Picked up my 98 Grand Prix GT for $400

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[Highvelocity89]

1998 Pontiac Grand Prix GT, 3800 Series 2 ( 3.8L V6), 4Speed Auto, 2-Door.

213,000 Miles  :shock:

As the topic title suggests, i picked the car up for $400, from a person that lives down the road from us. The exterior has several dents / dings in it, but, all small and easily fixed. Interior is near perfect to my standards except for a driver side power window switch that doesn't work in addition to the whole driver side door panel slowly falling off. Engine doesn't run at the moment ( main reason for the $400 tag ). After doing some diagnosing we traced it back to the infamous cracked plastic upper intake manifold that was leaking coolant into the engine turning the car into a misfiring fog machine. Anyways, I ordered a new upper intake manifold from ZBRA.com and was in the process of putting the thing on and wasn't paying attention and snapped one of the bolts off in the lower intake manifold and wouldn't you know it....the easy out didn't work for me    So, I pulled the lower intake manifold too and am going to take it to a machine shop to get the bolt out. Once I get this whole mess done I speculate the engine should run again. At first I was thinking bad head gasket but then i discovered numerous forums that had several posts similar to this one where people were having this happen to them at 40k-60k miles. I suppose this car was lucky to have lasted to 213k. But like I said, once i get the bolt machined out of the lower intake manifold and get it all put back together I believe it should run. Before I even started pulling the engine apart the car turned over fine and even fired some. There was one instance where the thing actually ran for about 30 secs before dying. So, for $400? I think its one hell of a deal even though the engine doesn't run yet. I will keep you guys posted on progression.

[Euro]

Damn, $400 is a deal.  What color is it?  Any options?

[DiscoStudd]

PICS!

Make sure you get the "revised" upper intake manifold.  The reason they warped is because the EGR tube was too close to the plastic.  The new version has corrected the problem.

You might want to make sure the main bearings and the rod bearings are in good shape before you start 'er for the first time.  Hopefully the coolant didn't make its way into the crankcase and flood out the oil...

[Highvelocity89]

Damn, $400 is a deal.  What color is it?  Any options?

Black, silver trim. Everything is power, traction control, the whole lot. Plugging in the OBD2 reader doesn't bring up any error codes either.

PICS!

Make sure you get the "revised" upper intake manifold.  The reason they warped is because the EGR tube was too close to the plastic.  The new version has corrected the problem.

You might want to make sure the main bearings and the rod bearings are in good shape before you start 'er for the first time.  Hopefully the coolant didn't make its way into the crankcase and flood out the oil...

Need a camera first for pics :? I'm pretty sure I got the revised manifold. At least....it said it was reinforced where the old design failed and it was made of a different type of tougher plastic so that it could withstand an engine backfire and the oil did look ...gray and sludgy when i changed it so ill see about checking main/rod bearings, I've never done them on this small of an engine before. Only on a 454 BB Chevy motor

[Dstanic]

Can't beat $400!  Hope the engine is still good, but even if you have to replace it still not a lost cause.

[Highvelocity89]

Will be getting a camera from a friend this afternoon, will have pics once i get home from school.

[LownSlow]

put a real LIM and UIM on it  :wink:  :mrgreen:

sounds like a great deal for 400.  if it were me, i'd flip it.

[Euro]

put a real LIM and UIM on it  :wink:  :mrgreen:

We all want to be blown!

[Highvelocity89]

Alright, here are the pics of my $400 GP GT. The paint looks pretty good except for the massive scratch on the hood and the pollen that covers the whole car. And i apologize for the flat tire. It simply wont hold air for more then a day >.>. The car is currently up on jack-stands because I can't hardly fit under the damn thing w/o them. I took a bunch of pics, take a look.

[Euro]

not a bad fixer upper!

[19Cutlass94]

ahhh 2 door FTMFW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DiscoStudd]

Hard to believe those cars are such an age that one can be had for that cheap.  It seems like yesterday when I was at the Auto Show drooling over the pre-production 97 GP GTP they had up on the carousel in the Pontiac section, thinking I'd never be able to afford one...

[Highvelocity89]

I'm pretty sure the car will turn out pretty nicely. According to the Carfax report the car was taken really good care of until it got to the third owner ( I'm 4th ) and then it looked like he just drove the piss out of it. I think all it needs is a big dose of TLC.

[Highvelocity89]

IT LIVES! IT FUCKING LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :rocking:  :fruity:

Finally got time to put the whole thing back together. Put the lower intake manifold back on and tightened / torqued the bolts down and then realized we forgot that damn 90 degree coupler that connects the water pump as we examined the old coupler we found it was snapped off at the ends and that a large part of it still remained in the water pump and inside the lower intake manifold so after 10 minutes of fishing those little bastards out we put a new coupler in and put the lower manifold back on and tightened / torqued the bolts down again. Next we put the upper intake on and tightened / torqued the bolts on it as well. Then we put the throttle body back on and put new O-rings on the fuel injectors and then put the fuel rail back on n' then hooked all the electrical doo-dads back up to their correct fuel injectors / sensors / etc. Put oil and coolant in and fire'd her up. It took about  ~45 secs of cranking before it finally ran on its own       . Didn't hear anything bad right off the bat. After a few seconds of running the thing of course turned back into a fog machine at both the front and back of the car. Up front it was burning shit off the engine from when it got oil all over itself from the manifold cracking and in back it was burning the rest of the coolant left in the cylinders (couldn't suck it all out while i had the manifold off  :? ) BUT! nonetheless the thing FRIGGIN RUNS! We did discover a coolant leak though....in the midst of jostling the lower intake around to get the damned coupler in right, we broke the seal that the silicone gasket seal stuff made in the gaps between the bottom driver's side gasket and the right bank gasket and thats where it was leaking coolant. So, tomorrow's project: Take it all apart again and redo the gasket after that I'll move onto the OBD code i got...... P0118 Engine Coolant Temperature Circuit High Input. I must say im kind of proud of bringing a dead $400 car to life! WOOT!

[DiscoStudd]

Good job, George!