Hello everyone. The name's Battlewagon and I'm pretty much a car guy. My current steed is a 97 Subaru Outback that is fairly modified but I'm currently looking to get him a new brother. I drive a lot and all wheel drive, a full exhaust, all terrain tires, raised suspension, a massive roof rack and the factory 4.44 final drive don't seem to be adding up to high economy. Mostly, I traverse back and forth to work on the freeway and would like something more interstate friendly. I'm good friends with a guy who used to post on here a lot (forkvoid) and through the course of swapping his 87, I kind of started to fall for third gens. He would always brag to me that his "******-muscle-car" could get stellar mileage on the freeway so, my hunt begins.

I'm looking to get a late model with the 3.1 and a manual trans. I'm under the understanding that these were 90-92s from the factory but had rather low production numbers. I wouldn't mind a 2.8, but if that were the case, fuel injection would have to be a must. What I'm curious about is, are there any major issues that these models carry with them? Coming from Subarus, I always tell people about the headgasket issues that plague the 2.5 liter DOHC boxer engines: do 60 degree third gens have anything like that?

I live in Knoxville Tn and have only seriously begun my search recently. For the most part, the third gens here are V8s and if they're six cylinders, they're 700r4s. If anyone knows about one in the area, I'd welcome the heads up.

Oh, and I do have one other interesting option: forkvoid has a built 3.4 liter ready for a home so I also could be looking for a engine-less car. If I were to go that route, would I have to find a car that started life as a V6, or would a previously V8 car work?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advanced!

 

u are correct 90-92 have the 3.1
as far as major issues there really arent any, other then these cars are getting pretty old so u will have alot of little repairs here and there

u can get a v8 car and swap in a v6 but u would have to change the front springs out for v6 springs and also move the front brake line were it goes over the crossmember

other then that a v8 transmission wont work with the v6 as the bellhousings are different

a v6 car with an automatic aint to bad but the stick is deffinatly more fun to drive,and if u canrt find a 5speed v6 car u can always swap the auto for the 5spedd down the road