gcsd3742

What about the IRON DUKE Motor? the 4-banger they put in the Chevy Camaro was it in the 80's?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Iron_Duke_engine

HHRsharon

Surprised that the Iron Duke isn't getting any love. Sure it was terribly underpowered, but it was virtually indestructible. Now, the 2.8L is a whole other story. I have owned 3 2.8L vehicles and 2 of them met with catastrophic endings.

tplyons

The 305 in my 87 GMC Caballero was bulletproof. 177k miles and still ran perfectly.

knightRS32

The 3800 gets my vote! It ran strong in my 89 LeSabre...outlasted the transmission. Many people I know also claim it as their best engine and scratch their heads about why GM "upgraded" to their current problematic replacement engines. Much akin to Windows going from XP to Vista...

It was also a very versatile engine...some very fast cars are made on that engine platform.

JimDaddyo

The 3.8/3800 was a 50's or 60's buick engine that GM sold the rights to a british car company, and then bought it back. It has over 40 years of development and engineering into it from 2 continents.

Old Lar

The 84 iron duke used in the Fieros were a disaster. I've had three cars with the 2.8. An 83 Pontiac 6000 LE, the engine was ok, all the other components in the car was crap..power steering, steering rack, transmission all were bad, it was also a carburated engine. I traded that in on an 87 Fiero GT, a 2.8 with injectors..I still have the car with no problems. The third was an 88 Fiero GT..the car had been run as NCAA race car periodically and the engine was toast.

I have friends who have driven over 300,000 miles on their 2.8s with no problems.