Any tips? 91 "Parts Car" to 90 dead engine car

OK,

For $60 I got my hands on a '91 Lumina Euro (140,000 miles) with a 3.1 and in good mechanical condition - bad sub-frame though.

And I've got a '90 base Lumina with a dead 2.5 liter engine with 104,000 miles.

Basically I've got everything I should need from the "parts car" '91 Lumina - good engine and tranny, computer, harness, dash cluster with gauges, etc. to put into the '90 and make it a decent running car again.

Any tips anyone can offer for this swap? I originally posted about a year ago but couldn't find an engine until this weekend. At least not for as good of a price that I got it for.

p.s. - I also plan on using the '91 parts car for parts on the wife's car (her's is a '93 Lumina Euro). Hopefully I'm not getting in too deep over my head on this one and I got a pretty good deal!

Thanks in advance!

OK,

For $60 I got my hands on a '91 Lumina Euro (140,000 miles) with a 3.1 and in good mechanical condition - bad sub-frame though.

And I've got a '90 base Lumina with a dead 2.5 liter engine with 104,000 miles.

Basically I've got everything I should need from the "parts car" '91 Lumina - good engine and tranny, computer, harness, dash cluster with gauges, etc. to put into the '90 and make it a decent running car again.

Any tips anyone can offer for this swap? I originally posted about a year ago but couldn't find an engine until this weekend. At least not for as good of a price that I got it for.

p.s. - I also plan on using the '91 parts car for parts on the wife's car (her's is a '93 Lumina Euro). Hopefully I'm not getting in too deep over my head on this one and I got a pretty good deal!

Thanks in advance!

What did ya do to a 2.5 to kill it at 104K miles???? I have one in mine, and except for a timing chain wearing out, it has never been apart at all, and it has now 238,900 miles on it, no smoke, leaks a little oil, valves just a very slight noisy, but runs fine, and gets 25 mpg or better all the time.Never has had a head gasket either, all cast iron block/head. Cant say that about most 2.8/3.1's

I thought about a 3.1 swap when it wears out, but i think the car is going to go first, but i have a near perfect Z24 sitting here wanting a 3.1 in it to replace the 2.8, so in my situation, id put a engine in the Z instead.
But would do as you if i didnt have the Z.
I have had people tell me that a 2.5 auto tranny will bolt to a 3.1, yet to confirm that tho.
And i always wondered if a 2.5 tranny was geared different than the V6 counterparts. I have driven this Z24/2.8 my daughters Corsica LTZ with a 3.1 ( alot) and always seems like in lower rpms, say below half throttle, the lumina 2.5 pulls stronger than the V6, I do know it holds back closed throttle down hill way slower than a V6.
maybe its the V6 tourqe curve, i dunno, maybe something to research?
shouldnt be that hard of a swap i wouldnt think.
OH, one thing you have to do, is drop gas tank and change fuel pump, a throttle body pump wont work with a multiport engine, not enough presure.
Or change whole tank, whatever suits you best.
Dont be surprized tho if you find pin hole leaks in upper tank after the rust falls off, I just had to put a new pump in mine and found pin holes in tank.
New tank and seal ring, from Advance Auto, 106.00 pump 69.00

The car was driven like a "grandma car" for many years, then I started driving it... blew apart the oil pump, which would involve pulling the motor and a lot of work to save a 2.5 anyway. Found a good deal on a 3.1 so am deciding to bite the bullet and go forward with the swap.

I need more advice please people. I plan to start Friday on this project. Where are the "big guns" out there? Your advice rocks!

The car was driven like a "grandma car" for many years, then I started driving it... blew apart the oil pump, which would involve pulling the motor and a lot of work to save a 2.5 anyway. Found a good deal on a 3.1 so am deciding to bite the bullet and go forward with the swap.

I need more advice please people. I plan to start Friday on this project. Where are the "big guns" out there? Your advice rocks!

yeah, i was mainly joking about how you killed it, usually pretty tough engines.
I myself only "think" the whole under hood computer harness has to be changed as well?. Along with fuel tank, or pump, never did it myself. Would if i could run across a real nice low mileage 3.1.

um, yeah, motor mounts wont line up, and you will have to get the ecm and all wires and everything. May need to splice. You actually may be better off swapping the subframe from the 90 to 91

Well, engine swap went fairly well last weekend. Spent 16 hours on Saturday and 6 hours on Sunday. Sure helps to have a vehicle lift and a movable overhead winch to make life easier!

Dropped the engine from underneath the car complete with subframe, tranny, drive axles, wire harness, computer, and everything!

