My buddy 1brd2brd3brd4 found some oooold magazines awhile back that had 3rdgens in them. I offered to scan them in and share with TGO! Thanks to JT for hosting and resizing all the pics. Eventually they will find their way into the TGO archives This article is the November 1980 Car and Driver magazine write up of the up coming 3rd generation F body complete with spy shots!

 

 

Gotta love the chrome mirrors on the Camaro spy-shot!

 

Its amazing how things change, the Engines for example, the only one they got right was the 2.4L Duke and the 5.0L CFI. The article listed a 3.8L V6 and a 4.4L V8... They were close with the 3.8L, it could have been a typo and should have been a 2.8L V6... But a 4.4L???

Correct me if I am wrong, but did Chevy not have a 3.8L V6 that preceded the 4.3L V6? I think it was based off of the 305 instead of the 350 like the 4.3L??

Nonetheless, they also alluded to the the idea that the Trans Am was going to get the Turbo V8 as we..

Thanks for the read... It is always interesting to see how things that were planned often change by the time the car is delivered.

John

 

The 4.4L 267 V8 was the late 70's answer for folks that thought the 305 was just too much power... Same stroke, smaller bore. The 267 was the economy V8 in 1980 when the article was published, but by the 82 model year the 305 had replaced the 267 as the go to V8.

 

I hate to admit it, but I'm old enough to remember buying and reading that magazine.

I have to tell you guys, in Nov. 1980, the thought of a "fuelie crossrammed" smallblock, with a heady ONEHUNDREDNINETY horsepower with a 4 speed manual trans in a smaller, lighter, Z/28 was just about all the excitement I could take.

 

The Buick GN & the TTA were both 3.8s. I dunno when the 4.3 started, but since the GN had the 3.8, that would make 86 or 87 for it.

 

The 3800 or the 231 or 3.8L Buick stared life as a 90° V8, they chopped off two cylinders off a V8 ultimately the Displacement was born in 1975. At the time it was a choppy running engine, They used the same basic engine until 1995, and continued on as the Series II from 1995, and then the Series III IIRC... It was dropped around 2005ish. There were RWD variations and FWD variations, which were similar, but the blocks were different for different mounting to the car. Obviously a transverse engine would mount differently than a Longitudinal mounting. As time progressed they made the engine run smoothly by a specially modified offset crank, which to everyone's surprise did up very well, matter of factly the even fire 3800 was renowned for its reliability, so much so that Toyota bought some... for what I am not sure...

I guess you are correct, the 3.8L was the Buick engine, 3.80 Bore, 3.40 Stroke, interestingly there was a Turbo version that was used in the Monte Carlo... not sure how accurate my book is, but found that peculiar.

Chevrolet apparently used the 4.4L (267ci) until 1982, it was dropped in 1983... Except for a Diesel, and the Corvette, there was no 350 SBC engine in cars from 1982 MY thru 1986 MY.

For some reason I thought it was the 305 chopped into 6 cyl... Guess not

John

 

Both the 3.8 and the 4.9T were standard second gen equipment. It's fairly clear that the writers and/or GM was expecting the typical equipment to carry over. We should consider ourselves lucky that it didn't.

The 3.8 turbocharged Monte Carlo doesn't get a lot of attention because it didn't have great performance. They're in the same bag as the rest of the early carbed turbo cars.

 

1. What V8 did they chop off two cylinders to create the Buick 3.8? I thought that the only recent six cylinder like that was the Chevy 4.3L (small block with two cylinders gone). Back in the 70s, the Pontiac 301 was chopped in half to make the 2.5L Iron Duke, right?

2. My 2007 Buick Lacrosse has a 3.8L Series III in it. I don't think that they stopped production until 2008.

 

Never mind....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_V6_engine

Thx.