I am doing a 3400 swap and was wondering if i could swap over the Subframe/Engine cradle from a 99 grand am to a 97 cavalier. I have the whole grand am.

No point. Plus it wont bolt up.

it would be easyer to just transfer motor harness and trans depending on your trans option. either way your going to have to change the wiring and your j body panals arnt gonna fit the n body clip

Welder is your friend

This shows a 3400 swap start to finish.

JAS ,
I know exactly where your coming from. Your seeing the similarities in the frame rail construction, how similar the 2 cars are in that area aside from the mounting brackets. I also saw that and wondered about swapping the entire sub frame over. Here is the thing, it appeared to be possible to cut off the brackets that are spot welded to the body on the n body and re weld them to the J body in order to bolt up the subframe, now I briefly remember giving up on that Ideal when I measured the width of the frame rails where they go in the floor, and the ends of the rails, I think they were too far off to go that route and not have to moify the subframe drastically.. Plus there wasnt anyone that had attempted it so I figured that there was more problems that I didnt see or think of. Such as the width from ball joint to ball joint since you have to use the same lower A arms, Would this be a can O worms for the front suspension geometry and would it be able to get an front end alignment afterwards. Just too many questions , and once you start cutting off stuff of the J body It makes it hard to go back.
If your just doing the 3400 and not the 3800 Its actually pointless to attempt the full sub frame swap, especially since you dont even have to mod the j body sub frame to install the 3400. I actually Installed my engine and tranny from the bottom with the subframe bolted in , I just took the radiator out to get it up in there. All you need is the upper older grand am mount( U can use the newer one but I wouldnt recommend it) and a lower dog bone bracket made up, some one was sellin them on here. Lots easier than the subframe swap.


01 cav w/01 3400 gam gt 4t45e

I looked into using the N-body subframe a while back, and brought it up in the old V6 discussion thread ("some progress on the V6 swap"). I was trying to see how few things I could get away with modding or making, because my goal with the swap was to use as many off the shelf parts as possible, and then make a list of them in the end. However, there are so many ways that they don't line up and would need major modding, that it's just pointless. The only reason I was going to do it is so that the dogbone mount on the subframe lined up with the motor. There is no other functional difference in the subframe from the N-body.

Now I've recently considering trying to mod one of the aluminum subframes from one of the newer cars, just because it's a complete subframe, is lightweight, and has the lower motor mount on it, but it will require considerable mods. However, it offers actual functional advantages such as increased chassis stiffness, and weight reduction, so I may attempt it. I know where I can get my hands on a couple of different ones.