Tweet
Last weeked I had the privledge to install an '02 California 3400 into a '97 Federal Buick Skylark GranSport equipped with a 4T60e. The engine was obtained from a yard that had a very good price and warrenty. This GranSport is my friend's girlfriend's car. The 3100 that was in it kicked the bucket for a number of reasons, but all linked to one thing....LOWER INTAKE GASKETS!!! Well I guess it's not a surprise.....Anyways an internal coolant leak cause alot of lovely things to happen such as slow starting, super low fuel economy and zero power. Amazing enough this trend started and lasted so long. It's last stand was in the Chenango Valley in Upstate NY when the engine become so powerless and then started knocking. It would stall out and the engine would be very slow to start. The starter motor was laboring badly. Well all I said that was if your gonna keep the car(112,000 miles to me is well worth keeping) you might as well upgrade it. What better way to upgrade a Class N vehicle than to give it a 3400.....From CALIFORNIA!!!! That made its way to New York.....Ok here we go...Old engine came out just fine aside from the radiator being a bitch. This is one car you got to look at differentely as far as doing work to and older N car is concerned, It's quite a bit different than working on a W car. As far as this California thing goes, the real difficulty was with dealing with the AIR inlets into the heads. After all is said and done I belive a standard 1/2" bolt of machine thread will fit in those hole, it bottoms out on a step so there are no worrires of over screwing the bolt into the port or how you keep the bolt from spinning. We also backed it up with copper RTV. One major difficulty was the alternator bracket which got in the way of our "Frankenstein bolts" that were jutting out of the head. Had to angle slice the alternator braket to clear the bolt. Another issue was with the cam sensor wire which was a bit too short, but with alittle fanagling we got it to reach. Other than swapping parts from one engine to another those were the only difficulties. Proprietory parts we swapped over include the rear exhaust manifold, throttle body linkage(enigne came with th e 56mm tb), and fuel rail with injectors. Engine started on the first try wuth alittle clattering from the lifters that stopped soon after, no codes except the air bag light was on. We drove the car down I-81 and it ran like a champ. Nice and sooo quiet, responded accordingly. Unlike my engine that is loud, obnoxious, has an ill tempered throttle(Which I do love and learned to deal with).. TH Cali 3400 ran as if the factory intended it to be in there.... Starts so damn fast!!!!!Anyways it seems to eat less fuel now that its not trying to kill itself. The '02 EGR works well with the '97 program. A nice posted extra 25 hp and 30 lb ft of tq in 2 and a 1/4 days. Not a bad refit at all!!! It probably would've gone quicker if I knew the intricasies of the N car but not too bad at all. The air bag light siuation was solved the day after. The main mount was crushing the wiring harness and severed and pinched a wire. Well thats solved now. This is a nice little Buick, never seen anything quite like it! We call it the Donnamobile.
Heres a crappy little video I took with my new phone. http://60degreev6.com/filestore/Lore...%20enabled.mov
Heres a crappy little video I took with my new phone. http://60degreev6.com/filestore/Lore...%20enabled.mov
Comment