Hi, I was looking for a little advice on a new engine for my car. I will try to make this brief.

About a month ago, I had my engine rebuilt by someone who was supposedly a reputable guy. Once he rebuilt it, he forgot to add coolant, and basically destroyed my engine. He changed his name and moved away, so contacting him is impossible.

The bottom line is, I need a new engine for my car. It is an 89 Iroc with a 350. I am only 18 years old, and I don’t have enough experience to build something on my own. I am trying to learn as much as I can though, because I really want to be a good mechanic someday (as a hobby), and eventually I want to make my car street/strip with about 350ish hp. The upgrades I have right now are SFC's, cats, and flow. American thunder. I can’t really tell what’s good and not on my engine, so I would rather just get everything new. Right now I have 1,500 that I can spend, plus my weekly checks of $200ish. I also want to get HSR, and headers. But I need a little help on the engine, Thank you in advance for your advice, because despite what my mom thinks, this car is not a waste of money and I WILL have it running strong again

 

1500 bux? 1 horse per cube, very possible. might be a tad more, but close

there are plenty of combinations, you might want to consider doing a search.

persoanlly i would look for a 4 bolt main 350 short block for 200-400 bux

set of vortec heads and edebrock performer rpm

and a decent cam like comps xe268 which is popular

headers, carb, ignition will put you a little over but hopefully some of the stuff you can save from your old engine.

if not maybe consider gm perforances $1300 crate motor the 290hp 350, all you need is an intake, carb, headers, and ign. This will net you a good solid block and once you take care of the basic bolt ons you can change out the heads and cam for more power down the line.

 

Hmmm, sounds a lot like the guy who sold me a "rebuilt" 350 back in 1991 in Lemon Grove. Turns out he used cores that had been thrown away by other people because of cracks, mixed & matched little things like rings, then disappeared when people started coming back to get their money back. Maybe he came back to try again. . .

Josh, you might want to check those engine #'s. The 260 horse Goodwrench used to be around $1300, best I see now is over $1400 (on-line prices - add shipping; local dealer prices tend to be higher). The 290 HP crate is around $1650.

Either would be a good starting point. Real power will require head and cam changes.

$1500 isn't enough to get much, though.

 

yeah i just checked, with shipping and all that your right 57. crate motors aren't cheap. and will require head and cam changes.

as far as loose blocks go, maybe the scrap yard might have something.
but in any case might be worth it to save some more.

is there anything left of the motor you had built / or have?

or you starting off fresh?

 

I would like to start off fresh, As time goes on I will have a lot more money to spend, i don’t have many expenses so over 75% of my paychecks go into savings for my car.

Do you think getting one online would be my best bet? Also can you send me a link to a good site that will sell it to me? Thanks.

I don’t think I want to get a block from the junkyard, maybe I’m just paranoid from my bad experiences, but id rather just start out fresh. Unless this is a stupid decision.

Thanks a lot for the help, I really appreciate it.

 

There's no reason to be afraid of using a JY/used engine you just have to know what to look for. Back in my young/niave days, I bougt a motor took it home and pulled the pan off to find it full of aluminum. Going on further to pull the heads off I discovered a hole blown through the piston you could fit 2 fingers through. Here's some things I've done while shopping for an engine, I'm sure others will be able to add some stuff;

