We just got our 03 ssei. Had a mechanic tell me that the 3800 is a great motor (which I know)but he said when you put a supercharger on them, they develop problems. Is this true? If so what problems arise? I would think they would still be the same great motor unless someone beats the living crap out of them.

your mechanic is passing on myths to you that he probably has heard but never experienced

the supercharged 3800 (L67) is a very strong motor, probably even more reliable then the NA 3800 (L36) because it doesnt have the UIM failure problem.

if a coupler in the supercharger goes bad, it rattles, making the SC sound broken, however its only a $30 part, and easy to fix yourself. my dad is a ASE certified tech and when i first got mine, he told me we would have to replace the entire nosedrive because you could not order the coupler from GM. you can order them online at both of our major vendors


INTENSE™ Supercharger Coupler
Code:INT-SCC
Price: $34.99

chances are, if anyone else is wrong with your SC other than the coupler, we will be able to help you diagnose it and fix what needs to be fixed, rather than replacing the SC. our best SC vendor is http://www.canadiansupercharger.com/

My family has owned probably a good 7 or 8 3800 engines and by far the supercharged 3800'* have been more reliable for us.

The supercharged motors are brutes. The transmissions won't last as long as the non-supercharged, but that'* simply because of the extra power.

Hell, even the non-supercharged motors are brutes.

I can promise you that you'll have a much better experience with it if you hang with us, though.

In the fewest words possible...

they are built like tanks

Thanks guys! Thats what I thought. This guy is not our mechanic, I am. We just took it to him today to put on the scan tool, had a ses light. We have a 92 bonne se with 230k on it, still runs great. I'm about to buy another ssei, a 92. I had never heard of any reliabity problems before, just the opposite.

ditto.

My used-to-be N/A 3800 is about to roll over 220,000 miles and runs awesome. Can't really complain when an engine with that many miles is trapping 110+mph in the quarter and making over 300whp...

Our SSEi has been beat on with mods since day one, it has over 180k on it currently. We have had to do essentially no repairs to the engine at all and the transmission just had to be rebuilt at ~170k, which for that heavy of a car being beat on as hard as it was is pretty good IMO.

My dads GTP has also been modded since the day he brought it home from the dealer. It pulled off a 12 second pass the first time it ever saw a drag strip almost 4 years ago and is also beat on pretty hard. It runs very very strong 5 years later with no engine issues at all. This car traps over 115mph in the quarter and is making 340whp+.

While our '04 Monte Carlo still has lower miles on it, its also been modded since almost day one and the only issue we had with that car was a cracked flexplate at around 30k miles which was replaced under warranty. The engine is very strong and has gave us no problems.

I'm a big fan to say the least.

Many of the cars here have over 150,000 miles on them. The motors last forever. I'm personally at 173,XXX miles and the motor is solid and ready for another ton of miles.

You may want to consider a second opinion on the items this mechanic tells you.

97 SSEi 178K- 45K on the motor (don't run reg unleaded in an */c engine) and 178K on the trans

I don't beat on mine, but I get the point across

I had a 1992 SSEi with over 150k miles and i ran nothing but regular unleaded and beat on that motor hard and never had a problem. Drove that car with regular unleaded for 2 years.