Well it looks like he is back in the game with it. His parents are gonna pay for a new engine for it, as his Dad doesn't want to see it sold to someone that may not take care of it. Time to pull the craiglist ad.

I love the 3800 and the amount of room there is under the hood to work on it. I love the aftermarket for it, and I love the proven reliability of it. But the Northstar is just as reliable if you ask me. It may not be as easy to wrench on compared to the 3800, but I'd still buy an Aurora that was well taken care of, especially since it'* mated to the 4T80-E.

then get ready to preform an autopsy on that engine.

I wish.... his parents are taking it to the dealer of course. For some reason they don't trust me.

The N* is bascially a 2.3 quad 4 motor doubled up. Great motor and strong as heck.. Both suffer from head gasket issues. Although the N* doesn't have the head cracking that made the quad'* were infamous. This motor doesn't appear to have a head gasket issue though. Bearing problems seem to be nearly unheard of on these cars.

On an autopsy, be happy they aren't giving you the motor. You'd need to pull apart a couple of the modules to get to the crank. On the Y vin motor that I've been working on, you remove the front exhaust crossunder pipe, then the pan and can't see the crank or rods. They appear to be at the next module up.

On a side note...I've been looking over the 4T80 (many times..lol) and thinking of how it could be put into an H body.

A member here did that swap. His pics are floating around P&B.

Car is at the dealer as of a 9am, engine is on order. The mechanic said it looks as if it was a oil pump failing. The top end was drier than what it was supposed to be, and there are lots of sparkles in the oil, but no pieces/chunks.