I spen a bearing (assuming) in my 97 SSEi yesterday and with in 5 miles getting home it locked up. Car only has 55,000 miles on it. I found a 00' l67 with out the SC with 40,000 miles on it for $950.00. Will the 00' bolt directly into my 97' with no changes needed. Will all of the plugs and harnesses go right together?? Also I would like to increase performance very mild, perhaps a basic performance cam (Is the cam swap easy with the engine out of the car?). This is my daily driver and I need it to be very reliable. What other mods can I easily do without comprmising ANY reliability?? Thanks for your help.

You dont want that L36 (without the SC your talking about). Look for anything starting in 97 and up I would think. And make sure it actually is a L67.

The engine I found is an L67 but it does not include the SC(removed). I will be transfering mine from the bad engine to the new.

if your replacement is a L67 then yes it will be a plug and play,, bolt holes might be a little different but the casings will be in the block for the correct mounting, you may have to just your brackets off your old engine

You spun a bearing on a Ser 2 L67 with 55K? Did you're oil pan fall off while you were driving? Maybe you need to drive harder. The Ser 2 L67 loves to be beat. As far as any cam on this engine will resault in wild performance gains, not mild. The most "mild" cam you can get is the Intense stage 1x cam. That will still net great gains.

For the cam -yes, it will be alot easier with the engine out of the car, because to do it with the engine in you will have to take two motor mounts off, jack up the passenger side of the engine enough to slide the cam out over the fender.
Another cheap, easy mod is a 3.4 or 3.5" pulley (you'll have to check into www.clubgp.com and find someone with a pulley-puller). If you only are going to do it once I suggest a press-fit pulley, and not a modular pulley as they are 3-4 x as expensive.
A cold air intake or bumper well intake (need to order 3.5" tubing from www.Intense-racing.com), a high flow 2.5" catalytic convertor (part # 94106) from www.justmagnaflow.com ($55.57 includes free shipping), a better muffler (same place -get part #12265 with single 2.5" inlet and dual 2.5" outlets -$84.22 -free shipping), and a 180* thermostat.
You might also want to port your exhaust manifolds. There is a guy that Sol had do his, and the guy did it for $100 + shipping (you will need to supply the cores -note: the rear manifold is different on the Bonneville than other body styles). I have the guys e-mail address if you are interested.

thanks for the help guys, the funny thing is that I've only had the car for 3 000 miles and I bought it from a women in her 60'* (one owner)!! ?????? It is my daily driver and in 3000 miles i have only shifted it manually once and never taken it to redline ????? I know, i got the lemon of all the 3.8'* out there. :( :( :( sucks to be me right now.

I'm thinking she prolly neglected the oil changes. What color is you're oil?

Ya, I'll have to agree although I don't want to.
Did you do a carfax?
Makes me think of that Andy Griffith show where the skinny guy (forget guys screen name but real life was Don Knotts(?)) bought a 1953(?) F*rd from the 'proverbial' little old lady and the rear end had sawdust in it. Then they find the little old lady is involved in a repair shop racketeering scheme.
Hope you didn't duped.

Funny Huh, I guess it is now that I've stopped crying. This really sucks. We'll its official, the bonnes DEAD. Tonight I checked the oil and no metal at all. So I drained the oil, also no metal at all. For a second I thought it may be a minor problem uptop and not a bearing that I was hearing, so I dropped the pan and there it was. Thru the chewed up oil splash guard was the connecting rod jammed next to the sleeve of the opposite piston. The only loose parts I found in the pan were 1 complete untouched con rod cap, 1 complete looking bolt and 1 severly chewed and tumbled partial bolt. A few chunks but no fine metal shavings anywhere. And the bearings were both there in pretty good shape. The good news is that maybe the top end(heads) is fine and reusable.