1991 Chevrolet Lumina Z34 - Last One. I Swear. Well, That Is Until I Find Another One.

I swear this'll be the last blog I'll do on a Chevrolet Lumina\Monte Carlo Z34. Well, until I find another one. This one here is a 1991 and is the most beat to death "Z" I've ever seen. Far worse even than that '92 I found at the Pull-A-Part back in December. It's for sale maybe thirty minutes from where I live with an asking price of $1,000. Don't y'all be cloggin' up my in-bin with requests to get hooked up but if you want I most certainly will. 

To review, I had a '94 Z-34 and I was pretty disappointed with it. While it handled quite well and was very cool looking and quite comfortable, I was less than enamored with its engine - the polarizing "LQ1", 3.4 liter, "Dual Twin Cam V-6" that was supposed to be GM's answer to the Yamaha DOHC V-6 in the Ford Taurus SHO. That LQ1 has its fans although I seriously have to wonder why anyone would favor that engine over the gaggle of 3800's over the years. Or a bicycle. 

I found the LQ1 noisy, slow-revving, thirsty and unless I floored the gas constantly, really didn't have the get-up-and-go I had hoped for; I felt as though I wasted my money on the damn thing. To make matters worse, I had traded in my perfectly fine 1990 Lumina Euro 3.1 as a down payment on a 36-month, 45,000-mile lease on it. I have not, for the record, made an automotive financial faux pas anywhere near that bad since. I've made other mistakes but nothing that bad on an automotive front. 

The problem with that engine was GM went on the cheap with it. Rather than a clean sheet design like the Yamaha engine in the SHO, they started with their 2.8-liter iron block, 60-degree V-6 and built it up from there like some hack in a high school shop class. Thanks to chains instead of belts driving the valve-train, my LQ1 was a clickity-clackity rude affair that sounded anything but space-age and modern like I thought that it should. 

Its sluggishness exacerbated by GM's 3100 V-6 that they came out with in 1993. Essentially an updated 3.1-liter V-6, itself an update of the 2.8 the LQ1 was based on, I couldn't believe the smooth, instant power of anything it powered. Including the new-for-1995 Lumina and it's freshly rechristened two-door stable mate they called, "Monte Carlo". 

Soon as the lease was up on my '94 Z I got myself into a 1997 Monte Carlo LS with that snappy 3100 and never regretted it. Well, save for the two intake manifold gaskets it ingested but I digress. 

Fittingly, although there's no pictures of it, the LQ1 in this beat to death redhead was ditched 10 years ago and replaced with, you guessed it, a 3100 V-6.