Supercharged engine swap?

[reattaone]

Can you put a supercharged 3800 Series II engine in a 88 Reatta? Do you need to also change transmissions?

[Guest F14CRAZY]

You can, but it isn't an easy one...

It should bolt in from my understanding and experience that I've gained so far. The problem is that the stock 4T60 automatic is not going to take the power very well, for very long. If you've noticed in a recent discussion a Northstar has been bolted up to it, but I have doubts on its long term power handling capability...the torque numbers would apply to this better, but 295 hp through a 165 hp transmission doesn't look very good on paper. Your ECM will have to be custom programmed to run the L67.

Well, you could use a 4T60-E, or the 4T65-HD that came with the L67 from the factory. Thing is, the stock ECM cannot run this transmission, because the '88-90 4T60 is mostly hydraulic. The power handling issue is out of the way, but then you have to deal with controlling it. If you use the "PCM" from the donor vehicle, you'll lose your stock instrument panel and touch screen and would have to use aftermarket custom gauges or potentially the instrument panel cluster from the donor vehicle. Either way, a lot of work, and you'd lose what I feel makes the Reatta unique.

There are standalone transmission controllers which would work. You might be able to search like www.fiero.nl and see if anyone has used one. I don't know enough about them to say much though.

Or, the last alternative is to bypass the transmission-control issue and convert to a manual transmission

[Ronnie]

What about using 4T65-HD and use two ECMs as was done in the Reatta+Nstar project? One to control the engine and transmission and one to control the rest of the vehicle functions.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

I nearly forgot about that one. Its a pretty new idea but it seems that it would work

[Guest crtnrds]

How about using the internal parts from the 4T65HD to beef up the 4T60?

[Guest F14CRAZY]

That could be researched.

[Don B.]

You should do a search on the forum.

Between F14Crazy and myself there should be

a good amount of info on this subject.

[Guest crtnrds]

The Buick Tech that originaly put the Series I motor in my '88 Reatta "hot rod" said he used parts from the Riviera he took the engine from in the trans. I don't know what parts or if the later series II models could be used to beef up the trans.

Mine is still working ok, although I don't drive it much or very hard. I like F14s project 6 speed & am anxiously awaiting it's completion to see how it turns out. Probably more work than I'm willing to do though.

[Guest Guyver280Z]

Ok. I deffinetly want the Series II Supercharged engine on my 89 Reatta. But I deffinetly want all the touchscreen options working... at least the gauges.

I'd love a 6 speed conversion, but it seems to be a lot of work and I kinda like having a confortable automatic car as a saily driver (I also have a 6 speed C5 vette and an already converted to 5 speed manual Subaru SVX and my 280Z was born a manual and will be a manual forever)

So I'll love to keep the original automatic transmission from the Series II Engine. I think the idea of using two ECU's sounds reasonable, maybe using a good Optima battery and a good alternator will be enough to power up the entire system right??

How hard is it to fit the engine/tranny into the Reatta?? Any bolt on points?? I'll need to fabricate my own brackets???

Also, can I swap the sensors from the Reatta to the series II engine?? Like Temperature, oil pressure, etc...

Somebody already done it?? I always find great deals on engines and trannys on ebay and craigslist. Anybody??

[Ronnie]

Hi Luis'

Welcome to the forum! I have not read much about the Series II SC swap. I'm wouldn't doubt it has been done. The series I SC engine and the series II SC engine are similar but not identical. I would start here reading about the series I SC swap and then build on that knowledge to find out how to do the series II swap.

From what I have read, you shouldn't have to do much to get it to fit, nor should you need to fabricate a lot of parts. You will find the problems you will have will be more electrical modifications and possibly fuel delivery problems . Others here will jump in and tell you more.

[Guest Guyver280Z]

Yeah, it seems to be way easy to swap the Series I... but I'd like to have a newer, more powerful and yet more efficient engine and transmission.

There should be a way to use both new and old sensors on a series II engine... I just want a Reatta the way it shold have been.

