dbusch22

i've got a 94 with a 383 stroker so this isn't exactly my area of expertise... BUT

My brother just bought his first car. a 1995 camaro 3.4L 5 speed for $500. The motor is siezed so we've got some crossroads ahead. Needed you guys here in the V6 forum to help out a Lt1 guy.

DO we:

-just drop a junkyard 3.4L into it and call it a day

-buy a 3.4L and try to modify it a little to make it fun (my brother doesn't have it License yet and he wants to learn a lot about cars like myself which makes this a great starter for him)

-try to put a 3.8L in it. (which i have in my bonneville and it is a great motor) 244,000 on it and running strong!

-find a donor car and do an Lt1 swap into it? (which i am most familiar with the Lt1)

I would lean toward doing the Lt1 swap b/c i feel comfortable it is a job i can tackle, but my main question is with the tranny. Can the 5 speed tranny bolt up to an Lt1? If the swap means that we'd have to switch to an A4 tranny then i won't do it. I don't want to switch over from stick to auto, because that's a whole other can of worms i don't want to open.

money isn't really a huge issue, b/c we're just going to make it a slow going learning project over the course of a year or so. the only thing with money is that i don't want the cost of a conversion to consume the complete value of the car. example: if we could just buy a decent Lt1 car for the cost of converting it, then it probably wouldn't be a great idea. I am pretty crafty and cut a lot of corners where i can. I deal in f-body cars all the time and i have a bunch of parts left over from previous projects so that's a plus. I would be willing to spend over $1000 to do the swap b/c i know that's what it would take.


we're not looking to make a race machine. just something fun, a learning experience, and a decent daily driver.
some opinions please.
thanks

shock6906

If you swap in an LT-1, you can't use the M5 from the V-6. You could go with a T-56 though, that would work. If you're just looking for a reliable daily driver, finding another 3.4 to put in it would probably have a lot less gremlins to work out rather than a complete engine/transmission swap.

However, if you do decide to swap to another engine, you might as well go with the LT-1. If you swap in any other engine besides the 3.4, you'll have to do just as much work as if you went with the LT-1.

dbusch22

yea, that's what i was leaning toward after i started doing a little research on it. I don't want to convert the car to an automatic, and i'm not dropping 1000k on a t-56 alone (and he's not getting my t-56 that's for sure)
so... maybe just put in a newer 3.4 and then do a few mods. I wouldn't mind doing an aluminum head conversion and the intake that i see people are swapping on to them. It kinda would be fun to give it a shot of nitrous, but i'd want forged pistons for that and that means taking apart the motor on top of it all... and then we're up to so much headache that i might as well do the Lt1. it's always a matter of just how much crap you want to deal with... anything is possible. anyone make a reasonable turbo kit for the 3.4? do the six bangers respond well to turbocharging?

Still for $500 it's not a bad deal
it's been sitting for about 3 years, in a shed. the interior smells like mouse urine so bad you can't stand it.. so we'll be gutting the interior and keeping what we can.

the bonuses are that it's got t-tops,an SS hood, and an M-5 (which will make it a little more fun for him) I think it's also got 3.73's not sure though. the owner told me that he upgraded the rear end gears.. I'm not sure if it's a one wheel wonder.

it needs paint, and engine, and interior. i'll probably also pick up some nice rims, like some ZR1 replicas maybe.

Is there any exhaust that you can put on a six banger that won't make it sound just sick and worthless? otherwise i'm leaving that stock.

FastLt1

Play with it. Do a big block swap? Junkyard swap? Be orginial. Have fun. Be creative.

dbusch22

when i pull engines out of Lt1 cars, i always end up doing it from the bottom. I lift the body up and roll the cradle/engine out in front of the car. Is that necessary on the sixers? or can they be more easily pulled from the top? they seem to be tucked way back under the dash like the Lt motors, however there is a ton of room in front of them.

2000GTP

I would just drop a junkyard 3.4L in it and call it a day. It is his first car, let him get comfortable with it and go from there.

toby

maybe an ls1/t56 combo.

