What transmissions can bolt onto both a 3.1 V6 and a 350 V8 for a 3rd Gen firebird. My idea is to go buy a junked tranny, and a rebuild kit. Teach myself to rebuild the things. Then when the one in my car eventually goes out, instead of repairing the automatic in it, I have a 4 or 5 speed stick ready to go, just swap out. Also what other things might I have to do to accomplish the swap. I am wondering about the interchangeability because my original plan was to change the motor out one day. I am still not sure if I will or not, but I like to have options. Right now I kinda like the idea of blowing away some 60's muscle car at the track and saying "Oh by the way, this car is has a V6"

91 firebird 3.1 V6
stock Auto trans (3 speed I think)
K&N air intake, Flowmaster EX

 

None.

 

Kinda what I thought. So what would be a good model to look for for my current setup?

 

hate to say it to you but your v6 will never be that fast with out serious cash. basically your droping money in an bottomless pit for a slow car. dont get me wrong its doable. Please look at other options.
So you want a v6, 2 option. go get a 3.8L v6 from a buick, or do an engine swap with a grand national 3.8L turbo, that same engine can be found in a thirdgen. '89 Trans Am turbo. Want to use your 700r4 tranny and keep most of harness? no problem. 3.4L/3500 hybrid, which firstfirebird is doing right now.

V8? well my friend thats another option thats not that much work.

 

The 660 is a very good platform to start with for performance, just that very few people have actually tapped into it.
In the untuned state I was able to get 217 RWHP out of my turbo small port hybrid, with about 5 PSI (going to 7 PSI showed no gains as it wasn't even tuned properly for the 5 PSI). This was a 3.2L starting with a 1986 2.8L block, FWD 3.1 crank, bored over .030", small port 3100 top end, with a small T3 turbo. I've posted more in depth details on this forum previously, if you care to search, also search under the UN "The Raven" as I went by that for a long time then couldn't log into my account for some reason. I had about $2100 CDN into the build and turbocharging, at the time that was about $1300 USD, hardly a "money pit" I performed some minor upgrades trying to tune it cheaply and get the mechanical sorted out before the ECM tuning was to be done. The upgrades might have added maybe $100 CDN, most of it was just relocating parts, and modifying existing ones.

The engine going into the truck now will be a 3500 or at least that's what it is starting as, I may de-stroke it. I plan to make double the power I did previously, with twin turbos, and again is a budget build, hoping to be in the same price range as I was with the last build, maybe a touch more, due to wanting to make it look a bit better than I did last time, even though everybody commented on how clean the last install was. *shrug*

 

I had a TURBO 3.1 GMC Jimmy up and running with TBI for a while. I put a 4.9 Cadillac TBI into it though.

 

remember not to confuse the 3.8L engines up

there were many different 3.8L engines

chevy had their own 3.8L engine in the '80s, it was rear wheel drive and is 90 degree chevy bolt housing the same as SBC and so forth


buick had an old rear wheel drive v-6, it is in alot of cars including the '87 and older G bodies, and some B bodies, and so on


i have one in my '85 cutlass supreme but they have aluminum housing oil pump in which is very failure prone

then in '88 there was a newly redesigned 3.8L for transverse mounting called the 3800 series I and series II, and these were 60 degree housing pattern though and front well drive only, these suckers are extremely reliable and commonly run well over 200k and closer to 300k miles and are pretty strong runners as well, i know because i have replaced many over the years and they are always very high miles by the time they are needing to be pulled out, and they are a pretty easy engine to swap too, in most all cases(depending on the chassis, these 3800 engines were most commmonly put into the big FWD W body cars such as the park ave, lesabre, grand prix, monte, cutty supreme, 88 and so on (depending on the year), these were the largest FWD cars and had the larger and one piece chassis cradles and the larger wheel stud bolt pattern, the N and J body smaller FWD had two piece cradles and smaller wheel bolt pattern
and didnt have the 3800 and instead had the 2.0L(sunbirds mainly) 2.4L(SOHC and DOHC) 2.5L engines,
the 2.8L and 3.1L
and some times the 3.4L(common in the GP's)
and 3.3L(this one seems to have been the least commonly installed, cutlass ciera mainly)

as you can tell i have been into and owned and worked on billions of different vehicles since 1994,


but i actually first started out on the 67-72 gm trucks and they are my true passion
and always will be, i have owned billions of them

from a '72 blazer k-5 to a '68 C-60 to a 68 chevy c-10 panel delivery to a 72 chevy C-30 R05 dually 181" wheel base(stock original 157" wheel base plus an added 24" to the framerails and driveshaft in the center) 157 was the longest factory available wheelbase for the 1 tons before 72, a regular 1 ton wheelbase was 133, a pickup was 127 if it was not a 1 ton, 73-up pickups were 131.5" wheel base
i am so way off topic here its awesome haha :P

good luck!

 

Funny you mention the Buick engine, I have a 94 park avenue sitting in my drive way, with a dead transmission. The engine runs like a top, but it won't go into gear. Can this block be converted to run RWD in my bird?

 

You don't have to convert the block. The front wheel drive engines uses the same GM metric transmission bolt pattern that your current V6 uses. It will bolt up.

The problems you will have are the engine computer and motor mounts. If you fabricate your own engine mounts and then splice in the computer to your harness, you can make it work. You also should get an electronic shift 4L60E trans from a 4th gen because the Buick PCM is made to run an electronic shift trans.

After you do all this work, you still will not have a V8 car, power wise. You should only do this swap if you are crazy like me and just love Buick engines.

The only way it is practical is if you have the time and tools to make the mounts and do the wiring yourself.

Good luck!

 

Not true. Just not true.

I don't know where you get your Buick information, but you need to get a new source. The "aluminum housing" oil pump is no more prone to failure than the old chevy design. All mechanical parts wear out. The reason it was discontinued (with a new crank-driven aluminum housing pump that is used today in new cars) is because GM Power train wanted to discontinue the cam-driven pump in order to eliminate unnecessary parts. It's as simple as that. If there's no need for a distributor, then there is no need for a cam drive oil pump.

That's the truth about that.

 

I suppose ultimately what I want is a car that looks good, has descent power, and to learn some things along the way. I am crazy about Buicks, my first car was an 87 Le Saber. I still miss that car, for all the trouble it was. Probably won't get to do that project though. Sounds a little out of my league.

 

Keep watching the forums.

I am working on fitting a front wheel drive Buick V6 to my firebird now. It is taking FOREVER because I just got a new job this year and had to move to Florida. Now I'm in an apartment and that makes it tough. When it's done, I'll have motor mounts to put a front drive Buick in our cars and lots of pictures.

Like I said, keep watching the engine swap forum...