Help a brother out? Wanting to upgrade my 3.4L to an SC3800 in an 94 Olds convertible. Don't have the tools or expertise to do this, so looking for recommendations for some turnkey shops driving distance from VA. Any help? Thanks everyone!

 

I cant help specifically with your question however, I highly suggest you look into doing it yourself. I know it sounds intimidating but its really not and the knowledge you gain is priceless. Plus, for the price youre going to pay you can buy something faster...

Does the car currently have the 3400 or twin cam 3.4?

 

It will be very expensive. Although any mechanic shop that does engine swaps should be able to do the swap, provided you have all the parts to it. That being said, I'm not sure what all is involved with doing a 3800 swap to that kind of car. Somebody who might have more info and could possibly source the parts for you is www.milzymotorsports.com. Some people have had good luck with that vendor, others have had horror stories, so buyer beware.

 

94 Old convertible? If this is the N-Body platform (which I think the Achieva and Cutlass used), I have read that that era N-body had an advantage to 3800 swapping. The advantage was that at one point in time they had a 3300 v6 (which is based off the 3800). Mounting points are the same, so supposedly that subframe helps make the swap.

But that is only a piece of the puzzle. Handling the tuning/computer/PCM/electronics topics are another issue. I have no doubt it would take a lot of custom work.

 

Hopefully you're aware that you're in for a massively expensive endeavor. Id be very surprised if any custom shop would do this for under $10k.

Parts:

Given you're swapping used stuff in, they're going to insist on sourcing the power train themselves. They dont want any risk of using owner supplied stuff only to potentially get stuck with the liability of something that doesn't run in the end. Ignoring their labor to track down the items, they'll likely take the high end of commercial pricing for each part (likely at least $1500 for the engine and $1000 for the trans - regardless what deal they manage to work out) then add their standard fee (usually 40-50%). So parts alone could come out to nearly $5k.

Labor:

This will vary wildly with their comfort level / desire to do the job. Some shops may have no clue what they're getting into and throw a massive number of hours on this to make sure they're covered if it turns into a mess. Regardless, youre talking a very skilled tech at mechanical and electrical so its safe to assume $100 / hr. Even talking $5000 - that only gives a single tech a pinch over one full work week. I think you'd be lucky for any custom shop to quote it that low (and I'm not entirely sure that a tech brand new to this platform could even do the whole thing start to finish in 50 hours).

Misc:

Lastly they'll tack on several hundred dollars in fluids (at their elevated shop price, not at what they go for at Walmart). They may even try to get you to pay for HPT credits for the donor car.


Certainly its not that complicated of a task, and calling around to local custom shops should at least get you to a quote. Id just be worried that all the good shops in the area are backlogged with projects they know (LS cam swaps, SBC swaps, etc) so you may get some insane prices back as a sign that they really don't want / need the work.


No offense, but IMO the only way this swap has ever made financial sense is to DIY it. Sure some shops were doing swaps 15 years ago (back when there were several active 3800 shops that knew what they were getting into and some of these cars were still worth $10-20k), but I cant think of a single person ive heard of in many years that paid a shop to do this. Its just a hard sell to pay Fbody / c5 money for a 240 hp used engine swap.