I don't know if BC is the right place to ask this, but why is the 3800'* little brother the "3300" so unreliable compared to the 3800? I know many people with a-bodies, and other cars they put them in that have had these lock up on them, burn valves, leak tons of oil, etc. Was it just a failed design? I mean it only made 10hp less than the L27 and was a lower deck block. Any one know why?

depends on how it was treated I have had a few and not had a single problem with them what so ever. the last one ran with only a little bit of coolant for 10 miles replaced the water pump filled with water and drove 50miles home no issues I finally put her to sleep with well over 400,000kms on her..

I have also had 3800'* that were JUNK so i wouldnt class the 3300 or the 3100 as unreliable

Funny I heard diffrently, That the 3300 was a great engine that ran rough but never died.

yeah, it was definitely not the smoothest engine ever, but it did the job, the one in my ciera with 158k ran perfectly until the day i sold it. I had it from about 130k to 158k and only had one weird problem with an intermittent SES and some problem with it wanting to stall if you gave it gas in park, but of course, thats not the engine'* fault, thats just one of those quirky control systems. never heard of another one doing it iirc.

Also, the 3300 was the middle brother. There was a 3.0 based on the block. The Centuries and a few others got it.