-milky oil This is a classic sign of a puked head gasket or worse; I would stay away from virtually all motors with this problem. Probably gonna end up having a lot of machine shop time. I prefer to drain the oil out of the engine if it hasn't been done already.
-check the oil filter; the oil filter can be a wealth of information; ask for the old filter, you can take a cold chisel and cut it open (be careful of the sharp edges, one of my many JY wounds happened this way) You're looking for any sort of bearing material you can find in the paper, as well as any possible anti-freeze that was missed in the above check.
-Compression check; if the heads are on it, this is a good idea; while it's not the end all in engine health checks, it will weed out a lot of bad motors
-check the bores; if it's got the heads off, check the bores for excessive ridge at the top; This wear seems to be common in most 350s I've seen, however some motors are definitely more worn then others. Making friends with someone that has a bore gauge or a mic set and some snap gauges is definitely helpful in this case. Also examine the bores for any scoring, gouging etc. etc.
-pull the oil pan; not always possible, but definitely a good idea in most cases. Look for a golden to blued hue in the big ends of the rods and the mains; if it's got a spun rod or main bearing chances are you'll be spending a lot of time at the machine shop and/or scrapping a lot of parts; I was at the JY and thought I'd found a good 350 by the filter test above. Before I went and told them I wanted the motor I pulled the pan. EVERY rod had spun, and the bearings were sitting in the pan. (no, it hadn't been pulled)
-don't be afraid of bargains; I had a buddy of mine that picked me up a 305 a while back for the princely sum of $10. The motor is worth more then that in scrap metal when I break it down. The bores had gotten some water in them so it looks like it's not useable but I'm not out of much if anything really. I ended up with a set of heads I'm probably going to need, so in the grand scheme of things I'm probably more then $10 ahead. If a 350 is under $50 I try to grab it as a rule. Chances are you can probably either sell or trade off parts to get a lot of that back, or re-claim all but 25-30 bucks in scrap if you just took the whole thing to the yard.

 

Have you pulled your engine apart yet? It may be rebuildable.

I'm trying to remember the name of the outfit in Chula Vista or National City that does engine rebuilding. Jacobs, or something like that (probably a different name by now - I moved away in 1994). They found a stock-bore 350 block for me, bored it to match my pistons (about the only thing I ended up using from that "rebuilt" engine), and reground the crank. Did me right. If your engine can be rebuilt (wasn't cracked or excessively scored by the dimwit who built it), they can take care of it for you.

The NAPA up on ConvoyCt. north of Claremont Mesa between I-805 & 163 used to have a good machine shop as well, they did some stuff for me.

Most machine shops have cores laying around that they'll sell and freshen up for you. You don't have to do the pick-&-pull to find your own core. The good part about the machine shop is they won't charge you to find out if the core is any good - they'll sort through them and won't start working on anything that isn't rebuildable, whereas if you buy something and take it to them, you're out the purchase price if it isn't any good. Many shops have similar arrangements with junkyards.

 

Back when I lived out that way, I used to use a machine shop in Oceanside. Auto Power, on a street just off the PCH, in "downtown" Oceanside.

 

I didn't realize you got south of Southern California when you were on the left coast. . .

 

My main concern is that if I choose to go the rout of finding a block from a junkyard or autoshop, and possibly tearing apart my engine to find reusable parts, I still don’t think that I can assemble an engine correctly on my own.

Also if my engine is still rebuildable, how long do you think it will last before another problem? (150k miles on it). After new heads and cam which I plan on upgrading.

Maybe one of those shops will build one for me if I supply the parts? or will that get too close to the cost of purchasing a new one.

My main goal is to have an engine that I can drive mainly short distances on the weekdays and race every other weekend. With approx. 350 hp. If my heads are still good, would it be a good idea to have them ported and reuse them? I will take it apart soon and check out the status of everything.

 

it depends on the heads and wether or not they're warped/cracked to crap; Break the engine down, take it into a shop (preferably one with a good rep by people in your area; ask around at local auto shops, the track etc. they'll tell you) and have them go over everything after you break it down; after tanking your block and other parts, then having them tanked and magnafluxed for cracks (magnafluxing is a process that reveals cracks in metal that you would have a hard time seeing)
If you want them to a shop should be able to build a motor for you; the big advantage of this type of solution is that you get to choose your parts.
What kind of engine is it (carb, tune port, TBI) the type of heads will largely determine what you can do but 350 fwhp should be attainable by virtually any 350 casting with some work. If the machine shop has to do more then basic work to them, I'd probably step up and get some aftermarket heads; wrapping 3-400 bucks or more in a set of production heads to get bigger valves put in etc. etc. when you're half ways to a set of good heads is dumb IMO.

