Ottawa Fiero Club Forum

is the stock engine worth keeping?

2.5 or 2.8? What do you want out of the car?

Are you planning a swap?

Damn Gary, you beat me.  :)

Yup, "worth it" is entirely subjective.  With maintenance & non-abuse, the original engines will run for a long time.

If one is happy with the performance, fuel consumption, etc. etc. then yes the stock engines are "worth it".  If OTOH you want to keep up with modern cars,  it's widely felt that you'll get more bang for your buck by swapping in a newer engine (and modifying it if desired) than you would in trying to build one of the old ones, especially the 2.5.

i have a 86 se with the 2.8 4 speed.  i want reliability with a decent amount of gas miles. above 25mpg at least. and enough power to atleast smoke a honda

If you want to swap a 3800 n/a will do the trick.  Lots of power, and good gas mileage.

The 2.8 has breathing problems and building it for speed has its limitations.  The money spent would probably mostly cover a more or less stock swap.

Unless you spend a lot of time on the hiway at high speed the 4 speed is fine.

i was thinking about doing a 3800 series II swap keeping the stock tranny but i need to figure out how much its going to cost and about how much time it will take

Where do you live? 

2ML67 takes a couple of weeks.  Mine is about 2 years in  >:(  but I'm just dicking around on it.  Now that my kids are off my insurance I want to get it finished.

Price depends on how much you can do and how much the parts cost.  You won't need a tranny but will need a flywheel (say 200 or so) and a stronger clutch, so it balances out.

i live in ohio, i just replaced the clutch but its going to take me a little time to come up with the money for the whole swap.

Ohio?!?!?!?!   :o

Cheers, Derek

yup in the usa

Nothing wrong with that tranny; it's one of the stronger original ones.  As Buzz said you'll need a stronger clutch & custom flywheel though.


Cost is something I can't really help you with; I have about $2k (CDN) in to my project so far, but that includes a few "abnormal" extras.

It took about 70 hours to clean up a cradle, refresh a bunch of rear suspension components, and put a new set of bearings in the four-speed which I'll be using (see sig).  The engine should be going on the cradle & in the car over a winter's worth of weekends late next year/early 2008.

As mentioned the 3.65 4 speed manual tranny you have will work fine with the 3800SC, it will rev a little high on major highways but not high enough to be a problem.
Cost all depends on how much of the work you can do your self and how much you pay for a good donor engine. The engines vary in price by their mileage and how complete the engine is. I have found complete set ups for under $1,000 CDN and also paid over $3,500 for a complete low mileage 3800SC with its tranny, harness, PCM basically every thing needed from the donor vehicle.
Time wise I usually take three to four weeks for a complete swap, that is with a shop fully set up to do this kind of work. Dan

If time is an issue, I would pick up a spare cradle and mount the motor and everything you can do off the car helps with downtime.

about how much horsepower can the stock engine produce without spending more money than its worth

The swap will be about the same as a 2.8 performance rebuild probably.

A good tuneup and some cheapie mods are all I'd throw at it.

Not to mention that by swapping, you end up with a newer, more efficient engine and wider aftermarket if need be.