What is the V8 version of a Buick 3800 ?

[WyrTwister]

The biggest thing to look out far is the plastic coolant elbows , replace them with metal coolant elbows . ( A very stupid design ! )

I have read of intake leaks , which may or may not have been caused by DEXCOOL not playing nice with gaskets / seals .

I have read that by the time our 2006 Lacrosse was built , this had been corrected . I hope so .

 

[GenesisGuy70]

Fiance has a Grand Prix with the 3800 in it. I really liked that engine. Solid as a tank.

 

[Rmay635703]

Originally Posted by WyrTwister
The biggest thing to look out far is the plastic coolant elbows , replace them with metal coolant elbows . ( A very stupid design ! )so .


Our 98 blew its engine from that very issue

 

[DriveHard]

maybe its not the exact same design, but I would put the strength and reliability of the 6.0L LS based truck engine up against the 3800.

 

[CR94]

Originally Posted by Char Baby
... However, as Chris142 & CR94 have mentioned, it actually does derive from a V8 block
The 90º vee angle is a good clue of that origin. To smooth out the resultant uneven firing, they innovated the split crank throws Shannow mentions, circa late 80s.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted by Chris142
The basic design goes back to the 300 cuin Buick v8 from the 60's.Buick basically chopped off 2 cylinders. Started as a 225 cuin v6. Then became the 231 which morphed into the 3800.

It goes even further back than that. In the late 50s, Buick was experimenting with a radical for the time aluminum block V-8, that engine ended up going nowhere, but it did have the typical 90 degree bank angle of most US V-8 engines. This engine, sawed off into a V-6, and "reverted" to an all iron design, became the almost-eternal "Buick V-6". It first appeared as a 198 cid engine, there was another intermediate displacement which I can't recall, and at last, it settled in as the 231 cid/3.8L we now know. Originally, it had an uneven firing interval, resulting from six cylinders at 90 degrees with opposing cylinders sharing a crank pin. It later got the split-pin feature, resulting in evenly spaced cylinder firings, and the extreme smoothness for which it is now known. In the late 60s or early 70s GM sold the engine's design and production tooling to AMC (IIRC) who used it for a few years, but later sold the whole thing back to GM, which produced it until they finally retired it.

Yeah, I owned a 98 Regal GS, with the supercharged version of the 231/3.8, so I got pretty "schooled up" on this engine. It was/is one of the nicest, longest-lived engines ever put into a car. Kudos to GM. Keep in mind, it was in production, essentially uninterrupted from 1961 until GM pulled the plug just a few years ago. How many other engines out there ever sustained viable 50 year production runs???



Originally Posted by das_peikko
OK let me narrow it down: What would be the closest V8 engine to the Buick 3800 produced during the years 2000 thru 2005 ?


None.

 

[ekpolk]

Whoops, I forgot, Shannow is right -- the aluminum V-8 from which the 231/3.8 was derived was indeed sold, ultimately ending up other maker's lineups -- it "went somewhere" not "nowhere"...

Originally Posted by clinebarger
... Besides.....A Vortec 4.3L will walk all over a 3800.

It would have been a nice base engine in a S-10 instead of the putrid 2.2L Cavalier engine.

Sure, but the 4.3 has always been intended as a truck engine, with it's corresponding emphasis on torque. The 3.8 was almost always a car engine (there was time away from GM...), and its performance was balanced accordingly. It would have been a pointless exercise to ever install it in a truck, but the supercharged version would not have been so easily "walked over..." IIRC, it produced 280 ft-lbs of tq at relatively low rpm and being SC vs turbo, there was no delay at all. A very pleasing effect...

As for the last, I totally agree -- but on the other hand, a team of harnessed mice on a treadmill probably would have outperformed THAT engine...

 

[ekpolk]

Click here - good Wikipedia article on the colorful and interesting history of this superb engine.

