by 1saxman » Sun Apr 19, 2020 9:25 pm
I didn't know what a '231' was until I remembered that its 3.8L! I haven't had one of these since 1989 but it was a tough engine. Anything that could survive my ignorance for 11 years has to be tough. For example, in those days I thought you had to run 20W-50 - get the picture? Plus I removed/disconnected all the emissions controls, took the aluminum cover off the catalytic converter and put the cover on a converter 'test pipe'. That thing passed many inspections and I can only imagine the look on the face of whoever discovered it. By the time I was through with the car ('78 Sunbird Formula), it was burning a quart of oil about every 3 hours on the highway but it still ran great. The good news is that was about the time I wised up and have never treated a car like that again, and I haven't had a car smoke or use oil since.