Quote Originally Posted by Sven The Sexman View Post
Your last statement may also be somewhat false. I myself am ASE Master Certified, recently GM Master Certified, and long-time Audi/VW Master Certified...I TEACH this on a daily basis. While I admit I don't know everything, I certainly know a lot. While you may have seen or heard of 3100's lasting, my experience says otherwise. Everyone has to get lucky sometime though. I've seen Yugo's make it over 200000 miles...there's gotta be at least one to prove they aren't all crap. But, trying to tell anyone that a swapping a 3100 into a 3800 car is a good idea when 3800 engines are dirt cheap, have more power, get great fuel mileage (for a pushrod V6,) and more reliable seems to be kind of counterproductive.

To the OP, put back in what should be in there. Do all oil seals/gaskets while you have the engine out and drive the car. You'll be happy you did.
All I said was that the 3.1 is not a bad engine and that was confirmed by a 16 year veteran GM ASE Master Certified technician. I agree 100% with you that it is almost always best and easiest to put back the engine that was there-no debate. GM V8 and V6's are typically very good engines (pushrods or not) and generally get superb gas mileage compared to just about any engines of similar cylinder count and displacement.