Had to switch over some basic stuff like cruise control cable/gas pedal cable, and switch air cleaner mounts. We also switched out the 85 mph base cluster with the 115 cluster with gauges - was pretty easy to do with the wiring diagram I found on importkillers.com.

A couple of issues remain:

#1 We did not switch out the fuel pump from the 2.5 to the 3.1... I've put on 200+ miles since the switch and other than a rough idle at times and being a little buggy, no other major problems. FYI - the gas tank probably had 1/2 tank full of 1 1/2 year old gas, so we topped off with premium and de-icer to handle the problem. If the car has been fine, do we need to switch fuel pumps?

#2 It seems that the TCC locked up on my 1st extended road trip with the car (50+ miles, steady crusining at 70 mph)... when I exited onto the off-ramp. The car did it 3 years ago when it had the 2.5 in it with the identical tranny that the 3.1 has. I had the TCC switch replaced then for $200+ dollars but want to avoid a money pit on this job. Can I pull the plug forever and forget about it? Could the symptoms of the stalling from what I believed to be the TCC be similar to the smaller fuel pump?

#3 After I cleared the codes, the only one that came back was "Low manifold temperature", I believe. Should I replace the O2 sensor? I've heard that should be done anyway when the cars get up there in mileage.


I am planning on taking the "new" parts (I know, 3 years old, but why not?) out of the now spare transmission and using them on the tranny I'm using now, since I have access to the vehicle lift and can handle the job. My fear is that the problem will still remain. Will pulling the plug and driving under similar conditions definitively rule out a bad TCC?

Sorry I'm all over the place with this post, but the Packers need to beat the Vikings and Bubba Franks just fumbled right near the end zone! ARGH!!!!!!!!:banghead:


:p

JUst me again but i was always told a throttle body fuel pump only has 15 or so pounds pressure and a multi port has around 40. It might starve itself of fuel in hi rpm's on long hard pulls.I know others could give you a better yes or no than i can.

Yes i would put in a new temp sensor and a new O2 sensor, pretty cheap insurance.

I replaced the TCC in my 91 Lumna with one from GM for 30.00, easy job to do yourself actually.If you can swap a engine, you can swap a TCC.

My daughter drove a 3.1 Corsica for over 2 years with the TCC unplugged. SOld car and the buyer is still driving it. I drove it wehn she had it but hated the fact it didnt have lockup, and mileage suffered somewhat.

I wonder, can you check something? I was always led to believe a 2.5 tranny would bolt up to a 3.1 engine, any way you could verify this yay or nay?
I am going to a 3.1 in my Z24, but it already has a v6, wehn i do i might keep my 2.5 lumina as a spare car, but wouldnt mind swapping in a 3.1 where the 2.5 sits now if it isnt a bad swap, so other than the normal things like whole frame and engine, how much of the wiring harness was actually plug and play? anything need cut/spliced?
Did the speedo "need" changed or was that just something you wanted to do?
Hav always intertained this idea but everyone says its more trouble than its worth.

I still haven't found out if both trannies are the same yet... my "new" tranny may have more problems than the TCC, but we'll give it some more time and some more miles to see how it goes. If it needs replacing, I've got a potential direct bolt-up spare from the old 2.5.

I've gotten rid of all the trouble codes that popped up in the past... had an EGR code pop up today, but that didn't come back when I cleared the code with the Snap-On MT2500 scanner.

Also had problems with high idle (2-3,000 when warming up in the morning... woah...), but fixed that when I realized that the cruise control cable was holding the throttle 3-6% open... so we moved the cable over a few notches and all is better with that.

As far as the speedo goes, we had to switch to the gauge cluster (wanted to do it anyway) because everything came up gibberish after we swapped engines, because we didn't change the interior wire harness (the old cluster was wired for dummie lights)... all we needed to do was re-pin the wire harness per the instructions I learned from a link from AF to theimportkillers.com - saved us a LOT of time and aggravation!

Because we pulled the engine complete with transmission, complete wire harness, drive axles, subframe, the only thing we had to do was unplug the wire harness from the firewall on the top passenger side of the engine compartment, so yeah, I'd call it 'plug and play'.

Had to swap the cruise control cable and accelerator cable from the donor car to the good car, as well as air cleaner box, AC canister, as well as some very minor things.

Also pulled the entire rear end fromt the donor car and put into good car today because the "good car" had bent trailing arms and tracking arms. May have to swap leaf springs back because I think the car sat a little higher in the back with the original.

Rear brakes await... the spoiler (now re-painted to match the good car) goes on tomorrow, the Euro has been painted and swapped already... and the 16" alloy rims and pretty new tires ($50 the guy wants!) go on this weekend.

The car is beginning to get $$$$ on me, but what the heck... it's been fun.