Horrible week for us with cars and other engine driven machines.
Wifes car developed a intermittent no start leaving her and our 4 month old stranded in the stl heat. Took 3 days of searching for the dealer to find out a ground under the dash broke loose. Had to ride a Honda Helix that I restored from ground up back and forth to work and on the HWY the brand new Honda Wheel bearings disintegrated at 65mph almost causing me to wreck.
This Morning I Pulled fiero out to drive it back and forth and it has developed a load lower end rattle... Like real bad rattle. Have about 3k in it since it was installed.
What a Nightmare week.. What the crap did I do for this bad karma..
Man I thought I had it bad with this pos 3800 I bought several months ago. Dude may be you should by a lottery ticket. I hope things get better for you and your family!
Such is life. I broke a lot of hearts with this greasy 145k motor Mike gonzales cleaned up and made look a gem. Ill find another and stab it in and keep breaking more hearts. May take me a bit it seems like the series 2 engines are really dried up around here though as of late.
I swapped my wife's n/a for a low mileage L67,blew trans in 100 miles. Rebuilt trans,spun rod in 100 miles. Installed low mileage L67,spun bearing (not sure which yet). Rebuilt previous n/a into a top swap and ceramic or moly coated every moving part including bearings. 150 miles so far,feels great
It'll always get better,cause there has to be a point where it can't get worse.
Funny how the 3800's are bullet proof in a Buick but when you put them in a Fiero all sorts of bad things happen to them. Larry
I've done over a dozen 3800 swaps for customers (not counting those I've done for myself, family, and friends) and I have yet to hear of any failures except one. The one failure occurred only after the owner put the car in storage (this after he drove it hundreds of miles). He let a friend drive it when he was moving and he said the friend took it out of the storage unit and beat the snot out of it when it was cold. Beating on anything when it is cold is bad, and the oil probably needed to be changed before it was driven after it sat in storage as long as it did.
I change the problem gaskets on pretty much all the 3800 swaps I do but you have to take great care when cleaning the gasket mating surfaces and make absolutely sure no dirt or grit gets into the engine when it is "open". Most 3800 engine failures can be attributed to contaminated oil - contaminated either from antifreeze (due to leaking lower intake gaskets) or from grit/dirt that was introduced when replacing certain gaskets or any other internal engine component (and even from using improper gasket removal techniques or tools). I've seen pictures of guys putting engines together outside in their driveways with the everyday dust and dirt blowing around and they wonder why their engines don't last. Basically you need a "clean room" to assemble an engine to make sure no debris is able to get into it and you need to make sure you thoroughly cleanse the inside of the engine just prior to final assembly.
The preceding is true for any engine as a matter of fact. I don't care if you have a 4 banger or V8. If you allow dirt and grit to get inside the engine while it is apart and you don't clean it out - it won't last long.
-ryan
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After tearing down my 3800,(been building my own engines for 40 years), these 3800SCs , the main bearings are pretty much bullet proof, the rod bearings, even after 200K miles they show no "wear" . even if they have had just minimal "CARE", someone would have to work real hard to blow one. By that I I mean running with no Oil, Low oil, never changing the oil, No coolant, revving it until it won't go any higher. If a 3800 gives it up, it's usually due to "operator error" somewhere along the road. I don't care for" 1 time use Bolts", but one of the best engineered engines I've seen.
Just not the case with this engine. This engine was from a 1 owner car with a stack of records for dealer maintenance. Up until the month it got t-boned. It sat for maybe 3 months and then was installed with a rattle can rebuild From Mike Gonzales here on the forum. It has had maybe 4 Oil changes since I got it back and Mike did one when he installed it.
I haven't ran this car near as hard as the Buick regal GS I had. It's been a sunny day driver and the Bad knocking happend on start up when it was already warm.
Stuff happens. This engine was never neglected and I never neglected it. It just went.
Funny how the 3800's are bullet proof in a Buick but when you put them in a Fiero all sorts of bad things happen to them. Larry
I think this is because 1 of 2 things...
First thing is most Fiero engines are junk yard engines or from badly wrecked cars, these can be ticking time bombs.
Second thing is people who are unaware of these engines may just slap new rod bearings in, etc, which with these engines you simply can't do without proper procedures, the success rate can be VERY low that they will last more than 1000 miles.
"Hard left turns it runs out of oil" ?! Sounds like a oil "baffle" in the Pan is in order. Now who would do" hard left turns" in a Fiero ? LOL there's your answer "why they last in a Buick and not in a Fiero (Most Buick owners drive them "Gently") My pan is still off, I think I'll look into making a "Baffle". Has anyone done it " or "are they Offered" aftermarket ?
I just had an episode with mine where at first I thought the SC had gone out. Eliminated that. Then I thought it could be a collapsed lifter Or a cracked flex plate. I would get a God awful noise when the motor was under load. I swapped out the Coils and ICM, thats where I discovered A bad plug wire. The metal retainer had broken off inside the boot and I hadn't noticed it. I replaced the wires with new and did a case learn on the computer because I think they were swapped around too. No more noise.
An engine that blew after 147K miles has certainly given a useful life. Many factors could have contributed to its failure but driving an old worn high mileage engine hard could be one of them. The 3800 engines are durable but as soon as one owner changes the driving pattern that it has been exposed to all its life; its a whole new ballgame. Installing any used engine is a crapshoot. Most of the time they work but sometimes they don't.
------------------ " THE BLACK PARALYZER" -87GT 3800SC Series III engine, custom ZZP /Frozen Boost Intercooler setup, 3.4" Pulley, Powerlog manifold, Northstar TB, LS1 MAF, 3" Flotech Afterburner Exhaust, Autolite 104's, MSD wires, Custom CAI, 4T65eHD w. custom axles, HP Tuners VCM Suite. "THE COLUSSUS" 87GT - ALL OUT 3.4L Turbocharged engine, Garrett Hybrid Turbo, MSD ign., modified TH125H " ON THE LOOSE WITHOUT THE JUICE "
Basically you need a "clean room" to assemble an engine to make sure no debris is able to get into it and you need to make sure you thoroughly cleanse the inside of the engine just prior to final assembly.
