If you did all the work yourself besides getting the engine honed or bored over, about how much money are you looking to spend just for the parts of putting together a performance oriented 350?

 

anywhere from 1000 on up to 40000. depends on what u want to do with it

 

You can build a good non-NOS/blown setup for a little over $1000 in parts. Hypereutectic pistons cost much less than forged, reusing the stock connecting rods and crank also saves $$...you'll want to have the machine shop grind the crank and polish the bearing surfaces, and resize the rods after replacing the cap bolts with ARP pieces. Have the shop install new cam bearings and freeze plugs while they have the block. Bring your new pistons in and have the shop press them onto the connecting rods.

Federal Mogul or Keith Black hyper pistons will set you back about $200-300 for a set. Tack on another $50 or so for Speed Pro plasma-moly rings, and another $90 or so for Federal Mogul or Clevite H-series (3/4 circumference oil groove) main and rod bearings.

You'll want a new cam, figure about $200 for a GM hydraulic roller piece at discount and maybe a tad more for a Comp Cams or Crane stick. Another $200 for decent roller rockers. Might be able to reuse your stock pushrods if they're straight, up to you.

Then you'll need the heads reworked, tack on about $200 for labor and a 3-angle valve job, and another $150 for new springs, retainers, and seals. (this part is a swag, I bought new heads pre-assembled last time around).

You can save $$ on gaskets buying a FelPro rebuild kit for ~$120, comes with every gasket you'll need. If running aluminum heads, junk the head gaskets that come with it and go with ones designed for al heads or you'll damage them.

About another $250 for misc parts...new oil pump + pickup, timing set, dist gear (don't want to chew up that new cam with an old distributor gear), hoses and clamps, oil + filter, coolant, ARP head bolts, sealants, ARP flywheel bolts, ARP timing bolts (I really like ARP fasteners).

This gets you a good normally-aspirated engine with crappy stock heads. Take out the ~$400 budgeted above on your old heads and put it towards a set of TFS or AFR heads at $1200 or so...or go the low-buck route and get upgraded iron Vortec heads for $600 with screw-in studs and springs good to 0.550" lift from Wheeler Motorsports or SDPC.

 

I was going to go with 2.02/1.60 heads and wanted to reuse as much as I could from the old engine. How much does it cost to have the machine shop get all the stuff done to the block?

 

Prices vary big-time from shop to shop. It cost me ~$500 in TN to have the block hot-tanked and cleaned, decked, bored +0.030, honed w/ torque plates, main alignment checked (no need for align honing in my case), cam bearings and freeze plugs installed, crank turned -0.010 and polished, rods got new cap bolts and resized, pistons pressed on.

That was 3 years ago, so their prices for all that have likely changed.

I bolted on new heads so no shop bill there.

 

Just last year I had my engine (which I'm still building) machined similar to what kevinc had done and it cost me ~$400.

If you are looking to buy a complete kit, which is good if you don't have a lot of time, and want to save some money at the same time, then look at www.pawinc.com or www.enginekits.com . They both have very good prices, but I'd say PAW has a larger selection.

I bought a #638 (roller cam, 1 pc. rear main seal) 350, 4 bolt main, long block, used for $100. Then I had the machining done to the block and crank for the $400.

I bought the "Deluxe Master Rebuild Kit" from PAW, (with upgrades) with Speed Pro-hyper pistons, Hastings-moly rings, Milodon-double roller timing chain, SSI-hyd. cam w/lifters, Milodon-oil pump, Rohl-complete gasket kit which included valve seals, O-rings, and gasket sealer, Clevite 77-main and rod bearings, and I know I'm forgeting something else. I also bought a set of ARP main bolts for 4 bolt caps, ARP rod bolts, and a few other odds and ends like moly lube, etc., all for ~$500.

So right now I'm sitting at just about $1000, and I haven't had any head work done, or had the pistons pressed onto the rods, or had the new rod bolts installed which will require re-sizing the big ends. Those few other things will run ~$500. And that's if everything checks out OK, like no cracks in the heads, no bent rods, etc.

I'm taking the cheap, yet safe route, and I'm gonna have roughly $1500 into just the core of my engine, and that's only 'cause I got the block so cheap. That doesn't include the extras like intake manifold, headers, etc., but hey, at least I know I'm gonna have the engine I want, built the way I want it.

And I may even go with AFR heads instead of rebuilding the stockers, so add another ~$1500 to that.

I figure why waste the money and complications involved with using the Vortec heads. They seem like a good deal at first, but after all they'll need done to get the results I want, it would cost me a lot more than the initial $450.

AJ