 

[CR94]

Originally Posted by ekpolk
... In the late 50s, Buick was experimenting with a radical for the time aluminum block V-8, that engine ended up going nowhere, but it did have the typical 90 degree bank angle of most US V-8 engines. This engine, sawed off into a V-6, and "reverted" to an all iron design, became the almost-eternal "Buick V-6". It first appeared as a 198 cid engine ...
When was that 198 version, and in what? Are you saying the the 1950s aluminum V8 "experimenting" was unrelated to the 215 cubic inch V8 in the 1961 Buick and Olds compacts, and to the 300 in the 1964 LeSabre?

My parents had the 300 experiment, which lived up to its moniker by consuming a quart of oil every 300 miles from the time it was new. Dealer advised just drive it fast to break in the chrome rings. That didn't work. Finally they replaced the rings at about 24k miles, at Buick's expense. That didn't help much, either. At about 50k, it dumped the coolant into the oil, through a hole eroded through the aluminum water pump housing. At about 70k, it was missing constantly due to valve actuation problems I didn't understand (or see). One attempt by an independent mechanic to fix that issue was unsuccessful.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted by DriveHard
maybe its not the exact same design, but I would put the strength and reliability of the 6.0L LS based truck engine up against the 3800.

But it's an apples vs oranges comparison. These two engine families have little in common, but what they do share is interesting. The parent company, of course, is GM in both cases. GM has taken its knocks, but the fact remains that both engine families proved economically viable, and practical/effective for decades beyond what would seem to be the norm today.

Both engines trace their origins to roughly the same time -- the mid-1950s, give or take a couple years. The small-block V-8 line has survived longer, primarily because it still has a huge market to fill -- light trucks (and Corvettes, of course...

).

Both families saw continual improvements over the years, but the V-6 settled into almost a fixed form 20 years before it went away (same displacement, minor improvements), whereas the V-8s have taken many more forms (many displacements, iron and aluminum, various adaptations, etc.).

And both families have had problems. Stupid plastic cooling parts for the V-6, piston slap during some years for the V-8. Just for example. I'd still call both very reliable engines.

But notice this: throughout all the years, GM stuck with the solid basic formula, compact, relatively light, push-rod designs. Many people criticized GM for staying with "ancient" outdated designs. But they worked, and for many, they still do.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted by CR94
. . .When was that 198 version, and in what? Are you saying the the 1950s aluminum V8 "experimenting" was unrelated to the 215 cubic inch V8 in the 1961 Buick and Olds compacts, and to the 300 in the 1964 LeSabre?
. . .


The first iteration of the engine was the 198 cid, released in 1961 for the 1962 Buick "Special". To be clear, I don't know if the 215 V-8 was another design, or descended from Buick's aluminum V-8 from which the 198-225-231 was derived.

Another thought: remember that especially with GM, back in those days, the makers offered a dizzying array of engine choices. At GM the various divisions had their own things going with engine designs. When I was a kid (ironically, I "debuted" the same year as this V-6 -- 1961), my parents were Dodge Dart fans. I still remember when they bought their last, a 1973, you could get 198, 225, 318, 340, 360, 400, 440 cid engines as options across the line! GM was as complicated, maybe worse, but again, I recall as a child, so I'll defer to those who can recall as adults. Point is, I don't dispute your recollection of what happened, but I suspect those were similar displacement engines, but from different "genetic" lines.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted by CR94
...
My parents had the 300 experiment, which lived up to its moniker by consuming a quart of oil every 300 miles from the time it was new. Dealer advised just drive it fast to break in the chrome rings. That didn't work. Finally they replaced the rings at about 24k miles, at Buick's expense. That didn't help much, either.

Hey, look at the bright side -- no need to bother taking time out for regular oil changes -- the car took care of that "automatically..."

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by ekpolk
Originally Posted by DriveHard
maybe its not the exact same design, but I would put the strength and reliability of the 6.0L LS based truck engine up against the 3800.

But it's an apples vs oranges comparison. These two engine families have little in common, but what they do share is interesting. The parent company, of course, is GM in both cases. GM has taken its knocks, but the fact remains that both engine families proved economically viable, and practical/effective for decades beyond what would seem to be the norm today.

