Intake Question

[supkylesup]

My local yard has a 1982 Buick lesabre with the 4.1l v6 (252)
Im throwing around the idea of buying the intake manifold off of it
just wondering if it would fit my 3.8l v6 (231)

i know the intake manifold off the 80s rivieras and toranados is a direct bolt on

but i havent heard anything about buick lesabre's

so if someone could let me know that would be great

Thanks,
Kyle

 

[Oldsmoletick]

Pretty much a 4.1 is a 4.1, the whole even/odd thing was over and done with by the time they came out, so it should bolt onto your 3.8 no prob, but I would suggest getting the carb that goes with it. I tried to tune a edelbrock 600 (I had it laying around ) on my 4.1 I had, it worked ok at best but it was way too much carb for it to handle. I'll tell ya now you won't notice a big gain, so don't get your hopes up too high, lol. My stock 4.1 would barely outrun my friends stock 3.8, at least we couldn't get in trouble for racing with 0-60 time of 15 seconds .

 

[supkylesup]

thanks for the input
went and picked both the carb and intake up this morning
$115 was bad for both of em

so i think my winter project parts list is pretty much completed now
ive been slowly but surely collecting parts for the 3.8 all summer
i know everyone thinks its a waste of money building up the 3.8
but im not looking for a whole lot of power out of the thing just a little more pep is all i need

so my parts that ive collected so far include:
hedman headers
4.1l intake manifold
4bbl rochester carb
dual snorkel air cleaner and piping to run ram air through the high beams
valve covers (stock ones are leaking just a bit)
rear swaybar
grant stearing wheel
grant no wheel no steal kit

its not much but ive never worked on a car before
so this is a learning experience for me
i have some knowledge from endless thread reading on here
so wish me luck

 

[Oldsmoletick]

I wouldn't say wasting your time and money trying to wake it up a little to at least keep up in traffic, lol. I did the same with my 4.1, simple things, exhaust, ignition, carb, and I forget what else I think I went as far to put a 2100 stall converter and shift kit in the trans :lol: . After said and done it would actually bark the tire on dry pavement, and would do a brake stand, I was happy with it for a little while. Got my first wake up call ticket for doing donuts in a wet parking lot with it .

 

[81cutlass]

If you really want to, you can make a NA 3.8 make 225 without a ton of work. 300 is hard though. Thats high compression pistons, and being nobody is into NA performance there isnt many. The intake picks you up 20HP or so if you get rid of the cat at the same time. Just because of the fact that the stock intake and carb is so poor. If you get into cutting out restrictions in the intake you can get more, along with headers if you want.

The main reason a stock 3.8 NA isnt like a 350 chev (besides it being 3/5 the size or so) is that the heads are so bad. Only reason the turbo cars are so much better is the turbo makes up for the bad heads. The flow is just so bad.

You will pick up some power with the intake though, do doubt about that.