3.8 liter grand national motor??

[Insane Malice]

I dont know if im posting in the right place but newayz heres my question. Has anyone on this board tried putting a grand national motor into a new f-body. I am seriously contemplating buying a whole engine and turbo setup and seein what it will do. My friend is running a grand national bone stock except for a chip and 104 octane race gas. If anyone has any ideas on this lemme know. I am pretty sure i could pick up the whole engine setup for under 2 grand.

[99BlueSuperSix]

This guy put one in a firebird, it's a "Formula V6"

http://gmhightechperformance.com/arc...eature02.shtml

[Insane Malice]

Ok i just read that article. I live in indiana and i was told a guy bought one of these blocks with 20 thousand miles on it for a grand. They said in the article the best 1/4 et was 10.2. Ask me if im crazy but the highest posted time on here was only 12.394 seconds. I dont think im crazy but if this motor can be put in here and u can get it for probably under two grand wouldnt this be one of the cheapest ways to make a quick car.

[kaygee08]

only 3800II engines & 3.4 v6. They don't put 3800I in the timeslips.

[Mighty Thor]

Even so, the GN is one of GM's hottest selling engine, without even advertising it. As a matter of fact they are out of stock. You have to try hard and look for a rebuild one. Even if you do have one it still won't fit because of clearance problem. You would have to get different heads, just like the TTA. 2k is not really correct. Try 8k with Turbo included in that. But yeah even you do get one imagine all that installation hassle and adapting that bolting sequence to your car. I'm not saying it get be done,I mean I wouldn't mine having it too. But it is alot of work and money. Besides most of us here are trying to bring out the full potential of our engine.

[Insane Malice]

I dont know about 8 grand. Maybe for the 4.1 race setup block. There was a guy that got a 3.8 outa the gn for a grand so im figuring maybe two grand at the most since it was so cheap.

[97firebird]

Right, so $1K for the motor, but then you're going to have it tear it down and rebuild it from bottom up. The newest GN motor is now 11 yrs old, so it's going to have a bit of wear on all the moving parts. This will cost money. Also, with the F-body's low hood clearance and relatively tight engine compartment (due to the SLA front suspension), you're going to have to find heads from the 89 Turbo T/A and possibly get custom exhaust manifolds fabricated which will fit the engine bay. Lots of work if you ask me. Oh, and you'd have to get it with a 700R4 auto tranny; correct me if I'm wrong, but no GN's were ever made with a stick.

So no, I don't think $8K is a far-fetched estimate unless you're willing to do the grunt work. For the money, I'd rather find a decent used LS1 and bolt on an Incon twin turbo kit! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[jmorgan]

i have thought about this hard and it would cost 8K easy and i do mean easy hell you would probly have to run a stand alone engin managment unit so hell ther goes 2K right there


and you wont find an engin for less then 2k and trans would be another 1k easy

assuming you do all this and what not the kicker is its not leagl to put a older engin in a newer car lol

haha basicly if you getin an accident and kill someone you are fubar cause no way and hell the insurance gonna cover you and if you kill someone there will be lawsuits they will win easy and you will have nothing left trust me if someone killed say my mom with that setup, they would have nothing left trust me

ohh and yea you would have to spend another 1-2K easy to get it in the 10's cause bigger turbo, new fuel injectors, converter, roll cage

it would add up so fast man if you started i dought you would finish or if you did it would take to long unless you had 12K sitting around and it was gonna be a track only car

[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: Jason Morgan ]</p>

[camaro_zach]

i called the guy about doing it a while back, just so you know malice, 8g isnt way off. Do you nkow they need 2 comps in the car? the old computer from the gn to watch over the motor, and the computer from the ta to run stuff like the brakes, vacume pressure, o2 sensor, air bags, lights, dash board, etc. It is NOT easy, it would be easier to buy a used lt1 and a blower, and it will bolt right into your car, sound amazing and run insane fast 1/4 miles.

[CokewhiteRS]

yeah i ws thinking of doing the same my self as fr the engines i knowwhere to ge the 87 gnx block rebuiltfor $1080 wth two year waranty if any ne wants one . and the proce is like 6-8 g's to get all it cost like 5 g's and labor and custom odds and ends ive looked. it's bank

[pgriffith]

wouldnt it be easier and cheaper to custom turbo your series 2?

[Mighty Thor]

Yeah there is a shop here who is willing to experiment and fine tune a turbo on a V6. He's guessing that the cost would be 3k.

[Formulao96]

I have a GN turbo, and my custom header was just measured. It will be done next week. The header fits perfect and there is plenty of room for the turbo now. Total project cost so far turbo, custom fabricated header, downpipe, labor = $400. Cant beat that only cost me $150 for the header to be made. I will post pics when my project is all done. Maybe I will have the first 3.8 series II on here with a turbo. Anyone else have one?

[Paul Collins]

Ya'll are talking about the price of blocks and the computers that are neded to run the GN motors. However the stock GN turbos sucked and started leaking oil after 20-30k. And a good up graded turbo will run well over $3k all by itself. A good rebuilt T72 that came on the GN is over $1200 from reliable manufacturers. Then you need a seperate fuel/timing managment computer (although in this case the 2 seperate comps might take care of that, not sure). I would say 8k to do this swap would be a good deal. Turbo cars are a whole differnt breed of beast and if you know nothing about them you really need to do your reseach before wading in.

look at the Supra, RX7 and 300Z sites and see what they know about turbos you can learn a lot.

[97 Firebird]

I thought there was a guy who came in here last year wanting to post his times, but pretty much got bashed because he put gn motor in his car. So he was not a true 3.8 in several opions on here.