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<blockquote data-quote="Firewalker" data-source="post: 8871515" data-attributes="member: 676743">I had a &#039;99 Chevy Venture with the 3.8 and buddy had one with the 3.4. Any of those engines including the 3.9 are known to leak coolant at the intakes. And when you change them you have to change out the intake usually as that is what cracks as it is just cheap plastic for the most part so that plus gaskets plus everything else you have to take off in order to change it out. It is an expensive fix. The Astro vans with the 4.3 are solid but with the 4.3 you have to watch the cylinder head seals like crazy. Those are known to go bad all the time on the 4.3 going back to it&#039;s introduction. But if you change them out you can get 80-100k out of them as that is usually when they start to leak and you see blue smoke out the exhaust. Basically a 4.3 V6&nbsp; is just a 350 with the front 2 cylinders cut off. I&#039;ve even seen people use 350 pistons in those when rebuilding them for more HP. And the steering upgrades are easy to do as well on those. I&#039;ve seen a few with 305 high HP and small block 350s. Personally I hate LS swaps as everyone does them. Try being original for once! Old school power still is better imho. Yeah LS has it&#039;s place in newer cars but older stuff. Nah gimme the old school stuff any day.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Firewalker, post: 8871515, member: 676743"] I had a '99 Chevy Venture with the 3.8 and buddy had one with the 3.4. Any of those engines including the 3.9 are known to leak coolant at the intakes. And when you change them you have to change out the intake usually as that is what cracks as it is just cheap plastic for the most part so that plus gaskets plus everything else you have to take off in order to change it out. It is an expensive fix. The Astro vans with the 4.3 are solid but with the 4.3 you have to watch the cylinder head seals like crazy. Those are known to go bad all the time on the 4.3 going back to it's introduction. But if you change them out you can get 80-100k out of them as that is usually when they start to leak and you see blue smoke out the exhaust. Basically a 4.3 V6 is just a 350 with the front 2 cylinders cut off. I've even seen people use 350 pistons in those when rebuilding them for more HP. And the steering upgrades are easy to do as well on those. I've seen a few with 305 high HP and small block 350s. Personally I hate LS swaps as everyone does them. Try being original for once! Old school power still is better imho. Yeah LS has it's place in newer cars but older stuff. Nah gimme the old school stuff any day. [/QUOTE]

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