I was in another thread and was talking about the problems or lack of in the v6 swaps. Now most of the time we only hear of the problems, electrical and mechanical. No one seems to mention the completed swap, like no one gets them running just continue to work on them. Seems after making an assumption that there arent any stick swaps that are reliable, I was starting to be corrected by posts.
So lets hear it.
Tell us what your J is.
what engine was used,
trans that was used,
wiring harness that you used,
How many miles since the swap and what problems occurred.




01 cav w/01 3400 gam gt 4t45e

Here Ill go first,
2001 Cav , original auto 2200
3400 engine came from a 2001 Grand am gt
Auto 4spd trans came from the same 01 grand am
Engine wiring and PCM from same 01 grand am
3500 miles since the swap.

after swap
One issue with the ground under the battery, but that was in the exhisting j harness.
Torque converter will bleed off every once and a while. not worth taking the trans out.








01 cav w/01 3400 gam gt 4t45e

where to start.

well the swap in my car is complete and has been complete and running since begining of august?

as for how many kms on the swap = not many maybe 2000 - 3000 im guessing

problems ive ran into are

power steering line caught the rear manifold on fire

rad fan stopped working, heads needed repaired

heater core hose blew and started leaking

coolant steel line from intake to heater core bracket broke and started leaking

lost a bolt out of the lower mount bracket and broke the oil pan

and the current problem and the biggest one..........

car needs a new transmission

now on another not lets count # of tows im at about 7



My 3400 Swap Page

oh and, still have no passenger signal light, running light yes but no signal



My 3400 Swap Page

Well, I have had my share of success and failures.

The who-
Car
1996 Chevy Cavalier Z24 coupe.
Stock 2.4 5 speed.

The what-
Swap
Swapped for engine out of 1995 Pontiac Grand Am 3100
Transmission from 1998 Chevy Cavalier 2.2

Computer
Megasquirt II V3.0
Megasquirt Relayboard
Relayboard to Computer by DIYAutotune.com
Engine harness made by me

Parts
Rally Clutch by Southbend Clutch
Custom lower motor mount bracket by me
Upper motor mount from 2001 Pontiac Grand Am
Upper motor mount to engine bracket from 2001 Grand AM
Alternator bracket 2001 Grand Am
Pressure Power Steering line 2001 Grand Am
Return side High pressure power steering hose
Fuel lines AN-6 braided hose, -6 to tubing fittings at stock lines, fuel rail fittings from 60degreeV6 store
Aeromotive Adjustable Fuel Pressure Regulator
Alternator off 2001 Chevy Malibu
A/C bypass pulley
2.5 inch custom down pipe to 2.5 inch straight through muffler by magnaflow. Out the side infront of the drive rear tire. Little loud will be adding another muffler

The how-
Wiring
Way to long to type out the wiring, but if anyones interested I saved all my drawings and papers on how I did it just ask Ill scan them in.
Mounts
Swapped old brackets for new ones. Pretty direct replacement, need a few spacers for the alternator bracket.
Cut out J upper mount weld and bolt in new mount.
Make lower mount from dimensions in the sticky thread

Now the only problems that I had was having a heater hose pop off the firewall. Easily fixed. Also had problems with my AFPR but the original one I had was off ebay. Got an aeromotive unit and no problems since Little salty but defiantly worth it. I have not had any problems with my transmission but I have not been able to beat on it yet. Still breaking the motor in, it was a new motor I had laying around from an old car, and Im not currently with the car. But the car drives and handles excently. No complaints there and I am very happy with it so far.

Future Plans-

3400 Heads and Intake manifolds,
Billet throttle body from 60degreeV6 store
Possibly vortech supercharger in place of the A/C bypass pulley.
Hopefully all works out

Hope to see more people doing this swap in the future as I believe it should have came this way from the factory

Thanks to all those who have helped my along the way

97 Sunfire se 2.2
3100 engine came from a 1994 Grand Am
Stock 2.2 5 speed Mk7 i think is the code with 2.2 flywheel and ceterforce dual friction clutch.
Wiring harness and ecm from 94 grand am. Gutted the harness to get rid of all auto trans wiring and abs and loomed it back up. Took about 4 hours and 2 rolls of electrical tape to do.
A little over 2000 miles since the swap was done.

Problems
-Rewired fuel pump relay to start the car.
-When cutting out the 2.2 harness, the ground for the blower motor was cut so i had no heat for 1 night.
-Car will sometimes die if clutch is pushed in while driving with rpms higher than 2000.

