[giveherthebird]

Hey guys so I have a 1998 3.8 Firebird. Has 190k miles and I wanted to replace the motor and trans however I was thinking about putting a supercharged 3.8 in from a 2002 Grand Prix. Now I know they’re fwd but I’ve seen people curve the back around. Now what I’m curious about is will the motor bolt right up? I’m assuming I will need a new pcm or get a tune. Just would like some thoughts.

 

[Injuneer]

“curve the back around”….. curve the back of what?

If you’re just after more HP and torque, there are much easier swaps that will produce way more of both, without all the complications.

When you rotate the transverse 3800 into the longitudinal position, the throttle body ends up against the firewall. Someone’s probably managed to cobble one up but a huge amount of effort for 40 extra HP and 55 lb-ft of torque.

 

[giveherthebird]

Curve the back of the supercharger so it doesn’t hit the firewall

 

[Injuneer]

Do you mean lift the supercharger off the manifold and rotate it 180° so the throttle body is in the front? Even if that was physically possible (all bolts, passages, etc. line up), that would place the supercharger drive pulley in the back against the firewall, and there are no belts on that end of the engine to drive the supercharger.

You can’t just turn (curve?) the S/C to the side. It has to sit square on top of the intake manifold.

 

[giveherthebird]

 

[giveherthebird]

Something like that

 

[Injuneer]

How do you know that would clear the firewall? Terrible arrangement with the inlet tube angled so severely to one side…. that would cause a loss of inlet pressure to the S/C, meaning less pressure out of the S/C, and the air would be dumped unevenly to one side, reducing the efficiency of the S/C.

The supercharged engine won't make 240 HP with that configuration. You could probably make more HP than that on your rebuilt non-S/C engine with heads and cam. Include a high stall torque converter and 3.73:1 rear axle and you'll make more effective torque at the rear wheels than with the air-starved supercharger. And you wouldn’t have to figure out any issues with going to a 4L60E tranny instead of the 4T45E used with the transverse engine. And I have no idea what those issues are.

I would suspect the motor mounts would be different, the oil pan might not be compatible with the F-Body K-member.

Doubt anyone here has done it. You would be better off asking the question on a site specializing on the 3800 engine. Maybe someone there could tell you if it's really all that hard.

 

[tommy vercetti]

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