How reliable are Series I supercharged engines???

[D-a-n-i-e-l]

First off if yoiu are planning on using the ECM from a 88, 89, 90 you will not be able to control the Trany that comes with the series II engine. I would just find a good tranny shop and beef up the original, or I am looking into using the "F7" out of the same era Cadillacs. Also if you piggy back a ECM you will most likely lose alot of the TCC diagnostic functions. The series II can easily be controlled by the Reatta's ECM you just have to swap in the sensors from a series one or the stock Reatta sensors. Also you must match up the spark plug wires and injector plugs to match the firing order of the series II.

All in all it is not too much harder than the series one swap, just a bit more research and general understanding of the diffrence in the firing order.

The series one engine is very reliable as far as my swap has went. I am about 9,000 miles into it.

Also I am sure that you could use some of the sensors from the series II, but your swap would go much easier with the series one sensors. The issue with using the series II sensors is that the may not be compatiable with the OBD1 Reatta computer. As I believe all the Series II are OBD2.

OK time for me to stop for now, if you have any other questions just let me know.

[Don B.]

Having done this several years ago you may want to rethink it.

You need to use premium fuel all the time.

Performance was fine and compairable to a Riv from which the engine was in.

Just want to warn you if you are to use it as a daily driver.

[Guest Guyver280Z]

Well, I use premium fuel in both my Vette and Subaru, and I always use medium on my Reatta... never regular. So it wont be that bad.

So you have a Seeries II Supercharged engine on yours?? Or is it a Series I?? Anyways, if I can get decent performance out of a Series I and it easier to make it work with my touchscreen ill go Series I.

For the Series II I was thinking of using both ECU's and adding the OBD1 sensors to the Series II engine to have make it work with my ECU... But if you guys say it it impossible or way too complicated I'll go Series I instead.

What about just buying the Series I Intake and supercharger??? Will that work or the internals are different?? Anyways, I like the idea of replacing the transmission...

[Ronnie]

Try this website for more info. and here for HP parts.

[D-a-n-i-e-l]

Guyver,

Yes the internals are different. They swaped where the intake and exhuast valves are and many other improvments. Like I said before the swap is not that have and can be done with the original ECM, as long as you are willing to use the stock automatic trany. Also your TCC will work with the engine. Now if you want to piggyback a second ECM you will have to deal with many other issues that I really do not think would be worth the trouble just to get the electronic shifting of the newer trany. Plus you sound well off so you can most likely afford to pay someone to beef up the trany, or if you are adventurous and willing to, possibley, pull the trany a couple times you could do it yourself. I personally would pay for the trany service.

[Don B.]

Series I out of a '94 Park Ave Ultra.

Ran 15.2 in the 1/4.

The bottom end of the engine on the SC is beefed up.

So you should use the sc engine for longevity.

I used the Reatta ECM and it ran well.

[D-a-n-i-e-l]

This is for every one who want this swap but is worried about the trany issue.

My trany with 140,000 miles (8k with the supercharged series one) is starting to go. So I really wanted to go with the six or five speed, but funds and uncertainty of my housing situation are forcing me to look other places.

First option and the easiest. By a trany out of a Cadillac Allante. Ensure you get the F-7 if you are buying new. This trany it the only 440 I have found that is built to withstand more torque and not electronicaly controlled. It would be a bolt-in afair. I amnot sure of the amount of torque this trany will handle but I do know it was beefed up at the factory.

Second option and most likely my final answer to the issue, only because I want to do a Northstar swap in a 91' vert. Is to use a tranny out of the series two cars. this should not be an issue with this product. (http://www.powertraincontrolsolutions.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=28)

It seems a little pricey to me, but it is one of two I have found and the only one that specificaly list the trany.

I am in luck I found a trany freshly rebuilt 2 years ago (by GM) in my local pick-a-part for $75. So my whole cost will be less than $900. (if I can convince the wife to let me spend the money)

[Guest Bill_Boro]

Thanks for the latter model Supercharged 3800/transmission info.

