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1996 Pontiac GrandAm, project "Sasha"

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  • 1996 Pontiac GrandAm, project "Sasha"

    Alright I have the motor in and stabilized and everything so at this point I will post this. Enjoy!

    Ok car shows up at my work. Towed in. Boss says the company paid a $1 for it. "Thinks" the head gasket is blown. Previous owner said it got hot. I had a look at it. Plates said they expired in Oct of 03'. Popped the hood. Leaves, dead bugs, hornets nest's everywhere. Had a look at the interior. Drivers window left down, same inside, but with the added benefit of clothes, papers and other misc crap filled to the trunk lid out back. We have a spare 3100 pulled from a corsica that is known good. So I think swap motors and give it to the wifey for a birthday present. HAHAHA yea right.

    Corsica motor turns out it burns oil, sooo, dismantled it one night, next day the ex-service manager(who I replaced) boots me out of the shop. Thinks I dismantled the motor on the clock. REALLY??? Its ok, motor was ready to goto the machinist. At the same time showed car to wifey. DID NOT show her the interior or the busted up passenger fender. Next day secured $500 for the car and the corsica motor. Motor went to local machinist, 3 months later they "Lost" it..... Turns out these guys suck when all you want to do is a straight rebuild. They didnt even find stock pistons for this thing. Can you say STONEWALLED??? Anyways, car sits for somethin like another 6 Months. Ex-service manger got fired. Negotiated shop time with the owner. Had to drop a motor in a Durango, before I get unlimited shop time. Car sits another month or so. Durangos like to blow rod bearings(5.2L). Ok durango goes bye-bye in comes the GrandAm. After replacing one of the coils it fired up. Not overheating problem. Rod knock to the extreme. Spent 6 hours to drop the engine and tranny as a combo. No luck getting corsica motor back. Dismantled original motor. Sent it to a different machinist. The bill?? $976 for 6 new pistons(with those teflon scuff pads on the skirts) crank massage, bore .50mm over, new bearings all the way around. I think I got ripped alittle bit. Didnt send the heads. They looked like they were brand new. Got lucky there. While block is at the shop spent something like 50 hours cleaning parts and port matching the heads to a 3400 intake combo from a 00' Grand Am. Got the block back from the shop discovered one of the pistons are .75mm over. WTF???? Losers..... Anyways reassembly went pretty smooth. One of the studs for the rockers stripped out in the head, F***!!!! Heli-coiled, then while putting the stud in, it was a little tighter than it was before, it cracked the head.... can you say PISSED OFF??? Decide, ro run it anyways, doesnt look like it cracked the water jacket or went into the intake port. Discovered why the stud stripped. 00' LIM needed to be grinded for the rockers. But somebody said I didnt need to somewhere here. Oh well grind away..... Grabbed the EGR and heater pipe for the 00' Manifold. Used orignal 3100 temp sensor as well. Didnt want the EGR adapter or to do another drilling operation. At this point I'm really tired of working on this motor, as I had also done god knows how many LIM gaskets on these other fine 3x00 cars. By the way I used the Fel-Pro permaseal on mine, I dont want to do another LIM gasket even if my life depended on it, even though I can do it in 5-6 hours now. Ok, motor and tranny go back in, took like 15 mins, I really need to get away from these GM's lol. Ok, motors wired up and shes got oil so she should fire up right??? wrong!!! Every single manual/computer reference that I have shows the piston numbering sequence wrong. WTF??? Ok rewired plug wires. She fires!!! On 4 year old GAS!!!! It stinks like cow manure too. Power steering pump grinds like hell. Almost as loud as the uncorked exhaust. Couple of squirts of Lucas transmission fixer fluid makes it shutup. Codes, mis-fires #3 cylinder, worried. Ripped off the upper and find one of the injection wires un plugged itself, she runs sharp now. Sent it to detail, took one of the guys 8 hours to clean the interior....

    And so the numbers:
    $976 for the bottom end rebuild job
    ~$500 for gaskets(bought a kit for the 3100, but needed 3400 intakes aswell)
    $500 for the car and the spare engine(which is probabley sitting at the bottom of a lake right now)
    $250 for the 00' intake setup(LIM, UIM, TB)
    $215 for the Passenger fender/headlight and drivers mirror
    ~$200 for misc parts EGR, EGR tube, stuff like that
    ~$150 worth of soda
    $20 for the detail guy(it was the only way to get him to do it)
    $3 for ointment from the bee stings

    Stuff thats coming up.....
    Lowering Kit
    Headers
    Contemplateing makeing it into AWD with parts from an Olds Silhouette
    Grabbing a 3800 motor, turboing it, and stuffing it in(when I get tired of my 3100)

    Wifey cant drive, something about her sister rolling her car like 3 times with her in it.

    I had fun. Heres the pics. More to arrive soon.
    Attached Files

  • #2
    Oh yea, the cause of the whole rod knock mess, was the oil filter was plugged(Fram). MANY MANY thanks to everyone at 60v6.com for help and info. Without it would've taken longer and would be missin out on 20 some odd horsepower from the 3400 intake. And Sasha is the name of my baby girl due in Aug. But dont tell my wifey.
    Last edited by MeMadMax; 07-01-2007, 03:58 AM.

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