Well, my dad unfortunately completely totaled my '02 SS a month ago. Luckily the motor is completely intact. While searching online I found an '05 supercharged SS and upon asking the guy why he was selling it for 3 grand he told me it has 240k miles on it. I'm somewhat interested in buying it, but I don
t really want it to crap out on me. The thing looks like it is in pristine condition. I'm just trying to figure out if it did go bad and I needed a motor would I be able to put the 02 in the 05?? I know it wouldn't have the supercharger, but is it at all possible? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

I believe they are the same motor only the 05 has a supercharger on top of it and a different tune in the pcm and different gears in the transmission. The motor itself, would be the bottom end and yes they are interchangeable. The mileage on the car you are looking at isn't that bad depending on how it's been looked after, regular oil changes, tune up's, etc. etc. which you can get a fairly good judging of how it looks when you look at the car, most people that don't look after their cars don't take the time to clean the engines, there are always exceptions to that rule though lol. Most people do the opposite though and switch the na 3800 for the L67 which is the supercharged 3800 so it would be a step back for you to go the other way, you would lose 40 - 50 hp but yes it can be done.

 

The bad thing about a high mileage car is that the engine isn't the only thing that wears out. There are a lot of other components (transmission, suspension, fuel pump, fans, interior components such as the hvac blower, etc) that can be worn out as well.

IMO, I wouldnt buy a 200k+ mile car unless it was dirt cheap (so it would make financial sense to replace the stuff) and if it was just as a project car. Trying to rely on a high mileage car as a DD is not a good idea, imo. I don't think $3k is dirt cheap for these cars either.

 

Yes and no on this. The blocks are the same, but if I recall, the compression ratios of a L36 vs L67 are different. So if you were to top swap (everything heads up) from a SC motor to the L36, to now make the L36 SC'ed, you would need a custom tune.