Buying a 1995 Super Coupe

'93mn12

Registered User
Hey all! I'm considering buying this 1995 super coupe. My current car is a 1993 3.8 LX bird. I test drove the car last week and it feels solid, no leaks, no rust, everything works great. I am a little paranoid about the possibility of having to do head gaskets, giving the 3.8's reputation for eating those, and my current thunderbird needed this. The car didn't overheat and the coolant is clean, so am I wrong for worrying? It's a one owner car with 106,000 miles. And what can I do to preserve the life of the supercharged motor besides the obvious tune-ups. Thanks
 
The best thing you can do is acknowledge that the hg's will need to be replaced eventually. This way when it happens you won't be unpleasantly surprised because you expected it! This way you won't be afraid to get on it when you feel like it. Start saving some money for when it needs to be done so you can treat it like an opportunity to "upgrade" ( i.e. better flowing heads and cam, BHJ balancer, etc.)

If your planning on leaving it more or less stock for now, don't put a smaller blower pulley on it unless you at least add a double IC. Make sure the cooling system is in proper running order.

Good luck with it and enjoy!
 
At 106K, if the car was well maintained, you probably have some time before the HGs go. They usually tend to go somewhere between 120-150K, sometimes higher, and sometimes not at all, but as Joe said, if you plan for them to go, and start saving some money for it, then you won't feel too bad when they do. As for what you can do to delay them going, keep up on all the fluid changes, especially the coolant. Change the plugs out for some Autolite XP103 Iridiums and make sure your ignition system is in good working order. Change the fuel filter out and never run anything less than premium in the car. Basically the killers of the head gaskets are corrosion from the cooling system, overheating due to a neglected cooling system, or detonation which could be due to improper spark, low octane fuel, or a lean condition. If you make sure none of those things happen, then you are doing everything you can to prolong the life of your head gaskets.
 
Thanks guys! I had to replace my head gaskets on my 1993 which was a little hard but not too bad, this new engine looks severely complicated in terms of design haha. Any special tricks of the trade or special/different things I need to know? Also, how to check the supercharger oil? Most of the threads on this site are private so I can't view them. Thanks!
 
Awesome. So it looks as simple as removing the plug with the allen wrench and topping it off if it's low?
 
Basically, yes.

Assuming the hex cavity in the plug isn't rounded out and it's not too tight, and you make sure to clean that out so the tool can fully socket into it, and you confirm to use the right hex size, and you wait for any pressure to subside while removing the plug, and you have enough of the right oil to add, and you know to carefully bring the new oil level only to the bottom of the fill plug threads so you don't overfill, and you make sure the plug has the correct o-ring on it, and you don't over-tighten the plug when you reinstall it and you don't spill any of the noxious oil requiring a hasty and bothersome cleanup, sure.
 
I know the 3.8s are notorious for hgs but is it really that easy to pop them?

No, you have to work at it. Any aluminum head iron block engine will be prone to hg failure. I have changed as many gm as ford head gaskets. As these cars age it is going to happen. Its not a hard job. These engines are the same technology as any push rod ohv engine.
 
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Although I didn't have all the maintenance history on my '90 I'm fairly certain I changed the original head gaskets at 146K. This would be backed up by the fact that my wife's old '96 Mustang went 153K or so on documented original head gaskets and my '95 Taurus went 140K on it's second set of head gaskets. All I do is change the coolant bi-annually and beat the crap out of them, seems to work. :D
 
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