Well finally got all parts to start work on Caprice but NOW a free car that needswork

[MonzaRacer]

So I totaled my 98 Regal daily driver back in December.Wellllll my buddy gave me an 05 Grand Prix GTP ,,,,,,with engine issues.Sooooo I now have a free car that needs engine work.The cool part is its FREEEEE. Bad thing is there is so few places to find specs on the Series 3 supercharged Buick 3800. Took forever to find piston, rod info.I would have figure there would be more readily available information on these engines.Finally found rod length and piston info, dang they sure hide it and younger guys really don't have a clue how to put up all relevant information. Or how to use it.Had one guy in his early 20s ask me how to blue print a v6 or v8, and I told him the very same way as a 4 cyl.He was amazed. He never figured the same methods worked on different engines.Oh well I have to figure out what parts I can use to fix the engine.Neat thing is they use full floating pistons so swapping rods, as engine supposed have rod knock, is easy and all I'll need is to get crank ground and pick up some hard parts and gaskets.And tires , and freebies other minor items to fix small issues.At least it's free, so I won't have put any cash out on car!

[Pancho79]

I wish I could be so lucky, I've always had a soft spot for the Series Two and Three 3800s, and it's supercharged to boot! A buddy of mine had a Series Two S/C in his Buick and all he did was tune the PCM and it whooped plenty of V8s! I believe you can go down to a 3.5" pulley on the S/C for another 20HP or so without the computer freaking out. Tack on a cooler t-stat, colder plugs, aftermarket intake and aftermarket downpipe to the tune and a pulley and you have yourself a cheaply modded street spanker. :) Or, if you want it for another daily without touching it it's still a pretty fun car.

[MonzaRacer]

Well I dont intend to do much to mod the car, namely cause unless my Cavalier sells I will have to really scrape just to get an NA engine to source a short block, I know I will need headers, retune on ecm and use lower tstat.
OR buy new rods and pistons for SC application. Too bad no one makes an off the shelf oe replacement forged piston, just high end aftermarket ones. I mean i wish I could get a $300-$400 set of forged pistons,,, not $800+.
The factory NA compression requires changing timing tables to keep it from knocking its self apart.
I have been told I cant rebuild it to live, even though I am a Master Machinist.
Hmmm maybe I SHOULD.
Ok only bad thing OTHER than no reasonable forged pistons, there are no REGULAR cast pistons,,,,hyperutectic are too brittle for hard boost .
Hm doing my homework if i rebuild an NA shortblock.