swap earlier 3.4 into a chevy equinox?

[bobbed750]

I have a 2005 Chevy Equinox with the Horrible, Chinese built LNJ 3.4. This engine is on its last leg with only 147,000 miles.

My question to you guys is this,

Can I take a 3.4 from a Malibu, Impala, Grand am or whatever else and swap it into the equinox using my complete intake and injector setup?

I can get an older 3.4 for less than 200$ with guarantee and LOW miles locally, however to replace the P.O.S. LNJ is going to run me nearly 1000.00!

I'm needing fairly definitive answers as I have a vacation planned in florida next month (13 hour drive) and everything is already booked, so I cannot cancel. I MUST swap out my engine for this trip!

Any help would be awesome!

[caffeine]

The crank trigger is different on the older engines so a 3500 swap MAY be easier. I don't know if they use the same crank trigger wheel either though. If it did, you could probably just swap the heads and intakes on.

[bobbed750]

anyone know for sure?

[ericjon262]

for what you are doing, I would recommend just sticking to a LNJ esp with your trip planned, that or rent a car for the trip.

[caffeine]

If you need to stay away from an LNJ, your best bet is to pull the oil pan from your engine and compare the crankshaft reluctor to that of an LX9 (3500). According to Alldata the pinout and wire colours of the crank position sensor are the same between the LX9 and LNJ.

If the crank sensor checks out, grab an LX9, compare sensors/sensor locations in the LIM, swap the LNJ heads/intakes over if the sensors are different, or leave on the LX9 heads and LIM and just swap over the LNJ upper plenum.

If the crank sensor is different, you probably could swap over the LNJ crankshaft too, but then is it even worth it?

An older 3400 will have a different ignition system for sure so to swap one of those you'd either have to rewire for a different PCM or get an external reluctor/crank sensor that works with the stock PCM.

[1988GTU]

Renting a vehicle may be your best option at this point. It will buy you time, relieve you of temporary stress as well as piece of mind knowing the rented vehicle is capable (or is insured to be capable) to meeting your trips schedule, adding the option to go to a slightly or much bigger vehicle to accommodate your trip experience.

From my understanding, you can use the 3500 non VVT engine, but the mounting configuration compatibility is the biggest difference.