Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

[Drakon543]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

Very hard to find ive only ever seen 2. One at a junk yard barely able to tell it was typhoon and one at a car show.

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

One of my friends owns a typhoon and another one owns a syclone. They're pretty great vehicles. But yea finding those engines won't be easy.
My best bet with the 4.3 is to find one out of a truck somewhere and build it for my needs.

One thing is the 3800 has gm's 60° bell housing pattern. And the 4.3 has the 90° pattern.

The 3800 will fit the bell housing I have sitting in my shed. But apparently $60-$70 buys an adapter to make the 4.3 fit it.

[DelHuge]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

The 4.3L V6 must have great potential. I agree an already supercharged 3.8L would be more of a direct performance option. But still, I think a turbo 4.3L would be very nice.

Or a Northstar 4.4L Supercharged from a Cadillac STS-V...

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

Yea a turbo 4.3 would be pretty bad ass. But I think the 3800 will yield some awesome results right out of the box haha

[Drakon543]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

Just came accross a thread in a jbody forum they mounted a 3800 sc in god knows what with a custom made subframe which i think looks pretty weak for his goals. Regardless he mounted an f40 to it.

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

Just came accross a thread in a jbody forum they mounted a 3800 sc in god knows what with a custom made subframe which i think looks pretty weak for his goals. Regardless he mounted an f40 to it.

Probably another fiero or something, The F40 being a fwd trans.

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

So I got the engine!



The ad claimed real low miles but it looks older than that. However under the oil cap it looks pretty damn clean!

So I now have a 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix 3800 Supercharged engine, It'll be bolted to a 2008 Pontiac Solstice 5 speed trans using a Dodge Dakota Bell housing!

At least I have a more complete wiring harness this time and ECU,
Also someone already dropped a smaller pulley on the supercharger

[Drakon543]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

... i give up trying to look at your picture link wont load for me.

Anyway i havnt had any personal experience with the sc on the 3.8 but depending on how the engine was treated by its previius owner. Ive heard the seals can go bad on them anywhere between 50k and never lol. My cousin had to rebuild the one on his gtp at 75k but i dont think ive ever seen him use the brakes if you get my drift < 2 pronged joke there. Ya i know im horrible with jokes. Supposed to be super easy and super cheap to rebuild one tho.

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

I think photobucket is failing to load my photo, that site is poorly hosted IMO.

Anyways I plan to redo all the gaskets on the engine. I haven't decided what I'll do with the supercharger yet, I do plan to run it, and it'll require some mods to work in a RWD platform. But I think it was taken care off pretty well overall.

The supercharged engine has stronger rods and lower compression than the N/A counterpart, so it should handle turbo's fairly well when that time comes.

The dude I got it from bought it for his Fiero, He was planning on that swap but didn't get to it, and sold me the engine and is selling his Fiero.

So the engine did sit for a while.

[Drakon543]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

Ya they make a turbo swap kit for the 3.8 sc and the base kit is designed to run on bone stock internals. But they make uograded everything else for that engine so making good power should be a snap after you have the main stuff squared away. Will definitely be unique setup i think. Ya i read alot where people give up on fieros. They read a couple posts and seen someone else do it without realizing how much time and money the people that have finished it and give up.

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

Oh yea, parts are everywhere for this thing.
I think my goal of 400hp will be easy on stock internals, Hell I could pull that out of the supercharger if I wanted. But I'm just going to keep it supercharged for maybe a year until I get the funds together to go turbo.

at least for now I can focus on building the rest of the car, and still have a good 250hp to mess around with

[DelHuge]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

The picture loads for me. But yeah, any image host sucks. I think the temperature has something to do with GM's gaskets failures. So if you replace all stock gaskets by high quality gaskets it should't be a problem in the future. Maybe a lower engine operating temperature in the programmation would help too. Turbos and superchargers normally prefers lower temps, so. I have a question : Are stock 3800 SC intercooled ?

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

The gaskets in the 3800 are on plastic carriers that warp and cause leaks, commonly coolant leaks into the cylinders.
Even the N/A engines have issues with that.
I'm looking for gaskets with metal carriers, ZZP has a kit with all the gaskets I'd need, but Idk what carriers they're on.

ZZP recommends upgraded rockers/cams and lower temp thermostats to aid with detonation.
The stock 3800 sc isn't intercooled, To do so they normally add a phenolic cooler that bolts between the supercharger and the intake manifold. But I won't get that far into since it'll be turbo'd with a front mount intercooler.

Usually with higher temps the detonation is more likely to happen, so the tune will just retard the timing a few degrees (knock retard).

So intake temps and a very good tune is what I'd need haha

[DelHuge]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

Sounds good !

[slowsedan]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8

The gaskets in the 3800 are on plastic carriers that warp and cause leaks, commonly coolant leaks into the cylinders.
Even the N/A engines have issues with that.
I'm looking for gaskets with metal carriers, ZZP has a kit with all the gaskets I'd need, but Idk what carriers they're on.

ZZP recommends upgraded rockers/cams and lower temp thermostats to aid with detonation.
The stock 3800 sc isn't intercooled, To do so they normally add a phenolic cooler that bolts between the supercharger and the intake manifold. But I won't get that far into since it'll be turbo'd with a front mount intercooler.

Usually with higher temps the detonation is more likely to happen, so the tune will just retard the timing a few degrees (knock retard).

So intake temps and a very good tune is what I'd need haha

Was gonna post all of that, you got your info down. The good thing about these engines is everything is tried and true and it's all been done before. With a good tune, custom exhaust, the smaller pulley already on there, and the rockers (1.9 IIRC) you should be close to 300hp and 350 ft/lbs of torque. Not too shabby. Plus those rockers really help the issue most 3800s suffer from, falling flat on their face above 5000rpm. Really wakes them up up top.