the orig. engine and you have about the same miles...sell it.

[thebeewantsboost]

Re: Blown engine

well if you replaced those parts because you had oil and coolant intermingling. no matter is gonna like that. i don't expect my motor to last forever because of its modifications. but it's all about maintenance. 3.8's are very reliable.

[2.8 Bird]

Re: Blown engine

Well the 3800 engine has received 7 World's Best Engine Award. It's one of the most decorated engine in history by Ward. I agree that there are millions of 3800 engines transplanted into various cars that GM produced and some in Australia's cars. If this damage is typical then imagine the complains and it wouldn't receive that many awards.

Besides, GM was going to discontinue this engine in 1999 and use the Caddy V6 as the regular work horse motor, but it went on.

There are 4 owners and one of them is a Camaro which I posted a couple of years ago that has reached over a million miles on it without ever being rebuild.

I agree, it's how you drive your car and maintain it that will determine the health of your car. I drive my car like an old man and I watch my rpm. I do have a SC on mine, but rarely do I punch it. Constant High rpm is what ruin any engines.


BTW... I thought you already have a V8 in your car? Sorry I wasn't closely following your thread. You've had that problem with your V6 almost a couple years ago and it finally decided to die on you now?

[ssms5411]

Re: Blown engine

I'm not surprised it blew, from your posts on it and wanting to do the v8 swap it was a matter of time. Good luck with the v8 swap.

[Need4Camaro]

Re: Blown engine

Don't have time to go in much details but I'm still ok...just taking bus now... mechanic trailered it. I have my kmember and wiring Harness ... ordered headers and radiator, alternator and hoses. Belts... engine painted... will post o
Pics after. Work.

[WarShrike]

Re: Blown engine

Well it sounds like it finally gave up the ghost. Hard starts are one thing but the knocking is pretty much an indicator of something that has already gone south.

I've been biking to and from work until I get my swap finished. Did the same thing back when I did my engine rebuild/mod the first time around. Good exercise, gas money goes to just eating more from increased calorie use lol!

When these engines fail, they do it with panache. Oiling issues and coolant leaks are the big ones for these cars. My bearings were fine when I pulled it apart at 130K, but it was already sludged up so it would only have been a matter of time before some of that sloughed off and blocked an oil galley or a drain.

[LETZRIDE]

Re: Blown engine

Well it sounds like it finally gave up the ghost. Hard starts are one thing but the knocking is pretty much an indicator of something that has already gone south.

I've been biking to and from work until I get my swap finished. Did the same thing back when I did my engine rebuild/mod the first time around. Good exercise, gas money goes to just eating more from increased calorie use lol!

When these engines fail, they do it with panache. Oiling issues and coolant leaks are the big ones for these cars. My bearings were fine when I pulled it apart at 130K, but it was already sludged up so it would only have been a matter of time before some of that sloughed off and blocked an oil galley or a drain.

You blew yours again Dane??

[Need4Camaro]

Re: Blown engine

I wouldn't necessarily agree that the 3.8 is just prone to this kind of catastrophic failure. Not too many engines from any manufacturer just blow up at random. There are many people on this board that have hundreds of thousands of miles on their original engines. There are millions of 3.8 engines out there in various cars that run fine for years and years and hundreds of thousands of miles

Are you the first owner? If not, do you know if the car was maintained before you bought it? Was it abused? Did it overheat? Did the prior owner open the engine and work on it? Maybe they screwed up the repair. Maybe they ran it out of oil at one time. Maybe they used the wrong grade of oil all the time. Maybe they filled it with coolant system sealer. Maybe they redlined it all the time. Anything could have happened before you owned it that eventually led to the problem that caused the catastrophic failure.

Before it blew up, did you notice low oil pressure or temperature variations? Or how about oil level and coolant level? Maybe the headgasket or intake manifold gaskets started leaking. Or did you notice drips or puddles of oil or coolant in the driveway? From your other post it sounds like it had random hard starts. I would think that prior to a failure of this sort, there had to be some warning signs. Maybe not audible signs, but there were probably warning flags that were there.

I'm not trying to harp on you here, but from the info given in your posts, it sounds like the engine was (except for that starting problem) just merrily going along and suddenly, out of the blue, it destroyed itself for no reason. It would be interesting to know what, if any, warning signs preceeded its untimely demise. Can you give us any history?

Still on a time limit but yeah my car overheated bad in January 2011 and sat till June. Then in about 6 months after.it started knocking bad on startups, after after Ward it started losing a lot of coolant real fast within a week empty radiator and occasionally overheated. After that it began eating. 5 quarts of oil randomly without warning ...one week its there next week its all gone and it was sporadic about it...and now it finally gave up ... I knew it was on borrowed time which is why I opted LSX swap vs F.I. but I was hoping for one last month out of it...oh well can't win em all.

I have posted about all of the above problems as well but I really am short on time so I can't reference them right now.

[WarShrike]

Re: Blown engine

You blew yours again Dane??

Never blew it in the first place.

Doing 6 speed swap.

[Need4Camaro]

Re: Blown engine

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