My first brand new car was a 1990 Chevrolet Lumina Euro coupe I bought late in 1989. Solid and reliable in ways the 1982 Buick Riviera it replaced could never have been, in December 1993 I made the mistake of not only getting rid of a car that was paid off, had low mileage and was in very good condition, I replaced it with another Lumina. Ah, but not just any Lumina, a 1994 Lumina Z34. The "Z" was hardly the worst car I've ever owned and although it was comfortable, looked great, in my opinion, and handled quite well, it may have been the most disappointing car I've ever had. That's saying a lot considering the rolling losers I've had over the years. The problem was it's 3.4-liter, double-overhead cam, twenty-four valve V-6 (LQ1) that I thought would be the answer to the only real problem I had with the Euro - a lack of power. While the Z was altogether faster, I found the engine sluggish and unresponsive at low rpm's, noisy, thirsty and ultimately came to believe the added expense of the darn thing over the Euro's seemingly plebeian, one-hundred thirty-five horsepower 3.1-liter engine was not worth it; buyer's remorse is a terrible thing. In hindsight, what I should have done, aside from not getting rid of the Euro and driving it into the ground, was have gone up a rung or three and gotten a Buick Regal GS like this '92 here.
A "Buick" may have seemed like an odd choice for a guy who wasn't even thirty-years old at the time, after all Buick, despite their best efforts, has always skewed older, but a Regal GS back then was all-in-all a better automobile than the Lumina Z34. While somewhat softly sprung compared to the Z, it's heart, its engine, was far better and you could a leather lined interior like our '92 here has. By the way, here's one of several reasons why critics lambasted General Motor's early GM10 or "W-Bodies", this ergonomic joke of a center dash layout. I count thirty-seven buttons on. Thirty-seven. I'm amazed they found room plaster BUICK on it.
The engine under the hood of early '90's Regal GS' was the then latest incarnation of the Buick 3.8-liter V-6. Improved incrementally over the years from its humble origins as a Buick V-8 with two cylinders lobbed off back in 1962, what became known as the "3800" in 1988 had become a pretty stout and responsive performer by the early 1990's; everything being relative. Making all of one-hundred seventy horsepower and two-hundred twenty pounds of twist by the early '90's, it was actually significantly less powerful than my Z34's wonky "Dual Twin Cam" V-6 that purportedly made two-hundred fifteen horsepower. The big difference between the 3800 and the DOHC V-6 in my Z was that the 3800 blasted you with peak torque at a V-8 like 2,000 rpm's whereas the fancy twin-cam V-6 made you wait all the way to 4,000. Couple that high rpm torque peak with an automatic and I hope you begin to put two and two together that acceleration off the line in my Z was almost an afterthought.
What's become known as the 3800 "Series-1" in our '92 here benefited from a number of improvements and refinements over the years. One of the most significant being that for 1977 GM split the crank shaft pins to smooth vibrations from its uneven firing order given it was literally a ninety-degree V-8 with two missing cylinders. I'm no physics expert but apparently ninety-degree V-8 engines are inherently balanced whereas ninety-degree V-6 engines are not and they shake like a Home Depot paint-shaker. A balance shaft added in 1988 really quelled the shakes down to the point that when running, it was all but indecipherable from a V-8. Port fuel injection first appeared on the 1984 turbocharged version of the 3.8 and added greatly to the engine's performance capability. It's not uncommon for some to refer to the engine in our GS here as being the "Grand National engine without the turbo"; that's a bit of a stretch but it's not that far out of the realm of reason.
What I thought was a head scratcher at the time was why General Motors went through the exercise of creating the funky DOHC V-6 when they had a more than capable power-plant for performance upgrades with their 3800. It's not like they gave it their best try either seeing they started with their oh-so-humble, sixty-degree (inherently balanced), 2.8-liter V-6 and strapped twelve-valve heads on them with belt driven overhead cams. That might sound like an oversimplification of what they did but really, it's not. Along they way, the snappiness of the 2.8, later enlarged to 3.1, 3.4, 3.5 and even 3.9-liters lost in translation. What they came out with was, again, a sluggish, clickity-clackity engine that felt unresponsive especially off the line. Any gusto the engine had came only from flogging it relentlessly. That can be fun but comes at a cost at the gas pump. I much prefer the instant torque, off the line responsiveness of a large-ish V-8 or a V-6 that thinks its a V-8 like the old Series-1 3800.
When I later learned that the Z34's engine was simply done so that GM could brag it had a double-overhead cam V-6 like their arch-nemesis Ford had, I felt somewhat betrayed and played as a fool. Especially considering that the engine all but sucked. Nothing quite like getting caught in a senseless cross-fire. That Ford DOHC V-6 was actually built by Yamaha and powered the Taurus SHO from 1989-1995 and was a vastly superior motor to the GM mill.
I was so disgusted with the LQ1 in the Z34 that when I got rid of the Z in 1996 and went with, in retrospect somewhat inexplicably but I'm a GM die-hard, a 1997 Monte Carlo, I eschewed the optional DOHC 3.4 for the base 3.1-liter, one-hundred sixty horsepower V-6 that felt every bit as powerful and more importantly, felt stronger taking off from standing still. It was great on gas too.
Wouldn't you know it, though, GM dropped the LQ1 after 1997 and started putting the 3800 into applications where they had been using the LQ1 prior including the Monte Carlo Z34. Son-of-a-gun. I don't know if I would have waited another year for a Monte Carlo Z34 with a 3800, the lease was up in the Z anyway, but a couple of test drives of Monte Z' and Lumina LTZ' powered by what had turned into the 3800 "Series II" convinced me that maybe I should have. What's life if you don't have regrets, right?
I got my chance with a 3800 Series II when I wore out the '97 Monte Carlo and went with a 2001 Monte Carlo SS that had one. Mighty fine motor in my humble opinion. I'm such a fan of the 3800 that I've had four cars with 3800 Series II's over the last twenty-years and they've all been the best part of the cars. My 2002 Dale Earnhardt Monte Carlo is still pulling like a freight-train even with 220K on its ticker. The rest of the damn thing is rusting away and is plauged with but that Series II is as smooth as it was when brand new.
As far as what I did back in late 1993 in going with a Z34 instead of a Buick Regal GS, hindsight is 20-20; would of, could have, should have. But you know what they say when you say, "should have"; you're "shoulding" all over yourself.
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