Comments and experience on the much maligned 3.8 please a friend is considering one
Comments and experience on the much maligned 3.8 please a friend is considering one
Gotta be honest here.
We had one for an evaluation vehicle about a decade ago.
Interesting car- you could feel every single bump in the road, somewhat harshly, AND it would wallow. I have no idea how the chassis engineers pulled that one off.
eh...
Eric
Run far, far, far away. The 3.8 is a turd and it eats head gaskets for lunch. The C4 or AOD trans are both turds and will slip and die. The fox-chassis offers a peg-leg rear, crap for suspension, and 4-lug snot for brakes (rear drums). The MN12 chassis offers huge weight, a peg-leg rear, and the worst interior in history.
You could do a LOT better on Cougars, even in those generations (83-88, 89-97).
That's what I thought, no love at all.....advice shall be given
The only 3.8 worth a damn is the blown 3.8 in the 89-91 XR7. I have had visions of building a CP autocross racer from one of these Cougars and painting it like the 1967 Bud Moore Trans Am racers.
But as for your question: assuming you're talking about an 89-97 Cougar the NA 3.8 makes 140 hp and the car weighs 3600 pounds. Not good, and yes, they blow head gaskets if you look at them wrong.
FACTORY head gaskets are crap. For a while I had a habit of buying these with blown head gaskets and could fix them in about 3 hours. Of the 3 I still have tabs on, one is well over 300,000 miles!
Trans shudder and slip is due to folks not changing the trans fluid......ever! They are big heavy wallowing boats though.
Bruce
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