3800SC Cavalier

Well I come to this forum from cavalier forums due to the great support I've seen through searching this forum with the 3800 Super Charged motor. I did not do the swap with this car but i purchased it from the owner who had it built in by a company in Ontario in 2001. The motor came from a 2001 buick that actually fell off of the delivery truck with 5 miles on it and he purchased the full motor and harness. The shop then swapped it into this 94 cavalier using the getrag 5 speed, custom solid mounts, and a 94 Olds 88 pcm. Right now and for the last 11 years its been an OBD1 car for some reason instead of utilizing the obd2 of the buick. Below are the pics:

ECU


Engine Bay




The car currently has a cold air intake, different pulley cant remeber size at moment, and tune from the shop that built it. My reason I am looking all over the internet for support is that currently my AFR readings are lean under boost. I dynoed the car and from 4k and above its in trouble. The only things I have changed since buying it that could affect the AFR would be the change of intake routing/filter, spark plugs, new belt tensioner/belt(doubt last one matters). That said I still beleive that its just time for a new tune and am currently waiting for my Zeitronix wideband data logger to come in the mail any day now. I then have a guy that can tune the chip shown in the ECU.


Plans before spring car season:
-OBD2 swap (found a 99 buick park avenue with 3800sc at JY thats all together and only $40 for harness/pcm)
-New clutch (racing clutch in it now is overkill and annoying around town)
-Headers? (been reading on this forum)
-SC and throttle body porting? (searching forum)

Basically looking for my options to improve on the car as is without compromising daily driving to work in summer. The car has a manifold back 3'' stainless exhaust.

Thanks for looking or guidance,
Dale

also looking at what spark plugs i should buy and i read on here something about a 180* thermostat being a good thing?

OBD2 swap will give you better tuning options. Headers are always a plus, but may be difficult to fit in the engine bay of the Cavi. No point porting the SC when you can go to the Gen V for close to the same price now. I say pull the engine, cam it, replace your clutch with whatever, slap a Gen V and headers on it, and get it tuned.

switching to OBDII is going to have a lot of benefits. after that get a scanner on it and see what it's doing. they don't just run lean for no reason so something is wrong.

Originally Posted by Dailordasailor

also looking at what spark plugs i should buy and i read on here something about a 180* thermostat being a good thing?

People run the 180 stat to supposedly help with KR. No one really knows if it helps. Also, since the engine is close to stock minus a pulley, I would recommend getting some flow mods and some colder plugs, or stepping up to a stock pulley.

what type of flow mods are we speaking of? And the car has run 25k miles with this tune no problem but i am going to use my data logs to have the chip tuned for the meanwhile and see where I am at.

Not looking to pull the motor or go as far as doing cams or internal building. What am i looking at with a Gen V Super charger performance gain wise? I think there could be a clearance issue with headers but theres a decent amount of room to work with and everything I have read says the stock manifolds are very restrictive. Also, where am i looking for a Gen V blower?

I have a good friend that is very well versed in HPTuners so as soon as go obd2 I'll be good for tuning with mods.

The Gen V comes from the 04+ GP. It is a much more efficient design, so dropping pulleys doesn't require as much of a jump. Take a peek at the link in my sig for other helpful info. Required for fitment is the SC, LIM (or mod your LIM) and a throttle body adapter. If you don't want to cam, you can always do high ratio rocker arms. They will give you a bit more lift from the stock cam and help get the air in and exhaust out better.

Nice! Love that body style.

If the car has a cat on it, seeing it lean out to low/mids 12's at the tailpipe is normal.

Never heard of that wideband.

Google ntk afx vs aem. I really wouldnt trust any of the budget widebands other than a new aem or ntk afx.

Where abouts in Ontario are you?

If this is a daily, a vs cam + intercooled gen v would be ideal. But i literally just mentioned three+ grand worth of mods. Plus labour if youre not handy.

Id vote cam over intercooler simply because you dont need an aftermarket fuel rail, dont have a secondary cooling system to worry about and cam adds power all over just like an intercooler yet adds top end.

I think the HP is now double what it originaly was so that makes this a true sleeper, wicked.

Originally Posted by tod1d

I think the HP is now double what it originaly was so that makes this a true sleeper, wicked.

Very true!

I like what I see here! Keep up the good work.

That's an awesome little car you have there.

If I could chime in about mods... headers are a must! If you could, post more pictures of the engine bay, specifically the front and rear manifolds and their clearance. That'll give us a better idea on what your options are.
As for a cam, hands down a cam is better than an intercooler. If I had a 5spd 3800 (getrag 282?) I would go with the biggest cam I could for the engine. Driveability isn't going to suffer at all because even the "big" cams for stock heads 3800s are still relatively small. I'd pick up something like an Intense stage 3.

Don't even bother with a GenV swap unless you're really going to try and string out every last bit of power.

I will get pics tomorrow since I have to put this new starter in anyhow. I consider myself pretty handy and have a garage full of tools and a lift. That said, never gotten inside an engine. Pulled a few and done a handful of trans/clutch jobs but never inside. I'm just looking for any "easy" power such as the headers. The car has a high flow 3" cat.

Just checked the car and it's a 3.4" pulley on it. What plugs are suggested for that with a tune?

As for quickness, this car definitely moves. Previous owner got his jolly's off racing zo6 Vettes an making them very sad men. I also have a local guy with a GTP with a large sum of mods including Intercooler, pulley, tune, etc and it isn't even close. I also helped my buddy build his 2011 Sti that dynoed at 320hp to wheels. Pulled him by a car driving te car home from the previous owners house. The only problem is we are going to pick up the Sti tomorrow from the shop in buffalo which now dynos just over 500hp

As for my location, I live in Watkins Glen, NY. The previous owner just found a shop that specialized in this swap in Ontario that's now closed.

sweet ride man!

Missed the wideband. I'm ccurrently using a AEM wideband but since obd1 it's hard to data log. So bought zeitronix which gets great reviews and has great add ons and support

I would seriously suggest putting a stock(3.8") pulley on it until you do the obd2 swap and can really tune it. Also headers are basically a must for a 3.4, the stock manifolds are really restrictive. Even with headers, you could still have KR with a 3.4 pulley. Scanning is a priority for these cars because they vary so greatly. What works for one person could be catastrophic for someone else with the same mods.

you've gotta remember the car is lighter so detonation due to motor load is deminished.

Originally Posted by Bio248

you've gotta remember the car is lighter so detonation due to motor load is deminished.

Z06 fast though.... No

If you were to just do headers and rockers.. You could really have some fun

headers might be a problem.
on the first gen w body grand prixs, more clearance is needed in the firewall/downpipe area of the headers. because of this, people usually have to trim the firewall a bit to make the headers fit.
looks like youve got a pretty tight fit in there already. i guess the only thing you can really do is buy some headers and see what it needs. havent seen any cavy swaps before.
aside from that, looks stellar.

What about a front P-log? Even if it is too big, it would be easier to make it fit.

The cars run for 11 years and was tuned to be safe with the 3.4 pulley. I don't even drive it right now because waiting for the data logger and re-tune. The pulley isn't going anywhere right now. If new tune shows AFR problems I will just not drive and move up the obd2 swap to immediately. Guy tuning it has the 3800 turbo in his fiero and I trust his tune ability and him saying if can tune to the parameters needed.

As for being zo6 fast, believe me it is. If opportunity presents again this season I'll post a go pro video. A tuned wrx with bolt ons beat a zo6 no problem

I was reading about the plog but read that headers are much better so I'm going to see what I need to make fit. Anyone able to give front and rear measurements on headers?