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How difficult would it be...


jiggity76

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Or a car from the country side. Those people usually take better care of their cars. I bought my Buick in the middle of nowhere in Virginia. No phone signal to be found for a good 5 miles.

 

 

 

My question is how much "international" are you trying to transfer? The quad buckets interchange btw with no issues, it's the center console that may need to be "screwed" down if the victim doesn't have the 4 bolts on the floor. The digi cluster is easy to swap. 94 Olds Vert has/had it on his 94 vert. I plan on doing the same. It's just jumping wires and getting a feed from the ALDL for the RPM gauge. You also have to swap the oil sensor iirc.

 

 

 

Turbo twin Cam (the Q4 that was bumped to 2.4) in a W Cutty FTW.

 

 

 

The G body Cutty had the Buick 231 as standard equipment and the weak 307 optional. The last Olds engine was put in a Cadillac (and the B body cars) and it was also the last carbed GM engine. As Fuel Injection started to become the norm, Pontiac and Buick seized to make engines (both stopped in 81) leaving Chevy, Olds and Cadillac with their own engines. Olds was the only carbed one and I'm not sure who had the first EFI. I want to say Chevrolet with their crossfire engine but it may be Cadillac with the 8-6-4 experiment they did in 81.

actually caddy had TBI efi as an option on 1975 Seville's and devilles
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Well, actually the first EFI unit was the ill-fated Bendix unit that AMC and Chrysler offered in 1957-58. GM first used it in the Cosworth Vega in 1975 and the Seville.

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Switching the parts from your international to a 92-94 is pretty much a direct swap. The harder part is gonna be finding a Cutty 3.4. I've been looking for one for a few months now. Haven't had any luck finding a good one. Granted I'm just looking within a 4 state area around me, due to lack of time to go get farther away than that. But making a international clone is easy for the most part.

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Switching the parts from your international to a 92-94 is pretty much a direct swap. The harder part is gonna be finding a Cutty 3.4. I've been looking for one for a few months now. Haven't had any luck finding a good one. Granted I'm just looking within a 4 state area around me, due to lack of time to go get farther away than that. But making a international clone is easy for the most part.

what area have you looked? They are relatively common in the kc area
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what area have you looked? They are relatively common in the kc area

Upper Midwest. As I work every night of the year I can't go farther than a 7 maybe 8 hour drive. So pretty much Wisconsin Minnesota the Dakotas north Iowa north Illinois upper pen of Michigan. I find nice 3.1s but not 3.4. But even those are few and far between.

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Yeah you guys are all correct about location.  I'm in the middle of the rust belt so I have to go at least a 8-10 hour drive for my search area.  There is a nice black one in Sprinfield, MO and a nice white one in Spokane, WA but that's really far!  Both are coupes and have the 3.4 DOHC motor.  White has black leather and black one has red leather.  Hey Luke94vert, there you go but you'll have to travel a little farther than you might want!  I need to get my truck together and then the 91 International car running and THEN I can get my 89 rust bucket International car taken care of.  Not a definite yet on either stripping it out for my 91 or switch everything over to a good body car and have two International's!

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If I get real serious about it, I planned on finding a 92-94 Cutlass with floor shifter and console and the 3.4 DOHC motor, something like a SL trimmed car.  If I go with a 89-91 car, then try to get one that has the 3.1 and also floor mounted shifter with console.  That way I wouldn't have to mess with the shifter cables and just have to worry about the International front seat controls (thanks again Nas!) and all the other specifics should just swap over.  The only thing is and I mentioned this earlier is the body cladding clips on the 91-94 cars.  Would those work with the 88-91 cladding/clips?  I imagined that they used the same mounting holes for both International and non International console cars so hopefully that wouldn't be a issue.

 

IIRC the 3.4 had the floor shifter, 3.1s were either floor or column. I have yet to see a 3.4 with a column, but then again these cars have always surprised me and proven me wrong... so I'll say 90% of the LQ1's had floor mounted shifters.

 

The nose swaps over too if you'd be interested in that. It looks as if the tail lights would swap over as well, but not sure of the center where the plate is held. I know the trunk would have to be swapped for that to work.

 

You could probably get away with the cladding. The Cladding is held on by a plastic tab on the top and by 7mm bolts on the bottom. What I wouldn't know is if they went up the same size. It seems the 92-97 cladding was higher up than the 88-91's.

 

The 3800 was the last Buick, 1961-2008

 

I was specifically speaking about V8's. If you want to get technical that way, Olds made their last engine in 2002. The LD9 "Twin Cam", which is a bored over Quad 4. The last Pontiac engine (Iron Duke) incidentally had the same fate as the last Olds V8 by not being installed in its namesake's car. It was installed in the postal trucks. The last Pontiac with an Iron Duke was the 6000. The LD9 last saw service in an Alero... (and Grand Am... and Cavalier... and Sunfire).