Does any one have any information/experiance on milder upgrades such as a cam, throttlebody, chip combination?

For example can the cam be changed without removing the Reatta engine?

[D-a-n-i-e-l]

I would start at the boniville forum. I know there is a guy on there that has don quite a bit with the NA engine. The first thing I would do is have the heads shaved. Our engine run a 8.5:1 compression ratio wich is great for reliability but does not lend itself to great performance. I would imagine that with a cam upgrade, chip reprograming, and a 10:1 ratio these engines could pull an easy 250 HP. I would also port and polish while I was in there.

All in all it is cheaper and less time consuming to do a junkyard SC engine swap.

[Ronnie]

Daniel, If a person was swapping both the and engine and transmission out of a car with a supercharged 3.8, would it be easier to install the engine and transmission as a unit or install them individually?

One other question. Do you know if there are any supercharged 3.8 cars that share the same cradle as the Reatta? If so would it be easier to swap the whole cradle, engine and transmission as a unit?

[D-a-n-i-e-l]

I would deffinately be easier to install an engine/trany combo rather than individualy. As for sharing the same cradle there are none, from the factory. I do recall a turbo vertion of the Riv in 87'. I not 100% on the year, but I do know they are hard to find. Honestly I am not sure they were FWD.

[Rawja]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: D-a-n-i-e-l</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I I do recall a turbo vertion of the Riv in 87'. I not 100% on the year, but I do know they are hard to find. Honestly I am not sure they were FWD. </div></div>

Nah, the turbo Riv was the previous generation that ended in '85. Plus the drivetrain on that generation was longitudinally mounted, not transverse so there would be no similarity to our Reatta's drivetrain.

[Guest Guyver280Z]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Ronnie</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Try this website for more info. and here for HP parts. </div></div>

BOW!!! Great links, very interesting site also.

It kinda sucks they ended up dumping the CRT instead of finding a way to make it work... anyways, I bet there's ways to make it work... having two PCMs seems to be the way to do it.

Again, thanks for the links!!!!

Ok, so here is the deal.... Getting a Series II engine with its original tranny and its original ECU and wiring its easy and cheap, basically the only problem is to make the gauges work right???

Let's say I put the series II engine and make it work and drivebable....

Oil pressure and Temperature sensor can be addapted to the new engine to work with the older CRT, right? No big deal.

Tach?? How hard is it to adapt the old tach sensor to the new engine??

Now MAF, O2, and other vital sensors will throw codes... but the new engine will be running on its new ECU so the codes wont affect the performance... Can I just fool the old CRT ECU to make it believe all those sensors are working correcly?? It doesnt sound that hard to do.

I'd rather do all this work by myself... I like working on my cars but of course certain things like transmission issues I'll have somebody doing it for me.

[Guest Greg Ross]

Your '89 Reatta has another pesky Silver Box called the BCM. Up to 1995 or so GM had the ECM talking to the BCM via a data Link. The Touch Screen/ ECU is run by the BCM not the ECM as is the digital dash.

After '95 or so GM went to OBD II replacing OBD I as found in your '89. So we've got two different programming languages, hence the different sensors found on the Series II engine. I am no computer geek, but do understand this is a very challenging issue.

Coming with the Series II engine/ tranny would be not an ECM but a PCM (GM also combined the ECM and BCM as computing technology advanced)

I have read that it is possible to outfit a Series II Engine with OBD I sensors so it can be managed with a reprogrammed MemCal/ ECM. You still have the transmission issue, beef one up, follow Daniels' lead. Or you eliminate that complication all together by going to a manual transmission.

[D-a-n-i-e-l]

Guyver;

Greg has it right. your best option for running a series 2 engine is to retrofit it with the OBD1 sensors and reprogram your memcal. This has been done many times and alows you to maintain all the CRT functions.

