exactly what the title says. the other day getting off the highway after a 5 1/2 hour drive it started making noise. got to a stop light and it starting stalling with a nasty thumping noise. I looked at my gauges and I had 0 oil pressure. turns out I threw a rod and it cracked the block. so now it is getting a heart transplant with a newly rebuilt 3.8. it only had 82,700 miles on it. seemed pretty early for the 3800 to fail. I had already replaced the intake manifold last year because it failed. this car has been a lot of money to maintain, getting kind of mad.

since I will now be keeping it for a while because of the new engine I want to dress it up a bit. was thinking about putting a set of hp30'* on and doing a nice brushed trim kit on the interior to dress it up a bit. what companies out there make a good molded trim kit. I don't want one of those crappy vinyl trim kits that looks like a sticker. some pics of them installed would be nice too.

sounds kinda wierd for a 3800 to go like that, how was it taken care of oil change wise? did you check the oil level often? if you didnt change the oil often that would cause it to go and if it got low kiss a rod goodbye

I haven't done anything to my 97 SSEi, except the fuel pump and idler pullies at 225,000 approx.

Nice stable by the way

wow, that is an odd event for a 3.8, especially with so few miles.. i wonder what could have caused it to fail so young in life

Has there been any diagnosis on why it went yet?

There are a few kits sold on ebay. I believe another buddy here at work got a nice one. I'll try and ask where he picked it up.

Sounds like what happened to mine. About 6 months after the UIM failed, the engine fragged. You got lucky, relatively anyways, mine threw pieces through the tranny.

The dignosis was either the UIM failure was going on longer than I thought, or it wasn't repaired fast enough. The coolant in the oil contaminted engine parts, and they slowly died over the next six months until "Kaboom"

4 grand later, and I now have a better warranty on my car than when I bought it...

about the dash kit, I have searched but none of them sell molded kits for the bonnie.. just the crappy flat dash.

the oil was changed every 3000 miles since I bought it last year with about 64,000 miles on it. two days after I bought it, the low coolant level light starting going on and off. and that is when I did the intake change. the oil never got discolored though so I assumed most of the coolant was leaking out and not into the motor, maybe I was wrong. in either case I am not happy, but I guess I will have a new warranty for the next 3 years to 50,000 miles as far as the engine is concerned. I really do love driving the car, well that is as a daily driver. it can't even come close to how fun the camaro is to drive.

on the positive side these are the wheels I am thinking about putting on