 

actually caddy had TBI efi as an option on 1975 Seville's and devilles

 

So I guess that means that I was wrong and Cadillac was the first to offer EFI on their engines, not Chevrolet. I always thought the crossfire engine came first then the V8-6-4 that Cadillac had in 1981.

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I've got an '88 Int'l that's free of any structural rust that would love to live on with a new engine if anyone is interested. ;)

 

Really, really don't want it to end up parted out...

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IIRC the 3.4 had the floor shifter, 3.1s were either floor or column. I have yet to see a 3.4 with a column, but then again these cars have always surprised me and proven me wrong... so I'll say 90% of the LQ1's had floor mounted shifters.

 

 

The only 3.4 cars to get a column shifter were the 1995-96 Lumina (I'd include 1997s, but only 3 were made).

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Yeah you guys are all correct about location. I'm in the middle of the rust belt so I have to go at least a 8-10 hour drive for my search area. There is a nice black one in Sprinfield, MO and a nice white one in Spokane, WA but that's really far! Both are coupes and have the 3.4 DOHC motor. White has black leather and black one has red leather. Hey Luke94vert, there you go but you'll have to travel a little farther than you might want! I need to get my truck together and then the 91 International car running and THEN I can get my 89 rust bucket International car taken care of. Not a definite yet on either stripping it out for my 91 or switch everything over to a good body car and have two International's!

 

If rather have a white with black than a black with red. My 91 international has red interior it's the only thing I really don't care for about it. Lol. Never been a huge fan of red. But either way I work from about 12:30 pm to 6:30am every day of the year so I'm very limited on my distance I can go to get it. But the longer I look the more I might have to figure out a way to travel farther. Ideally I'd like one 92-96 with all available options. Lol I missed out on a 92 international in Milwaukee last spring. Found the ad called the guy less than an hour after it was sold. Wasnt pretty bummed about it. Black on black loaded. Just what I want.

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I didn't know the Iron Duke was a Pontiac engine! Those were tough as hell, I had one in a 6000.

My experience they were one of the most indestructible engines put into cars in the 80s and 90s. We had a 6000 that just wouldn't die. Went through my dad, myself, and the car killing sister. Only reason it died was she hit my dads 1ton flat bed in the driveway at about 40 mph. That was the end of the 6000. Lol.

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I'm assuming that the cladding is the same dimensionally Nas but I'm not sure.  I know stylistically they are different.  Thanks for the breakdown of how the cladding is put on, wasn't sure. 

 

Luke, that is a shame about missing a 92 International.  Those I think are really rare!  I posted awhile back about a guy who had a red 92 International with black leather on Craigslist.  It's gone now, so probably sold.  It had the big motor, HUD, and moon roof with pie alloys.  What does your 91 International look like?  Any pics?  I haven't really seen any other 91's so I would love to see yours.

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My experience they were one of the most indestructible engines put into cars in the 80s and 90s. We had a 6000 that just wouldn't die. Went through my dad, myself, and the car killing sister. Only reason it died was she hit my dads 1ton flat bed in the driveway at about 40 mph. That was the end of the 6000. Lol.

The Iron Duke's real weak point was that stupid plastic timing gear.  I had one self-destruct in a Grand Am I had once upon a time, and the resulting chunks of gear destroyed the oil pump, then the engine.

 

The Iron Duke is also exceptionally noisy.  One of the few engines I can identify by sound with my back turned to a car--it sounds almost like a cross between a diesel, and a gasoline engine with a bad rod bearing to my ears.

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I had the dogbone mount break off the engine, cracked a chunk off the block. I ran a chain along side it to hold the engine forward.... ahhh... to be 19 and awesome again.

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e4aa928813968bcdb4ad6f4bb480c3a5.jpg

 

That's the best one I have on my phone right now. And it's not a very good one. Looking like she's neglected. She is in a lot of pieces in the shed. Started giving her some much needed love then suddenly got 3 kids and car projects were put on hold. Hoping to have it back together by spring time.

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Found a couple others these are from right after engine was taken out.

 

She is a factory LQ1 5 speed. Red leather AQ9, moonroof, hud, PMlll, has an added DIC(no 91 284 came with them), digi UB3, rear buckets, so basically everything possible in a Cutty from 91.

1 of 109 91 LQ1 284 made.

1 of 4 fully loaded white on red.

 

 

This is one of only a couple internationals I've seen all one color.

 

 

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