Other than that, after the swap i shut the hood and just drove it. I didn't get my ecm flashed to get rid of things like pass lock, or auto trans. Took a weekend to do the swap and i'v invested a total of 450$ to do it. After re-learning to drive the car with this motor, it works awesome, i love it!


660 powered sunfire

97 Cavalier (grey bumpers and no power anythings)
2.2 OHV - 5spd

Swapped to:
3400 (LA1) From a 99 Grand Am.
Megasquirt-II PCB 3.0
Modified stock wiring harness
Stock PCM to drive gauge cluster.

Probably put a couple thousand on it after the swap. Only problems is it's rough to start and runs a bit on the rich side, but that's a tuning issue and is easily fixed with the laptop. Only other problem I had was a starter that went bad about a month ago..... but that happens.

Watching for:
Busted motor mounts and transmission.

98 Cavalier, 2 door, with 03-front and rear conversion, lambo doors, Rk Sport hood with ram air


engine out of 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix 3100
Stock 5 speed, with new stock clutch


Parts

Upper motor mount - modified stock frame mount- raised 1"
Upper motor mount to engine bracket from Grand Am
Modified power steering- half cavalier- half malibu??
Stock G/P custom down pipe to custom pipe and turbo muffler
Custom lower engine mount- stock cavi dog bone
G/P radiator and dual fans
G/P fuel pump
stock cavi air box to use r/a hood

Wiring
used factory GM printouts from a tech to match up with using j-body service manuals
took about a month to do wiring
piggy backed computers-to use factory guages -- cav in pass location, g/p under the drivers fender
rotated battery 90 degrees
factory G/P transponder unit for theft control-"Fuel Enable" circuit
extra relay and fuse for fans
second temp sensor put in water pump bypass pipe for j computer


Problems, yes, had to install the G/P fuel pump for proper pressure. Broke the slave cylinder line for the clutch during install. lost the lower dogbone bolt while driving one day- engine rocked, a/c pulley hit rad hose-- you can guess what happen!!

Sold the car about 1-1/2 years ago ( someone in the chicago area )

If I kept it I would have put in a high performance clutch-- stock would slip if you really pushed it.
Easily smoked the tires !!!!!!

Only 6 v-6 swaps? There has to be more than that. How about kardain I know you have one.


01 cav w/01 3400 gam gt 4t45e

You are correct.... I am working on mine, but since I don't yet consider it completed. car only has 50 miles at best since the swap and that was various tests plus a trip to the exhaust shop...

I'm in the same boat as Kardain. Mine is done for the most part, but the car isn't on the road, and it's not going to be until the spring. I'm currently just tidying up the wiring and troubleshooting a few minor things, then it's going to be getting ready for paint, which means pulling the motor, as I'm going to do it right the first time.

But for the sake of argument, here's mine:

95 Cavalier LS
2002 3100 engine
Isuzu 5 speed
95 Camaro 3.4/5 speed ecu/wiring harness
pretty much shredded the wiring harness and put it all back together on the car, because being a RWD harness, everything was in the wrong spot. After I did this, I found out that the 95 Grand Am 3100 harness would have worked, as it's the same computer with a slightly different flash then the Camaro one. Oh well. Learning process.

I have put no actual driving mileage on the car yet, but I've had it running for hours getting things right on it, including some tranny issues that had nothing to do with the swap. The only problem I'm currently dealing with is the speedo is not working, but I think the problem is a pinched wire. I've been away on business for two months, so I haven't touched the car since the beginning of September, but I should be able to get it all figured out soon. I also wish I kept a factory cluster to see how much I could get working on that, but I'm using a Dakota Digital cluster, so everything is hardwired to work. I'm contemplating swapping electronics out, as I found after I was deep into the swap that no tuning software works on the 94-95 computers. I have been leaning toward the 96+, but I may end up going with a 94 Z24 computer. We'll see what happens. I might leave it alone until I build another motor down the road.

Kardain, what's the story on yours right now?

Ok, I guess I'll bite.

Engine is a 2k1 3400 from a Grand Am
Harness is a 99 3400 harness spliced to the J stuff
Now running a 2k1 GA 3400 PCM stripped of auto-trans settings -- idles much better.

Problems:
PS Hose needs fixing (again)
Trans sticks in 5th, snaps out of 2nd (this will be teardown # 4)
Front O2 sensor doesn't read a signal (brand new)
Speedo not hooked up
Cooling fan doesn't work like it should (have a SPAL PWM Fan Control for that)
Possible exhaust leak post-cat
Need to replace water pump (squeaks real bad)

Now that its wintertime, I can only work on it a little at a time... my rt knee is really sensitive to cold.

