2.3L Help......

[Beast388]

Greetings all!!

I 've got a few questions for you seasoned 2.3L guys.

I recently purchased a '94 Grand Am with a 2.3L SOHC (VIN 3) to replace my dying '89 Olds Calais with a 2.3L DOHC. The Calais has been my DD and has 200K miles. I replaced the cylinder head about 2 years ago on the DOHC. The Olds will soon be retired to the JY because it is in pretty bad shape.

I purchased the GA off of eBay and will pick it up this Saturday. The car has "motor problems" according to the seller.

I have been reading here and on other sites about what a "underpowered lemon" the SOHC is, and I wonder what would be involved in making the SOHC a DOHC using the cylinder head and matching intake and exhaust manifolds from the Olds.

Is the swap possible? What is needed as far as ECM changes? Can the injectors and such be retained from the SOHC?

The tranny is an auto.....probably just the 3spd.

I basically need to know everything that is involded to make it happen.

I am not looking to make this car a screamer.....just a reliable daily driver.......with 150hp. :lol:

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

[graden]

most of the parts are a direct swap over, i have tryed this project and failed ( dam timming chain sliped off on the first turn over and cooked the valves )

[Brad97GS]

The early SOHC had a poorly designed had that cracked a lot (more than the DOHC). To switch over to a DOHC, you should only need the head, cams, timing chain setup, and, well, that should be it. I've heard of people doing the swap before without problems (one guy changed it to a DOHC and put a turbo on while he was at it ;) ). The ECM will be fine with the new setup.