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13, you are aware of dhp powrtuner and hptuners, right? I have both, have been tuning 3800’s with my powrtuner since ’04 or ’05 when it first came out (bought it before swapping an L67 top end onto my L36 bottom end along with cam, intercooler, headers, etc). Unless your GP is an ’08, it can be tuned. In ’08 they went to a CAN-BUS system, last I remember even zzp couldn’t tune an ’08 v6 pcm.
Tyler, I can tell you with any pcm tuning, make small changes, and don’t make too many changes at once. Save your original tune and put it somewhere safe so you can always go back to a fresh start if needed. You’ll also want to be able to scan the car after making changes to see how it’s reacting, especially watching KR (knock retard), LTFT’s (fuel trims), timing, and 02’s (granted a narrowband is only accurate at 14.7, it’s still better than nothing if you don’t have a wideband).
If you go the L67 TB route, remember that the L36 upper intake opening is oval shaped, while the L67 TB outlet is round. You’ll need to fill the openings on the back of the L67 TB with rtv, and use an L67 gasket to get it to seal. You’ll also need a tune for the additional airflow, your ltft’s will be positive for sure.
When porting/polishing the TB, you don’t touch the area around the blade for reasons mentioned above. Just the inlet and outlet, but that won’t solve your problem. Your EGR is what’s causing your TB to get gunked up, that’s one of the first things I remove on 3800 powered vehicles (makes plug changes easier, too). Can also use a tuner to set the egr disable air temp really low so it never activates, if you need it there for emission inspections.
If you haven’t done them already, your lower intake gaskets will need replaced at some point. They’re plastic, and the dexcool softens/weakens them, they switched to metal gaskets in the ’04+ 3800’s. Felpro makes a metal gasket set, that’s the one you want when you replace them. Attached a pic of a ’98 regal gs w/167k miles I did LIM gaskets on, completely shot. (Haven’t attached a picture on this forum before, so yeah)
What information did you use to determine he wasted his money by maintaining a 3k oci? You know what kind of driving he does, the conditions he drives in, what kind of oil he uses, what filter he runs? I’d stick to the 3k interval, a $13 dino oil change isn’t much to keep clean oil in your engine. The only proper answer to determining what oci you should use, is with an oil analysis (like from Blackstone labs). Not the owners manual, or what someone on the internet says you should do. There are a lot of variables to take into account, but 3k is taking the safe course on dino oil. It’s cheap, and while changing it you looked over other things under the car and took care of them before they became bigger problems, definitely not a waste even if you didn’t get the absolute last mile out of the oil before changing it.
I love the ST Dex VI, did a fluid/filter change and camaro pan swap on my ’09 G8 GT about a year ago using it, and the 6l80e is doing fine with it. My ’01 Suburban is coming up on 200k miles, been using ST Dex III since 120k, recently switched to VI, still doing good on factory trans (knock on wood). Fluid has to meet the Dex VI criteria to be able to label it as such, there’s a reason it’s usually sold out at walmart, or there’s only a few bottles left on the shelf. Great price and quality fluid.
