96 olds CC 3100 engine swap

[Nall]

my aunts Olds blew a head gasket and she rodded it to death with water in the oil. me and my dad are supposed to be finding a 3100 for it, but were getting a lot of junk yards telling us that nothing but a 3100 from a 96+ Olds, or Buick will work, because of missing sensors and junk... so I'm wondering what exactly would be different with lets say, a 3100 from Chevy, or Pontiac compared to the Olds, and Buick. it would also be nice to know whats different from the 95- olds 3100... supposedly they wont work either.
basically we just want to know if its something different with the block or heads, or if its just intake or something, because we could get a 3100 from anything if it was just the intake, and swap the one we have onto the new one....

[robertisaar]

any 96-99 3100 should work...
95 and earlier wouldn't work due to the EGR, but if you swapped the intakes, problem solved...

[95Grand-Am]

Don't forget that the ECT is differant on the 95 but if you plug the hole in the back side head and swap the ECT to the newer style than it will work just fine. Does you engine have that strange upper intake with MAF sensor that is attached to the throttle body? Even so you might have to swap intakes, maybe exhaust manifolds. Bottom line is it will work if you are willing to swap over stuff .

[IsaacHayes]

Yeah even a 94-95 will work, just swap the upper intake, might as well put a metal lower intake gasket too so you don't get the coolant problem while you are there. Just leave the coolant sensor in the back of the head of the 94-95 and re-use your ECT in the lower manifold. I'd swap over all your sensors anyway, as you know they are good.

Usually when doing an engine swap you swap stuff like the upper intake/etc unless it's identical anyway.

You could even swap to a 3400 or 2000+3100 with a little more work (NPT tap the lower intake for the coolant pipe, swap to new style egr and tube if going with 2000+ motor).... Unless the 96 olds has the odd maf/tb combo thing, even then there are ways around that but not worth the time if you just want to get the vehicle going for someone else.. but I don't think a 96 olds has the weird setup, just the older ones.

[Nall]

perfect thanks, we'll just buy the lowest millage one we can find then and swap out the intake if necessary. not sure about the MAF, last time i looked under the hood of the thing it was a few months ago, on the lot where we bought it... wasn't really concerned with what kind of setup it was at the time. now its sitting behind my grandparents house, till we can find time to haul it back here. pretty sure it was attached directly to the airbox and the snorkel went from there to the engine.

[Nall]

yeah, got a motor out of a 97 cutless supreme, intake is the new design and ours is the old tin-can airfilterbox. the headers are diff, so we got to swap those too. and the motor mounts are slightly diff, but luckily all the old bolt-holes for our old stuff is on the newer block.

so essentially we have to strip both blocks down to the heads and swap everything over. no biggie.

looks like the rockers are diff too, maybe rollers instead of the tappets on the old one. haven't got the valve-covers off the new one, but that's what all-data is telling my dad.