3100 to 3800 Engine Swap

[Ray_McAvoy]

I've programmed a bunch of different ones. But, would have to look at that one to make sure The 1995 ones were strange in some ways. If you can get the numbers off the chip its self, I can tell you for sure.

David

Yeah, that's what I've been reading that these 94/95 PCMs are a little different than most other years. I don't have easy access to the U-van chip now that it's in the car, but I do have the LeSabre PCM (same PCM part number) sitting right here on my desk. These PCMs have the calibration chip inside a little plastic carrier housing that plugs into a narrow dual row connector socket on the PCM's main circuit board. I just unplugged the one from the LeSabre PCM and carefully removed the plastic cover. There's what appears to be a DIP style EPROM chip in there and it looks like it just plugs into a socket that forms the base of that carrier housing/adapter. However, there is a small circuit board piggybacked on top of that chip that'll have to be unplugged/removed to see the numbers on the chip itself. But that's got a little bit of clear silicone or something lightly holding it in place so I'll wait and work on carefully removing that when I have a bit more time.

Thanks for the compliments Ken & babyivan! I've done the water pump replacement on a LeSabre before and that engine mount is definitely a pain on those. As I mentioned earlier, I had to pull the pump back off this engine to swap out a gasket that didn't seal. I'm sure glad the A-body/U-van mounts leave the water pump freely accessible because it sure made that job a lot easier.

[86euro]

So what's next on the car? You've done a fantastic job on everything so far, is that about it or is there still more to come?

Congratulations Ray! That engine looks sweet in the a-body engine bay. I know exactly what that engine can do in my father's '95 LeSabre, I can only imagine what it will do in that light a-body.

BTW, I can still hear my father cursing about that engine mount and the water pump. That's evil the way they mounted that thing.

Ken T.

Yeah, those water pumps are no fun!

[turbosewgn]

Beautiful job!! Nice to see another wagon get a second chance. Good job!

[Ray_McAvoy]

David, I got that calibration module apart (that piggyback board on top of the eprom was soldered into the socket so I had to carefully de-solder the pins). The eprom chip is #67633 and it too is soldered into the socket that forms the base of the module.

So what's next on the car? You've done a fantastic job on everything so far, is that about it or is there still more to come?

Hi Andy, yeah there's still a fairly long to-do list but it's mostly cosmetic & other non-essential stuff so I'll just be working away at those things as I can fit them in around other jobs.

First up is re-covering the headliner. I've had the new material ready for this for some time now and the old material had really taken to sagging a lot worse lately. So we figured this would be a good time to tackle that project now that I've got some room in the garage and still have that temporary plywood work table set up from doing the wiring. We pulled it out last night and now comes the not so fun part of removing the old foam/residue from the backer board.

I've also got to do some troubleshooting/repair on the remote keyless entry system. It had been working but quit all of a sudden last winter. The tailgate release & electric locks (including the auto lock/unlock when the trans is shifted in/out of park) still work normally off the buttons in the car ... just not off the remotes. So I'm thinking it's probably the RKE receiver module or possibly the associated wiring.

Then (probably sometime next spring/summer) I'm planning on pulling the dash out (as mentioned earlier) to see if I can fix/reinforce where the plastic is cracked around the upper mounting screws. And while it's out, add the cruise wires from the switch to the PCM and re-pin the instrument cluster connectors to swap in a full-gauge/tach cluster out of a 93. I've also got a similar gauge/tach cluster swap & dash plastic repair project on the to-do list for my 88 Cutlass Ciera.

And finally, I'm eventually planning on doing a little more paint/body work on the hood & roof. I painted the fenders/doors/quarters/tailgate shortly after getting the car but I didn't bother with the hood or roof because they weren't all that bad. The hood & roof do have some tiny little rust speckles/blisters in the paint here and there and the underside of the hood has quite a bit of peeling paint & surface rust. The 94 parts car (that donated it's doors & fenders to my 88) has a nearly mint condition hood so I'll probably just sand that one down, paint it, and swap it onto the wagon.

Beautiful job!! Nice to see another wagon get a second chance. Good job!

Thanks! This wagon definitely got a second chance for sure ... it probably would have been crushed if I hadn't saved it from the junkyard.

[Ray_McAvoy]

Small update and a couple more pics ...

Got the old headliner material & foam stripped off the backer board last night. When I did the headliner in my 88, the old foam on that one was really stuck on there and was quite a tedious job to remove without damaging the fiberglass backer board. Luckily, the foam on this one peeled off a lot easier ... good thing because the wagon headliner is almost twice as long as the one in my sedan and would have taken days to strip down had it been stuck like that.

I also fixed the remote keyless entry by replacing the module with the one out of my 94 parts car. I saved the old non-working module ... if I get a chance sometime I'll open it up and do a little testing to see if I can figure out what's wrong with it and if it can be easily repaired or not.

I've also had it out for a few more test drives and it will definitely GO!

A couple more pics of the completed project with the fenders & front-end all back together:




One other little project that's still on the to-do list is to modify the strut tower brace that came out of the engine donor LeSabre so it fits the wagon. I've already modified a 90's C/H body strut tower brace to fit my 88 Cutlass Ciera so this one will be basically the same. I still have the cardboard templates of the end pieces I made to attach to the strut towers but GM changed the A-body strut attachment hole position / clocking over the years so I'll have to go through the template making process again to design some that fit this 94.

[turbokinetic]

Wow. That engine really, truly looks like it was a factory install. Very good craftsmanship there.

I've got to learn to do headliners. Literally ALL my cars have A- Saggy droopy fabric, OR B- A bare backer board with grungy looking foam residue.

I'm so accustomed to 'something' rubbing my hair that I don't even notice the droopy headliner anymore... that is bad.

