Sorry to see this development. Doesn't E-Botz have some sort of buyer protection? Crossroads time. How bad do you want bigger, or back to original. Motors out, so fixing the 3100 is easier. At any rate, pursue a refund/replacement engine, so you don't get beaten up too bad.
In reply to Dirtydog (Forum Supporter) :
I've already been refunded once on this engine by the seller- I don't feel like they could've known how crappy it was internally anymore than I did when I got it.
I'm still having fun, and if I go back to trying to save the original engine it will be easier to do head gaskets on the stand, and a great excuse to give it a thorough cleaning.
Maybe today I'll bundle all the 3400 crap up and push it to a corner of the garage to ignore for a while and see if I can tear down the 3100 and gamble on headgaskets in that thing.
Anyone have first hand experience with over heated 3100s? I've heard and read conflicting things about aluminum heads being prone to warping.
No real experience, but a good straight edge on the head, may be a good start. I had a Grand Prix with the 3800, the intake leak caused the bearings to wipe out. Double check your oil for coolant contamination.
When I drained the oil it actually didn't seem as thin as I expected. I'm pretty sure most of the coolant went out the exhaust as the cloud of white smoke was pretty impressive.
Why guess, a machine shop won't charge too much to check for warpage....?they might detect cracks as well. I wonder how much a set of previously checked over heads would cost for a 3100?
Dumb, but I ground the 3400 badging off the upper intake. Probably touch it up some more and paint it.
I figure if I'm mucking around this much I might as well tidy up some things.
Gunchsta said:In reply to Racingsnake :
That's my 1975 Kawasaki KZ400.
I missed this post - nice looking bike! Sorry to hear how crappy the 3.4 turned out
Progress is progress. How's the head situation turning out?
In reply to Dirtydog (Forum Supporter) :
Currently waiting on warmer weather for me to formulate a better plan. I think right now I want to leave the engine mostly assembled, scrub it down, paint it, and then replace the head gaskets and plop it back in. I need to bolt the hunk of E36 M3 3400 back together and push it off a cliff so I have some space to work on the 3100.
As for the condition of the 3100 heads and warpedness or not - I think I'm going to plead the 5th on that situation.
Bolted some more crap back onto the 3400 in an effort to move it to a corner and work on the 3100. Small progress is still progress
Very little to report but I did order head gaskets & bolts finally. The forecast this week looks like 50's and sunny, and with daylight savings time I should have some sun to wash crap in the driveway after work.
Yesterday was a nice little reset on the project. I'd been kind of stewing on the 3400 being a turd and not having much motivation. Well yesterday it was pretty warm and I borrowed my dads pressure washer and got the 3100 and engine bay hosed down.
It's both hard to tell anything improved and also way cleaner, if that makes sense. I also learned I can push the car back up the driveway myself, at least when it doesn't have an engine so that's handy.
I'm also bad at before pictures so I guess take my word that it's better. If nothing else now it's a 'dry' dirty versus everything being oil soaked.
As I was doing the pressure washing I had to laugh at my (likely warranted) timidness with the pressure washer. I'm always nervous getting electronics wet, and though I've hosed down many engine compartments I always worry. I'm a worrier by nature so if it wasn't worrying about my junk car it would be something else. Probably better for the sanity to worry about this thing than the rest of the stuff in the world beyond my control. Anyhow, I digress.
While the hose was out I washed some of the salt off the Malibu and also washed my wife's car. A good day!
Some other notes - I have 2 wires that got hung up when the engine came out and the plug must've gotten ripped off them, I have no idea where they go. They're attached to the trans and I just need to hop in there and chase the end of them. They look to be the same coloring as the knock sensor but that harness looks complete on the engine. I'll have to figure that out.
I also noticed yesterday that the threads were pulled off one of the studs on the exhaust manifold, so that will need to get fixed too.
My intention right now is to leave the exhaust manifolds on the heads when I pull them and save myself the effort of dealing with more broken studs. I should be able to take off the crossover pipe and leave the individual manifolds on the heads.
What an emotional rollercoaster last night was in the garage 
Remember how I said I was going to leave the exhaust manifolds on because I didn't want to break more studs? Yeah, about that. Couldn't leave them on because of dipstick interference. Broke more studs. I was able to spin the one offending stud out of the manifold that connects to the rest of the exhaust, so that was a huge win. Unfortunately, another stud broke off about 1/4" deep in the head of the 3100 too. So now what to do? Try an ez-out? Left hand drill bit? I have no idea how snug that stud is in there, but I wouldn't think it would be that tight? It shouldn't be bottomed out in the head because the part that would have snugged up against the head broke off.