Also as Greg pointed out your ICP is controlled by the BCM this mean all your gauges. The CRT also has a control box that would not reconize the signal from a OBD2 computer.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

I've mostly been observing this discussion...my knowledge has become a little rusty with even things like this

[Guest Stormin]

Guys , I have been following this thread and a couple others on this subject.I found an old thread about a hybrid trans....see what you think? Norm

http://forums.motorswap.org/viewtopic.php?t=2422

[padgett]

The real answer would either a device to receive the OBD2 data stream and ranslate to an OBD1 stream as expected by the BCM, or to reprogram the BCM to accept the ODB2 data stream. Unfortunately while the ECM is well known, very little work has been done on disassembling/analyzing the BCM. Not particularly difficult, just very time consuming.

Keep in mind that we are a nitch market and none of the companies involved in this sort of thing will be interested. Unfortunately, the Fiero does not have a BCM.

[Rawja]

Padgett,

Whaddya figure it would take manhours-wise to get the programming for all our silver boxes figured out?

I'm thinking if we pooled resources, we here could hire someone to finally decipher our car's coding. Seems like it's our final frontier, no?

[padgett]

Well we have a good knowlege of the ECM and know the ALDL data stream (Reatta uses the ALDL as a LAN to exchange information between the devices). Before my personal problems started I had planned to build a "Reatta Simulator".

The best way I can see would be to use the ECM from a 93-94 ECM since that was still OBD-I and modify the datastream output to match the Reatta.

Estimating any project like this without the original programming information (which is somewhere inside GM) is almost impossible. It would have to start with a really complete analysis of the ECM (relatively easy).

Just to quantify a bit, disassemblies of the ECM and BCM for my 88 run slightly under 24,000 lines. Each. Uncommented and with dummy labels.

This is why a copy of even a similar set of the source code with labels would be a tremendous help. Without it will take a while.

[Ronnie]

How is the code written? Can it be viewed with a laptop with the correct software?

Is the ECM programmed in a low level code like assembly language or is it a high level code like C or Basic?

OR is it plain old ladder logic like a PLC would use?

I guess I'm asking... how do you read the ECM program?

[D-a-n-i-e-l]

I like the hybrid trany idea. I was thinking about it for a while, I just did not know if it would work. But you can bet I am going to work on it now.

[Rawja]

I'm just sayin'... It seems every really cool mod seems to run up against this same issue. Once we finally gain the knowledge of the various computer systems, it seems we could do almost anything.... Besides the engine swaps we all seem to constantly daydream about I'd like to add more features to the screen. Seems like it's all addressable relays, nothing too complicated one we have the basics worked out.

I'd certainly be willing to kick in a few hundred bucks towards mapping out the code.....

[D-a-n-i-e-l]

I know of a place that would do it, but I am not sure of the price. I will check on it this week.

Also I am attempting to swap out the ECM for a 93' PCM to run a electronic trany. I do need the pinout/digram of the ECM connection, anyone have one? I really do not want to spend the hours tracking it down through the service maual.

By the way it is for the 89' Reatta.

[Lucky91]

Just curious Roger. What features would you add to the screen?

Mike

[padgett]

Personally I would like to replace the six digit odo on my 88 dash with two digits of oil pressure, a space, and three of coolant temp.

The ECM and PCM are both Motorola 6800 (8 bit) based, later cars have a Hitachi 68HC09 or 68HC11 and are coded in assembly language. They are capable of 16 bit addressing (64k bytes) and the 27C256 PROMs occupy the upper half of memory with I/O, RAM, and the EEPROM (BCM) in the lower half.

It was something I had hoped to do someday (been saying that for five years now, have a good handle on the ECM) but an consumed by personal problems right now.

Someone who understands a PC BIOS would have no problem with it. I can provide uncommented disassemblies of both the ECM and BCM.

But again the best way to start is with the original GM source code which must be inside GM somewhere.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

I think I'd try taking up learning the programming if I knew what to read up on