A friend of mine who works at a local "dismantling" yard called me the other day and said you gotta come see this. He showed me a '78 Buick turbo 3.8 that sat on the shelf for 12 years with a 1000 dollar price tag on it. It had been run and the tag said it had 145-150 compression on all cylinders and 32lbs of oil pressure. They needed the room and decided after 12 years nobody was going to give them a grand for it, so out to the core pile it was headed. I bought it for 75 bucks. Now my dilema is this; what good is this thing? I've got a 67 Checker Marathon with a 283 chevy in it that I drive. Were these turbo 3.8 engines really all that powerful? Yeah, I know, I've heard all about the 87 GN and how it ran in the low 13's out of the showroom. But this is not that motor, this one has a Quadrajet on it and seems to be complete, except for the air cleaner and power steering pump. Would this thing outrun the 283 in my 3800 pound Checker? Would it get any better mileage?

In my years as an equipment mechanic I worked on a propane powered fleet and learned some things about propane, namely that it likes high compression and will deliver great mileage and power at 13:1 compression. I have an Impco 450 mixer that bolts right where a Q-jet came from and with the waste gate shut I think this puppy would run pretty good.

What static compression ratio was this engine?
Where can I find a schematic for vacuum lines in case I wanted to run it as is?

Any and all information and/or links to info will be greatly apppreciated.
Thanks.

Wow! Not many of those motors left.

You have a couple of choices. First, you could use it as-is. That engine is low power, and the carb setups were problematic.

Choice B is much more expensive - convert it to a full FI motor with an intercooler. It would work great, but cost a lot of money.

If it were me, i would replace the 283 with it - even though the power is low there are some associated braggin rights, and you would probably get better gas mileage (although it would be a LONG time before you realized a payback).

-Bob Cunningham

Is this the same basic block (except for bellhousing pattern) as the FWD motors? Will the heads interchange? Intakes?

This eng. is just above a stock 231 v6 . Not much value ,unlike the GN
& GNX engs. HTH