[Ronster]

as long as I'm at it I'd like to add some perspective regarding the engine in general. it's currently known as HFV6 for high-feature. this means it has 4 valves per cylinder, double overhead cams, variable valve timing, all aluminum construction, and other things high tech. it has really come a long way; it began as a chevy 2.8L ohv v6 near about 1980 or so, I think it first showed up in the citation (anyone remember that?). been used in camaros, s-10 pickups, cavaliers (the z-24) and its step-brother the cimarron, and heavy use in the lumina-type line (lumina, monte carlo [fwd] before 2000, olds achieva, etc), and beretta/corsica. the initial design advantage was the 60-degree bank separation which made it very compact and therefore light, and it naturally operates much smoother all compared to the typical 90-degree v6. buick had their 90-degree v6 (eventually ended up with turbos and intercooling in the grand national, beating corvettes at the time) but they had to either offset the crank journals or offset the spark timing to achieve some semblance of smoothness. more recently this 3800-series was used in the impala/monte-carlo line. 90-degree v6s are not naturally smooth but the 60-degree layout is due to evenly spaced firing pulses. there was a chevy 90-degree v6 (typically 4.3L) that was actually a small-block v8 with, literally, one cylinder deleted from each bank. GM has really done a lot to bring the little motor along to the 21st century.
rg