Hey guy, what you have there is a cracked upper intake. VERY common. the crack right near the throttle body and let coolant into the very last front cylinder, and the first on the rear. Dorman make a replacement that is SUPPOSED to be reinforced in the prone areas.

 

Yea we went back at it today and replaced the upper intake with the dorman one. Everything seems to be going good besides the starter making some rude noises.. so that's next on the list

 

ahhh the 3800 would be the other motor of fun sleepers with good fuel economy. yup if you had to do head gasket loosen mounts and ratchet strap, motor forward to help with rear. fyi they may be stubborn problems but will out run alot out there. both in power(supercharged and non supercharged) and miles driven. seen several in the 230k's with superchargers and some N/A at 300K's.
glad you got it figured out would be a shame to throw it out on an fairly easy fix. also for future reference try bonivilleclub they got the knowledge of 3.8's like no other.

 

Well the car is officially fixed.. turns out it wasn't anything to do with the internal parts.. the starter was the culprit to most of the recent issues with rude noises that sounded like the valvetrain.. ill post the pictures once I get to a computer

 

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That has got to be the ugliest starter I have ever seen. And it would still start teh engine?

 

It started once yesterday then completely quit working. So we decided to pull the starter and check it before we put it up for sale and sure enough that was it.. now its got a leaky fuel line connection at the rail I gotta fix and its good to go

 

Does it seem like one step forward and two back?

Glad you are making progess...now just hoep you can get ahead of it before something else decides to crap out!