David

[Ray_McAvoy]

Wow. That engine really, truly looks like it was a factory install. Very good craftsmanship there.

Thanks again for the compliments! With the exception of a few custom/modified parts (like the heater pipe & air cleaner mount), most everything else ended up being stock (or equivalent replacement) parts meant for an A-body, U-body, or H-body so that made it a bit easier to maintain a factory installed look. And being in the hobby of restoring old cars, I have a tendency to paint/refinish the various parts & pieces with something that at least looks similar to the OE finish.

I've got to learn to do headliners.

With the work I've seen you do on your other projects, I'm sure you won't have much trouble picking up the skill

I haven't done very many headliners either ... this will only be the 3rd one I've done so far. 1st was in my 74 Nova. That one had a somewhat hard fiberboard type backer board instead of fiberglass and getting it in/out of the door opening without cracking it was probably the hardest part of that job. The 2nd one was in my 88 Olds and being a 4-door sedan I knew it would have been an even tighter fit through the smaller door openings as compared to the 2-dr Nova. That car needed a new windshield (old one was quite pitted) so I took the opportunity to take that headliner in/out through the windshield opening while that was out. And of course, this wagon headliner was real easy to take out through the tailgate.

[occupant]

This is looking even better than I ever could have imagined! Might as well be a factory install looking from the pictures, but we all now know some of the custom work that it took to make it happen! Funny how the ancillary parts can be the most difficult to adapt? But it's nice to know it is only an air filter housing mount and some heater hoses that gave you fits!

If it makes you feel any better, I had an '87 New Yorker Turbo in 1995 in high school and it cracked one of those metal heater hose lines under the hood. I had to spend $150 or something at the dealer for one to replace it. Installed that myself. Would have been a $350 repair. Metal heater hose lines just don't sound good to me at all. I'd run rubber ones if I had to.

The only thing I would change is I would paint the valve covers black to match the intake runners. Just to make it a bit different. It's in an Oldsmobile, it should be different And different is good! The L27 looks great in a Ciera engine compartment. While an L36 might look different, it might not be easier to wire up. Maybe for a full OBDII 1996 model it would be easier.

[turbosewgn]

Drool... That is awesome! You should slap a turbo on there now
Nicely done man..

[Ray_McAvoy]

This is looking even better than I ever could have imagined! Might as well be a factory install looking from the pictures, but we all now know some of the custom work that it took to make it happen! Funny how the ancillary parts can be the most difficult to adapt? But it's nice to know it is only an air filter housing mount and some heater hoses that gave you fits!

The only thing I would change is I would paint the valve covers black to match the intake runners. Just to make it a bit different. It's in an Oldsmobile, it should be different And different is good! The L27 looks great in a Ciera engine compartment. While an L36 might look different, it might not be easier to wire up. Maybe for a full OBDII 1996 model it would be easier.

Drool... That is awesome! You should slap a turbo on there now
Nicely done man..

Thanks for the compliments guys! This car is Mom's grocery getter so I'd probably have a hard time talking her into adding even more power with a turbo

Back when I had the engine apart, I had thought about painting the valve covers. I was thinking of giving them a cast aluminum look with the Plasti-Kote #282 paint that I used on all the other aluminum parts. But they cleaned up really nice so I just decided to leave them with their original finish even though the tan color doesn't really match anything else on the engine.

Speaking of L36's, I had looked into the possibility of using one of those but decided that would just make the swap even more complicated with the additional wiring differences, different PS pump location, different heater hose connector locations, and such.

Can't wait to see some test-drive videos!

Here's a quick video I shot today. You'll have to excuse my poor video recording skills ... I'm not much of a filmmaker and it's a bit out of focus at times. The bumpy roads around here probably didn't help much either ... when I uploaded it to YouTube it said it detected that my video was shaky and wanted to know if I wanted it fixed ... so I did

The last part was filmed from about a 40mph rolling start, accelerating up to about 75. It was still pulling strong but this rough road isn't really the best for high speed driving. I still haven't checked yet to see how accurate the speedometer is, but I don't think it's as bad as I was thinking earlier. A quick calculation (just based on the tire size difference) is only showing it reading about 3mph high at an actual speed of 75mph.

[Century7667]

I just keep telling myself I want to do that. Time, time, time....where is my time?

[Ray_McAvoy]

I just keep telling myself I want to do that. Time, time, time....where is my time?

Finding the time to do these projects can certainly be a challenge. Seems like I'm always juggling projects around and putting the lower priority stuff on hold to get the more urgent ones done. Now that this one is finished, I can get back to some body/paint work on my 77 Nova ... that's been an on & off again project for several years now.

[Jr's3800]

Very good work... Loved watching this thread... The 95 L27 is a good motor, a great torque machine for pulling the wagon around... this is how they should have come from the factory... They would have easily pulled 30 Mpg on the road... Kudos to you...

[occupant]

I'd love to know how the 3800 does on gas mileage compared to the 3100. The original EPA ratings for a 1994 3.1L Ciera Cruiser (or sedan) were 19 city 29 highway, just like a 1995 3.8L LeSabre, so the "modern" ratings of 17 city and 26 highway 20 combined are also the same. Difference is 1994-1995 sedan Cieras have higher user ratings, 24 to 27 mpg, versus 20mpg for the LeSabre users.

[SilentWing]

Not so sure about the Series II 3800's.... they probably do better than the Series I. I can tell you that the Toronado generally gets around 17mpg all city driving. My Ciera gets anywhere from 17-19 depending on the week and the weather... with that being said that's also with my car having the top swap. As far as the Toronado goes... that car is one heavy son-of-a... so I guess we'd have to take that into consideration too.