I've got a 93 *-10 pickup that I inherited from my grandfather many years ago. Was my everyday in a previous life until it didn't start one day 20 years ago. Thinking about resurrecting it and replacing it with a 3.8 instead. Thinking a 3.8 from any GM front wheel drive early enough to still have a distributer and throttle body injection. Does such a car exist? Looking for any information on this to make this easy. I could just LS swap it but after swaping a 6.0 liter into my 89 k1500, I'd rather just put what fits in there. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

See if you can get an intake that would suit it and you'll be good.

An intake ive got, on my existing 2.8. What I'm trying to find is a 3.8 that is early enough to still have a distributer so that I don't have to change electronics under the hood or ECM and I can bolt all my engines everything to it (powersteering, alternator, intake, exhaust, etc.) . Its a five speed so flywheel and trans should all blot up to I would imagine?

I can't think of a mechanical-distributor 3.8 that was ever bolted to manual transmission while GM was building them. That probably means the crank isn't set up for a flywheel and clutch.

Also, all of your 2.8 brackets etc. won't bolt up to a 3.8 . They are completely different engines. The 2.8 is a 60-degree V-6 originally designed as a V-6 . The 3.8 is a 90-degree V-6 originally designed as a V-8 then later lost two cylinders, got sold to Kaiser-Jeep, got bought back from AMC years later, then started getting put into GM cars in the `70s. The 3.8 has more in common with decades of Rover V-8s than the 2.8 V-6 .

Your 2.8 intake definitely won't bolt to a 3.8 .

The bell housing patterns are different as well.

If you want something that might have a chance of being bolted in with similar brackets and accessories, you'd be much better off with a 3.4 .

OK so let me get this straight. The 3.8 was not a 60 degree v6? My grandmother (then my mother when she passed) had a 1988 Olds Delta 88 , B body 4dr sedan and it had a 3800 v6 that i swear to all that is holly was a 60 degree configuration. Now my aunt bought a Buick "something" the same year that did have the 3.4 in it. I know i have the displacement correct but the 60° vs. 90° i can not swear to it. Never had either of them apart under the hood so cant even rely on recall to visualize anything specific that would prove it either way so, im going to concede and rethink my whole plan.......
OK so I've been schooled . Consider this my retraction and replace 3.4 where ever 3.8 was mentioned in my original post. So NOW what are the possibilities of a 3.4 mechanical distributer clutch/flywheel 5 speed manual TBI vehicle? The manual/auto transmission should only differ in the ecm idle management, egr, air pump, idle air solenoid etc. All which can be reconfigured via HP tuners no?

"The 3.8 is a 90-degree V-6 originally designed as a V-8 then later lost two cylinders"
I have always known the above was true for the 4.3. I know the *-10 came with a 4.3 that year as well but almost NOTHING swaps between those 2. 60° vs. 90° .
I feel a bit silly not knowing the 3.8 was 90°

Yup. Buick 3.8/3800/3800S2/3800S3 all 90 degree V-6'*. For a while, back when they first came out, the geometry was still V-8 minus two cylinders so they had a shake to them when they ran. Later , they changed to split-pin cranks and got them timed properly to run smoothly, then they added a balance shaft to make them smoother. I was serious about Rover engines. Decades of Rover products had versions of the Buick aluminum V-8 that the 3.8 came from.

The GM 3.4 started life as a clean-sheet 2.8 and worked it'* way up.

Ummmm . . . probably a Century, Rendezvous, or Terraza depending on what year we're talking about. All of them had the 3.4, at least as an option.

There was a 3.4 retrofit kit for a while that was exactly for what you are talking about. Folks were buying crate 3.4s and swapping them in for their 2.8'*. I know the crate engine went out of production, but the kit might still be out there so you can swap in a used unit.

I don't know about whether or not you can reprogram this with HPTuners, but it occurs to me than if you can, the engine probably have a distributor.

Yeah, they did it on the Buick 215 first.

Then Oldsmobile did it to make their 4.3 V-6 diesel, and some say they went on to make a prototype V-5 out of this V-6. I've seen the V-5, I just can't find solid information about its origins.

Then Chevrolet did it to make the 4.3 gas V-6.

All of these are 90-degree though.