Both engines trace their origins to roughly the same time -- the mid-1950s, give or take a couple years. The small-block V-8 line has survived longer, primarily because it still has a huge market to fill -- light trucks (and Corvettes, of course...

).

Both families saw continual improvements over the years, but the V-6 settled into almost a fixed form 20 years before it went away (same displacement, minor improvements), whereas the V-8s have taken many more forms (many displacements, iron and aluminum, various adaptations, etc.).

And both families have had problems. Stupid plastic cooling parts for the V-6, piston slap during some years for the V-8. Just for example. I'd still call both very reliable engines.

But notice this: throughout all the years, GM stuck with the solid basic formula, compact, relatively light, push-rod designs. Many people criticized GM for staying with "ancient" outdated designs. But they worked, and for many, they still do.


I don't consider the LSx engines an evolution of the SBC. The SBC died with the LT1 and was replaced by the much more capable, but completely different, LSx engine family, spearheaded by the LS1. In many respects the LSx has more in common with the Ford Windsor (SBF) than it does the SBC it replaced.

 

[ekpolk]

Interesting, seriously. I remember a number of years back reading an article in one of the car magazines that made essentially the same point. At any rate, I've never taken the time to become really familiar with the GM V-8 engine family lines, so I'm certainly not going to claim expertise there...

 

[CharBaby]

Originally Posted by Shannow
Originally Posted by Char Baby
Here's my understating for many years and I could be very wrong. The 4.3L V6(as we all know) was a Chevy small block V8(90°) with 2 cylinders lopped off. And although the 3.8L V6(60°) was always designed as a V6( back ~ 1962) but originaly started out in a smaller displacement, it really has no V8 big brother.



Nope, there was a 300V-8, a 215 Alloy block V-8, that also had a turbocharged varietal.

Later sold to Rover, it became the Rover 3.5, and in Oz the Australian P-76 V-8 of 4.4 litres.

The V-6 started odd fire (I'm sure, but might be out there), but became even fire with the split crank throws.

Originally Posted by Char Baby
Here's my understating for many years and I could be very wrong. The 4.3L V6(as we all know) was a Chevy small block V8(90°) with 2 cylinders lopped off. And although the 3.8L V6 was always designed as a V6( back ~ 1962) but originaly started out in a smaller displacement.

However, as Chris142 & CR94 have mentioned, it actually does derive from a V8 block


Yup, edited here^^^

 

[Shannow]

Yeah, but if you edit it after I quote...not much I can do about it.

 

[A_Harman]

Originally Posted by das_peikko
OK let me narrow it down: What would be the closest V8 engine to the Buick 3800 produced during the years 2000 thru 2005 ?


None. The Buick small block V8 ended production in 1981.

 

[CharBaby]

Originally Posted by Shannow
Yeah, but if you edit it after I quote...not much I can do about it.


It's OK my friend, never a problem.

I think I was editing at the same time you were posting. Happens all the time.
We still Pals?

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted by CR94
Originally Posted by PimTac
I would have thought the old 300 or 305 would be the 8 cylinder version just by running the math?
??? Yes, the early 300 was a V8, as Chris132 said. So was the aluminum 215. There was a 340 V8 version a little later. The later (1970s) 305 (Chevrolet??) V8 was unrelated.


None of the earlier Buick V8 and V6 engines were really related to the 3800, the earlier ones used a totally different oiling system (that was the weak point on them), even the 300 and Rover 3.5 (the 215) had the issue.
They used a distributor driven twin gear oil pump in the aluminum front cover, the cover acting as the pump body with gears and a relief cover, after some time the timing cover got worn and oil pressure became a real issue, the 3800 uses a modern crankshaft driven pump.

Back when I was building a lot of nail head and 430/455 engines a mod kit was available with a stainless insert, spacer, longer gears and higher relief cover, today there are a few companies manufacturing replacement timing covers with a larger pump. Without this mod you could not get them to stay together making any sort of HP.
I had a Rover SD1 Vitesse and put a kit in it and cured the oiling issues.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by Char Baby
It's OK my friend, never a problem.

I think I was editing at the same time you were posting. Happens all the time.
We still Pals?


Of course.