If you want to do a crate motor still, look up "the goodwrench quest" on the internet. It's a good example of what can be done with a "base model" 350 crate engine and the kind of power gains you'll get with various mods.

 

It is a TPI, but I was planning on switching to HSR. A good shop will know what head/cam combo goes best with what I want right? I dont know if having hsr rather than tpi will have any impact on which heads or cam i get though.

So what im thinking is to go to a machine shop, find a good block, and buy new heads and a cam? and Basically tell them what I want and have them build it for me?

I guess im going to start looking for good shops around my area. I will check out the ones that were mentioned above also.

 

Most shops are "production" houses, not performance shops. Before you agree to anything, pass it by us here. For instance, a 638 block and 083 heads would be good factory pieces to start with.

 

If you buy new heads, look into getting Vortec heads. SDPC has some modified Vortec heads that will work with virtually any cam (the valve guides have been machined already).

 

You're looking at $1100 plus shipping for those SDPC Vortec head kits. Sounds a bit much for a $1500 budget.

 

I just had a new thought come to mind. I think im going to use the money that I have right now to buy a HSR, Headman headers (the CA ones) and then some ignition upgrades along with new plug wires (which i need anyways).

Then i think i am going to get a credit card and pay a shop to build me an engine. I figured that I need something to build my credit, and because I am 18 years old living at home, i don’t have many other expenses and can make the monthly payments easily.

If I take that rout, i was wondering if i should have them install the HSR and new engine for me? or will that be too much more money than it is worth... It will be a lot faster then me doing it myself. I plan on getting a 3 inch cowel hood anyways so the clearance thing wont be a problem (if there is one).

I hope that is a good path to take. I was wondering if anyone knows of a shop in the san diego area that is dependable and will do a good job. Maybe I should post something in the regional forum as well. Also, I dont have much experience building engines, so i was wondering if anyone has some suggestions of parts that will flow together. And will work well with the HSR.

 

Credit is a terrible thing. It gets more people in trouble than anything else. Has for centuries. Credit cards are a relatively recent twist that just makes it easier to do so. There isn't anything good you can do with credit that you can't do without credit - remember that.

If you really want a card, get one that is linked to your bank account. That's what I use. It looks like and is accepted like a normal credit card, but instead of getting a bill, it comes out of the funds in my bank account. Sooooo much easier to stay out of trouble.

 

I agree with 97% of what five7 said. I think it actually would be a good idea for you to get a credit card, but DO NOT use it to buy parts for your car. Use it once a month to buy a tank of gas, and as soon as the statement comes pay it off. This will help you build credit and won't cost you a thing in nasty interest payments. Good credit will help you later on in life with many things, one of the most important (IMO) buying a house. But anyway this is a thirdgen site, so back on topic. You have $1500 right now, and although that's not a ton, with a budget minded build you should be able to get a decent motor in there for now, and add performance parts later on. I would check the block that you have in there now and see what, if anything, could still be safely/reliably used.

 

Ya, I know. It seems like it will be a lot easier. Instead of waiting until I have all of the money, I can get the new engine now and get my car back on the street. The problem with getting just a basic engine, and adding performance parts later is that it will involve me taking out and putting the engine in twice, which is a lot of work for me. Id rather just get everything done with one removal. I’m pretty sure that I can pay a credit bill off quickly, depending on how much it comes out to be. but I don’t know. Maybe I should just save my money for a couple more months until I can afford something better. Or maybe take my block to a shop (if it is still usable) and have them build me something using that? I’m not sure. I will think about it for the next couple days and see what my best plan of action is.

Also I will look at that list mentioned earlier, but is there anything else that I should look for when determining what’s good and not in my engine?