Wait a minute, one of the 3400 heads has all the studs intact, I could just use that! Rock auto has the same part number listed for both the Rendezvous 3400 and the Malibu 3100, and they're interchangeable from left to right. Maybe this 3400 will prove partially useful after all!
I had a great time pulling it apart and witnessing the effects of my assumptions. Granted, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to seat-of-the-pants diagnose a blown head gasket when there are massive plumes of white smoke out the exhaust, but still. I received some of my parts from Rock Auto yesterday so I decided to tear into the 3100 and assess which of my two crap box 60 degree v6's was in better condition. I figure between the two of them I ought to be able to make something that runs. So for posterity and remembering where some brackets go, here's the 3100 as it came out of the car.
And here's the inside of a valve cover after tearing some other stuff off.
Yuck. Head gasket slushie.
And here's the bad and even distorted head gasket.
Hmm, I wonder which cylinder leaked?
So, it's kind of a frothy mess but the important stuff looks ok to me. Some clean up, new head gaskets, I'm willing to bet it'll run swell. Cam and cylinders look to be in better condition than the 3400 so that's encouraging.
So, stay tuned as I piece together most of a 3100 and some of a 3400 and see if it runs!
Maybe this can help. Did a quick search.
http://www.60degreev6.com/vb5/forum/pushrod-engines/pushrod-performance/4728-3400-top-end-swap-onto-3100-block-complete-w-pix Some more reading. It looks like you may need to use the 3400 upper. Some more research may be in order. Hope this helps. https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/20060811-2-069424.html
In reply to Dirtydog (Forum Supporter) :
That looks to be concerning the earlier 60 deg v6's with later heads. Both of the engines I have are post 2000 and I believe to be relatively interchangeable. It sounds like some of them have 8mm bolts for the rockers and some have 10mm, I believe both of mine have 10mm so I should be good.
Should. We're talking pretty broad assumptions here :)
Gosh, what an adventure.
Got the broken bolt out of the 3100 head today only to clean up the gasket surface and find that it was pretty much destroyed. My impression looking at this picture is the head gasket had been leaking for a while and the combustion and coolant wreaked havoc on the head.
so that head is junk. Well hey just so happens I have two more of them sitting over there!
Grabbed one of the 3400 heads, everything looks the same, rocker bolt size is the same, I'm going for it.
Cleaned up the gasket surface on both heads with a light scotch bright wheel and sending it.
I still need to figure out plugs for the air injection and then wish away all the carbon on the one 3400 head but hopefully things will start coming up off the floor soon.
On the bright side, I'm thinking this wrinkle paint turned out pretty cool on the intake. Probably do the valve covers too.
Forward ho!
Cleaned as much carbon as I could out of the heads and tops of the pistons and actually feel like I made a noticeable improvement so I'll take it.
Head bolts showed up so I bolted the heads back on, put the pushrods and rockers back on, and painted the valve covers. So maybe today I'll get the lower intake cleaned and start bolting the rest of the stuff back on.
I think either it's going to go together smooth and run really nice, or there is some detail I overlooked and it will fail spectacularly. Either one I'm ok with at this point. It's been fun really going down the rabbit hole and kind of obsessing about getting this thing fixed. To the point where last night I had a hard time getting to sleep after some good progress
Looking more like an engine, albeit a Frankenstein of two engines...
Some googling leads me to believe that the 2 broken wires on the tail shaft of the trans are for the vss, and it seems like that harness leads up towards the knock sensor harness. I'll pull some of the covering off of that and see if I can match the broken wires up.
At this point those two wires are all that's keeping me from trying to put the motor back in. It needs an oil change and plugs, but that can happen in the car as well.
Wish me luck!
Got the wires for the VSS reconnected and decided well heck might as well kick the motor in. So I did, and I think it looks mighty cool.
Hope it runs!
Attached most of the accessories last night, connected the fuel lines, put in the converter bolts, etc.
The list of things left to do before I turn the key is getting shorter! Maybe this weekend, assuming the parts I ordered show up? Then spend the weekend addressing whatever other issues present themselves.
I'm having a great time!
Nice progress! When you get close after everything is bolted up, might want to make a pre start check list...oil, water, trans fluid, fire extinguisher nearby...trans cooler lines hooked up...THEN quit for the day. Then, when you go to fire it up the next day you'll be fresh and alert. I've made some mistakes when I was rushing and tired....
In reply to Agent98 :
Thanks! Good call - Right now my 'accident prevention device' is a refusal to install the battery until I'm ready to turn the key. Tonight should be change the oil and take the car off jack stsands, maybe fill with coolant. The plan is tomorrow spark plugs and air injection caps, reconnect the coils & wires and turn the key.
It's alliivvve!
Runs wonderfully. Would've popped off first crank if somebody hadn't failed to plug in the crank sensor.
I'm berkeleying stoked. Time for libations
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