Introduced in 1995, the "Series II" is quite a different engine. It is also by far the most popular of the 3800 family for its power, smoothness, fuel efficiency, and reliability, although the stroke for the 3.8 liter engine remained at , and the bore remained at . That said, the engine architecture was vastly changed. The deck height is shorter than the Series I, reducing weight and total engine package size. This required that the piston connecting rods be shortened , and the crankshaft was also redesigned. A new intake manifold improved breathing while a redesigned cylinder head featured larger valves and a higher compression ratio. The result was and , better fuel economy, and lighter overall weight (to ). This 3800 weighs only more than the all-aluminum High Feature V6 that currently dominates GM's six-cylinder applications, despite being an all cast-iron design.