"Daniel" wrote in news:cYy1b.69696$ snipped-for-privacy@charlie.risq.qc.ca:
I was quoted once with GM's engine that was (one of it's) most
> reliable, best choice overall ( considering reliability, power, gas
> mileage, etc) I can't recall if it was the 3.4 or 3.8 engine, (or
> maybe even the 3.1) ? Any toughts?
>
> Daniel
>
>
They made a best engine?
My pick: The 283 V-8.
Gee , I would have thought it would be the Cadillac 4100 or the Vega 4 cyl. Hahahahahahahahaa
There's also the fact that the sort of driving he does is *ideal* for keeping any car going - plenty of time to warm up, few stops and starts and apparently no long periods of sitting inactive. Emanuel
Approximately 8/23/03 06:23, PAROADHOG uttered for posterity:
My bet is the old stove bolt inline 6.
Wow ! This is car reliablity success story ! Thanks for sharing it on this NG.
Ooh! No! The Oldsmobile Dieselized 350...NO! WAIT! The Cattle-hack V8-6-4-0!
DS
I've been reading about all of the problems with the GM 60° V6 engines, but I'm confused. I'm a fan of Fieros, particularly those with the
2.8L V6. The newest of these cars is now 15 years old, and examples of these with mileage under 100k miles are fairly rare. Mine currently has 154k miles on the chassis and 33k miles on the engine. As a member of a forum with over 7k members I feel like I'm fairly attuned to the Fiero community at large, so I see first hand what kinds of problems the 2.8 engines tend to have. Rod bearing failures are common in high mileage engines, particularly ones with a history of poor maintenance or abuse. Ignition modules blow left and right, distributor pickup coils and ignition coils are right behind. Cam lobes wear down, but remember, these engines are pre-roller lifter designs, so that's to be expected to some extent.But the one thing that doesn't happen, and I have never in all my experience seen happen to either myself or any one of the other Fiero owners that I'm aware of, is intake gasket failure leading to coolant in the oil. I've seen blown head gaskets (rare) that result in coolant consumption, I've seen leaky water pumps, but never even one intake gasket failure. Why is that? I know many people who have installed the 3.4 block and heads into a Fiero, utilizing the Fiero's intake manifold and gaskets. They don't have any history of leaking, and this is a swap that's been going on for at least 7 years that I know of.
What is it about the Fiero V6 installation that is different enough that the 100's of failures that would be expected from a 7k sample size simply don't happen? Is it the iron heads? Aluminum intake manifold instead of plastic?
Sometimes I worry about my intake gaskets leaking, but I'm comforted by the fact that there is no history of my engine experiencing premature ingake gasket failures.
JazzMan
"JazzMan" wrote
The Fiero's v-6 was a bit different from the average
2.8 engine. I think the only other car that got that style of 2.8 with upper and lower plenums were the Pontiac 6000 STE's.But they did leak coolant into the engines occasionally. I worked on Fiero's non-stop from the time of their inception to the early 90's. It was not as common of a repair on the Fiero's, but then there weren't as many of those engines running around as the base throttle body injected 2.8's.
No matter, they had enough other screwups on the Fiero to make up for not many intake gaskets leaking.
Ian
"Daniel J. Stern" wrote
Well, that one is coming back in the trucks. But, I'm sure that GM's implementation of the system will be much better this time around.
Ian
Ok, Ian. I've never had problems with 2.8's (mfi) or 3.1's I've purchased for me and my kids (but I better talk to my son who's running a 3.1 and recently told me he's losing coolant). I'm chalking it up to luck. You got me scared now, because I'm about to pick out a used LeSabre for my road car. A 3.8, natch. What year models *don't* suffer chronic intake leaks?
Thanks,
--Vic
"Victor Smith" wrote
It's hard to think of one GM vee engine that doesn't eventually leak oil or coolant from the intake gasket.
1995 seems to be the year that the problem started with the VIN K 3800. One option would be to buy a supercharged 3800. Even in the GenII format, the supercharged version doesn't use the plastic intake.Ian
If you are sticking with V6s, surely you can't go wrong with the 4.3?
Dennis
wrote
It's no better then a 3800. Plus, you can't get a
4.3 in a Lesabre.Ian
I could never understand why these 2.2s and 2.5s have so much more pin noise than other similarly designed engines. Anyone have an answer ?
GM's best engine: 3.4 or 3.8 ? Group: rec.autos.tech Date: Sat, Aug 23, 2003, 12:55am (EDT+4) From: snipped-for-privacy@nospam.com (Daniel)
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