A little additional info for you. Buick introduced the 198 Fireball V6 in 1961. It was the first odd fire V6 produced. It was in production in 1961 and 1962 as a gas savings engine but failed. It was tooled from the aluminum block V8 cast but was made in steel. It was about as heavy as its v8 brother. The tooling was sold to Kaiser Corp and they produced it as the 225 Buick V6 that was introduced into the CJ5. Buick did not produce the motor though. Kaiser did. The tooling was then sold to GM and the odd fire 230 was introduced and then it was turned into a even fire. It was turned into the 3800 v6 for front wheel drive cars when the 4.3 V6 took over.
I owned a 1961 fireball v6 but it was in a 48 ****** Jeep. I also have owned a couple 225 V6 in Cj5's. I have had 2 3800's in Pontiac Grandprixs. I have had great luck with this engine series.
Just thought I would add to some of the info provided. Good thread.

 

I loved that 3.8 liter GM ENGINE I had a 76 Buick Century, an 87 Electra, and 91 Park Avenue. They all ran great. It was the first V6 GM came out with.

 

Nice to see that there are some fans of the 3800. My parents had a Regal back in the 90s, they had the 3800, I think they were quite pleased with it.

 

I forgot to mention, I easily got 28 miles to the gallon or more with that Park Avenue on the highway and it probably weighed close to 4000 pounds.

 

Way back i drove (rentals) many cars with 3800 in it, and it was pretty smooth, quite responsive, but made a fair bit of noise under acceleration. I enjoyed driving vehicles with it, but it was no Lexus V8

 

You say that like it's a bad thing!

 

My uncle had a lot of issues with the 3800 in his Grand Prix's, one time the engine went and had to be replaced, other time the trans went, whole car was replaced at one point because of so many issues. I noticed when driving it, it would putter back and forth under acceleration where in the older Bonneville it was much smoother. It did handle pretty well, handled much better then the Bonneville.

 

3800s weren't the greatest sounding engines, that I will say. They weren't bad, but not great either.

But there really aren't too many negatives to them. I'm a huge fan of them. Grew up with several in our family.

My mother had an Olds Silhouette VAN with the 3800. Stab the gas even halfway from a stop and you were burning rubber. My mother has a lead foot so it would happen all the time.

I still remember how f'n fast and torquey that thing was, almost 30 years later.

 

Wow. Didn’t realize they used the 3800 in the vans as well

 

It was so much torque but more like terrible fwd drivetrains and cheap tires that provided zero traction.

 

Exactly lol. My Pacifica will burn rubber easy too. Doesnt mean its fast.

 

Bottom line: It had great torque and acceleration for 1994 for a minivan.

 

Yeah. I agree. Toyota powertrains were not quite where GM was at the time.

 

Toyota made a supercharged, mid-engine, RWD minivan at that time. Take that!

 

Previa was not RWD, it was AWD and that was dropped so it was FWD. It also had a 4 cylinder, and was still slow even with the S/C.

3800 vans were definitely not slow, at least for the time.