Severous01

if you're going to do the trouble of swapping drivetrains, do the ls1 swap. they can be had for about 3k now, accessories, harness, ecm and trans. you already have pedals and console, slave/master cyl is there. you're going to need a new k-member any way, pay a few more bucks to get the whole front k-member/shocks/brake setup with the engine and go from there.

drop the shocks, remove the bolts holding in the k-member (making sure all wiring is undone) and drop it out the bottom...put the lsx in it's place and drop the car back onto the new k-member.

a day's work and it's done. wire the next day and have fun with you're new 400hp toy.

FunkZ

Buy a junkyard 3.4 and throw a cam in it before you drop it in, really helps to wake these motors up. When he's tired of that and has some money to play with then go for the LT1 swap.

smithtim

you can probably get away with taking it out the front if you pulled the heads and whatnot separately and then just pulled the bottom end alone up with a crane (personally I've pulled the heads out the front; never actually pulled the block up but looks like it'll go).. would be much easier the otherway though

For his first car I'd just stick with the 3.4 as its not a bad car to learn to drive on; it’s got enough power for him to appreciate it (especailly if you walked him through a few mods like metioned above by FunkZ), but not so much power that you have to worry.. Also, once you start swapping engines like that there is a never ending money pit of PCM, tranny etc.,etc.,

dbusch22

You guys have been a lot of help seeing different points of view. My car for example is the never ending money pit of a car. it started as a 1994 formula M6 bought for the purpose of stripping it and building a real nice car out of it. now, about $20K later it's a real nice 383 with a 2002 WS6 front end, trans am spoiler and groud effects, leather interior, moser 12 bolt, Ls1 brakes, etc etc... and it is a low 12 second car. i just keep sticking more and more money into it and i don't want that for my brother.

I think i'm just going to go with the 3.4 maybe a mod or two. I was hoping for a least 200hp, but i hear that's actually harder to come by than you'd think. Being that it will be his first car i'm sure he will be excited enough just to have a nice looking, decent running little car with t-tops.

i remember when i was 17 and got my first F-body... ah yes, it was the one that started it all, a 1983 305 quadra junk Trans Am with a 700r4. I thought it was the hottest thing in this hemisphere... until until a guy in a cadillac passed me like i was standing still.

anyway. There is no way i'm going to be doing a Ls* swap in this thing at all. I'll be getting one of those before my 18 year old brother gets one.

Man.... 160hp is weak, i can't believe GM got away with putting such a pathetic motor in a sports car. oh well, it's still $500 well spent i think

so since i'm going to have the motor on a stand. what are good things to add. a cam ok, (are they all custom grind for 3.4's or is there a performance line from comp or something (remember i've never bought parts for a V6 before)

Can i add 1.6 rockers? do they take the same size and kind as the LT* motors?

Probably end up going with cam, rockers, exhaust and an intake (maybe Lt1 injectors). that should get him in the neighborhood of 185 horse conservatively? yes, no?? How about an Lt1 fuel pump? they're higher volume than the V6 pump correct? Then we're talking tuning etc. where do you get a v6 compuer tuned? does pcmforless do that as well?

thanks again

11secgen

man i just threw out a 4.3

MarcR94v6

no tuning for the 3.4.

AlfredB18

160 HP was pretty decent for a v6 back in the early 90s. The Ford Mustang 3.8L had 140ish. 150 HP out of a v6 was pretty good back then. Now is a different story, but you get the point.

The heads and intake manis are pathetic in terms of air flow. Port 'em. The 3.4L cam is pretty good stock, but I believe it likes to self destruct over time.

LT1 fuel pump? Why? The volume is higher, but when an engine is only built to use so much fuel....it's a pointless mod.

dbusch22

but my crappy bonneville with it's 3.8L has 175 horse, so it's sad that my bonne is about at the same perfomance level that this car will be at.

nice tip about the cam.

and i mentioned the Lt1 fuel pump because earlier in one of my replies i said that i might go with bigger injectors like the lt1 22lb injecotors. I read in a post somewhere about the v6's (i think it was russel's post) that the stock injectors on a 3.4 liter car are maxed out, or at the higher end of their duty cycle... so if i cam it, add an intake and exhaust, do some rr's, i'd probably need the larger injectors. larger injectors usually mean that you'd also need to supply more fuel to the injectors. I just figured that the v6 pump might not be able to adequately supply the 22lb Lt injectors... just my take on it.

thanks