Wow, sounds like minor stuff other than the trans.

the O2 sensor part isn't really minor, since it can cause further problems down the road. I plan to run N2O, so gotta get that part fixed first before anything else so its not running overly rich. Plus, it can burn out the cat.

I have it wired separate from the engine harness straight to the ECM and no luck so far... however briefly unhooking the heater ground for a second will cause it to read again for about 30 seconds.

well before i just listed problems so heres the whole thing


98 sunfire
2000 montana 3400
00+ getrag 5spd transmission swap

what was used

2003 alero pcm piggy backed into the factory pcm
spec stage 3 clutch
fidanza 8lb aluminum flywheel
poly urethane upper and lower motor mount, transmission mount and control arm bushings
custom lower motor mount bracket
3400 upper motor mount inside sunfire factory mounting bracket
half 3400 half 2200 power steering hose
2.5" full exhaust
custom downpipe
2.5" magnaflow highflow cat
2.5 flowmaster crossflow (camaro style)
magnaflow chrome oval tips
alternator from 2nd gen 3.1
starter from 98 sunfire 2200
removed the rear 02 near the cat, only running one 02 sensor
tuned with hp tuners
fel-pro steel LIM gaskets

well the swap in my car is complete and has been complete and running since begining of august

as for how many kms on the swap = not many maybe 2000 - 3000 im guessing
problems ive ran into are
power steering line caught the rear manifold on fire
rad fan stopped working, heads needed repaired
right turn signal dont work, park light does though
heater core hose blew twice
coolant steel line from intake to heater core bracket broke and started leaking
lost a bolt out of the lower mount bracket and broke the oil pan
and now the car needs a new transmission


future:
LSD insert
eibach front and rear sway bars
B&M short throw
Turbo
battery relocate to trunk




My 3400 Swap Page

You know even if you arent done it still helps others wanting to swap see what works together. Its kind of nice to look at all of them in the same thread and compare. Thanks for posting guys.
I went on a lil trip last weekend, put about 250 miles on it round trip then some puttin around in columbus for turkey day. If I could only get the cruise to work I would be set.



01 cav w/01 3400 gam gt 4t45e

I'm using a second generation Z24 harness and PCM. Can someone tell me if the tach will work with a dakota digital tach adapter?

Michael Antle wrote:I'm using a second generation Z24 harness and PCM. Can someone tell me if the tach will work with a dakota digital tach adapter?

That adapter should work if you are using your stock ECM to run the gauges, but the factory cluster sees the RPMs through the serial data, so hooking the adapter up to the cluster will not do anything.

However, if you're using a 2nd gen, especially a late one (93, 94) you may be able to run the cluster off that ECM.

I am using the factory engine computer to run the gauges, and I'm going with a 94 harness and computer. I was told that the older harness and pcm will not run the factory tach, but everything else should be fine.

98 Z24
99 L67 - Supercharged 3800
2002 Getrag tranny with LSD insert

Been done for almost 5 years now, blown up twice, completely built now and converted to turbo. Have had some issues along the way, bending rad support, braking mounts, bending pressure plates, etc but for the most part it's been very reliable. Last trip I took with it was to Montreal and back which was close to 3000kms. Probably have close to 50,000kms on it since the swap I would guess.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Thursday, November 29, 2007 8:06 AM


Quoth the Raven 'Nevermore
raven@accesswave.ca
Raven Autosports
55 McQuade Lake Cres,
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
(902) 850-3330
10.82@132

Michael Antle wrote:I am using the factory engine computer to run the gauges, and I'm going with a 94 harness and computer. I was told that the older harness and pcm will not run the factory tach, but everything else should be fine.

What year j-body do you have again? You need to add your car to your profile. If you have a 95-98 car, the 94 ECM should run the gauges. I'm 99.99% sure that the serial data is the same on those. The 99 had digital ODO, and I know that protocol changed, but I have used a 98 cluster and a 96 cluster in my 95, so I know the signals are the same between them, and I'm almost 100% sure the 94 will be compatible. I wish there was an easy way to check. My recommendation is to do the swap with the 94 ECM, and get the engine running, then see if the gauges work. If they don't, start working on which wires to your factory ECM need to be run. It might even require adding a few duplicate sensors to avoid screwing up the values if you parallel them.

Mine's a 97 Sunfire. I'd love for the factory tach to work, keep it factory looking from the cockpit.

That's easy, Convert to cav interior and go with the tach-less cluster.

My suggestion is that since you've asked so many times, obviuosly noone has tackled the problem yet. So, just do your swap and figure it out yourself and post so others may have your donation of information.

I can't start the swap until probably the end of february anyways, so like anybody else would do, I'm trying to find out as much as I can before I attempt it.