Vortec 350. And what do you think a fair price is? Builder wants $3,500.

Here is the seller's description:

This is an engine I built for myself and will probably regret selling. I got a free car from a family member and therefore never drive my truck which I built this engine for. If it does not sell, I'll end up installing it, but it seems crazy to install a great engine into a truck I drive 500 miles a year. I am a professional engine builder, and this is the best engine I have ever build for myself. If my description leaves you with any questions please e-mail.

Block:

Bored and honed .030 over, honed on a CV-616 with a special aluminum stepped deck plates and a felpro 1010 with ARP head studs. Cylinder wall RA is 15 to 17. Platue honed with sunnen 818 stones and finished with 10 strokes at @ 2 on the amp meter.

Align honed on a Sunnen CH-100 with ARP wingage tray main studs, with a stub of a oil pump bolted on the # 5 cap.

Decks have been "accu decked" on a BHJ block fixtures, and cut down to 9.000, leaving the deck height of the piston to zero. Block RA is 20 to 25.

Entire block has been deburred: the cam tunnel, timing cover area, lower cylinger walls, entire valley, area around cam gear, lifter bore tops / bottoms / oil hole transfer, and all internal and external corners and edges.

Heads are Edelbrock E-tech 170's, this are brand new, I swapped out the stock valve seals they were sent with for some positive oil metering viton press on seals that are much better, I also deburred the entire head, lapped the valves and prepped the decks, and chamfered the guide tops and bottoms. All heads are shipped out with the bare minimum of prep. Most people selling vortec truck engines skip the step of cylinder heads because os the high cost, these are over a grand from Summit. However, this is the most important thing you can do for power. These are designd to be a iron vortec replacement. The have all the things you want in aluminum, which is better for preventing detonation in a truck. They have bigger better springs, screw in studs, bronze guides, stainless valves, steel seats, better combustion chamber geometery, relocated spark plug, and more flow at all valve lifts. This is a must for a low speed hi torque application like a truck. The cost usually scares people, the stock iron heads are good, but are always needing to be fully redone, and after you pay for everything at a quality maching shop you end up with something with less flow, and offering no detonation resistance due to them being cast iron, and you almost pay the same as new heads.

Parts:

- All new except for the block, and upper and lower intake.

- Crank is a scat cast steel, has been balanced to the rotating assembly.

- Rods are scat 5.7 bronze bushed, with 3/8 ARP cap screw bolts

- Pistons are Keith Blacks D-dish, deburred and coated skirts from Calico, piston to wall clearance is .0016 before the coating, the coating is designed to not be factored into the wall clearance.

- Rings are total seal gapless tops, gapped on the top and interfitted zero gap ring for the KB pistons, gap factor .0065 ring stack is 5/64 5/64 3/16 at a standard tension, I didn't want thin rings / low tension, you gain some power but, sacrifice some durability and oil consumption.

- All bearings are Calico coated Clevite P series rod clearance is .0020, the mains are .0025, end play is .007, rod side clearance is .010

- Oil pump is a std vol melling, the pick up is a bolt on high vol melling 5/8 inlet, the drive shaft is a steel collar and the oil pump gears are Calico coated.

- Timing set is a Cloyes special true roller for this engine, Calico coated cam and crank gears, .020 drilled pin hole in cam thrust plate retainer and into the cam thrust face of the block into the #1 cam annular groove for positive oiling to the timing set.

- Milodon full length diamond stripper windage tray.

- Moroso 6 qt slight kickout oil pan, clears cross member and starter, has trap door and large baffel welded in pan, held on by ARP oil pan studs.

- The cam is a hyd roller Elgin 1040P, its a slight upgrade computer cam on a 112 centerline.

- The lifters are hyd roller elgin.

- The push rods are trickflow hardned .080 wall 7.000 inch.

- The intake is a stock GM I deburred and fully cleaned. If you ever cleaned one of these you know how much of a pain it is. These are usually covered in carbon due to the EGR valve dumping into the plentum. I knocked out the casing flash and smoothed the port entrances.

- The stock GM black nylon top is included and along with a separate spider fuel system, all the fasteners, a distrubutor, coil, 1 stock truck throttle body, 1 high flow brand new marine throttle body, and all the fasteners and patrs, all of this is not shown in the pictures.

- Rockers are Crane Cams gold race 1.6 ratio non self aligning, narrow body for center bolt valve covers. Valve lifter preload is set with the lifter pumped up by a priming tool at 1/2 turn.

- The front cover is a nylon crank sensor pick up cover brand new from GM. The crank reluctor is held into place by the balancer with along with the flex plate is new from Pioneer.

- I finished this and primed it on the stand and painted the engine gray and some other parts black. The ARP head studs are set into the block with Dow Corning 730, and the intake was sealed with Dow Corning 732. Like I said its all new and was going into my own truck, and still may end up there. If it sells I reccomend the owner sends their computer off to www.fastchip.com and have it tuned by Ed Wright. He knows these trucks very well, has done tones of them. I would also highly reccomend using some small tube headers, and stitching to a full aluminum Accel distributor. I cannot offer any kind of warrenty or guarantee, there are too many people out there that tell you they will take the necessary steps to intall and clean reused parts and don't. If no warrenty is a problem I don't blame you. For example, most Z71 trucks have an oil cooler in the radiator with hard lines going to and from the oil filter housing, most people will not understand replacing the radiator and lines is the only way to ensure you have no debris into the new engine.

 

The oil pan and intake won't do you any good. The front cover isn't something you need, either.

What he's asking is probably reasonable for what he's done, the only question is do you want to pay for some of these things that won't return any benefit.

You might offer $2500 w/o pan, front cover, & intake.

 

Done ... got him to "consider" $2,500. I think he'll take it, though. I offered $2,000 and he said no, but he would "consider" $2,500.

So, what kind of HP would I possibly be looking at here? Of course, I'd have to get the intake to match my TPI to the Vortec heads, but I can swap my 305 oil pan right on there, right?

And which would be the better overall deal (bang for the buck)? The Vortec motor for $2,500 (plus about $475 for the TPI-Vortec intake from SD or Edelbrock)

Or http://www.rebuilt-auto-engines.com/...03108246977.dc considering I would have to pay shipping and don't have a core to exchange, $1,744 would be the cost with everything.

Thanks five7kid! There would be a lot of lost people on this forum w/o you.

 

Your tin would fit the Vortec engine. Power should be a little better than L98, more cam and upgrade TPI components would improve that.

I Goggled "Elgin 1040P", and interestingly enough, the first two hits were that guy's craigslist and a thirdgen.org thread.

Two of my brothers have gotten engines from that rebuild outfit you linked. They've both been happy with the engines (although they went into trucks, not performance cars). That would be the cheaper route, but wouldn't have the advantage of the Vortec heads.

 

Tomorrow I am ordering the rebuilt 350 from rebuilt-auto-engines.com. I think the Vortec is a good deal, but I don't want to have to drop extra money in the intake and do all the prom tuning that would be involved. I already have plans for any extra money (headers, catback, hi-flow cat).

I also ordered a 3.23 gear set to go in the 10-bolt today. But I'm leaving the gear swap to the pros.

Any suggestions for a shift kit for the 700r4?

Does anybody know if there are any threads on here with detailed pics of an engine swap or even removal? I have searched and searched and found a few, but I can't find one as detailed as I would like (except for one I found with an engine drop from the bottom, but that's not what I want to do).

Do any come to mind to anyone that would help me out?

 

My motor is on its way!!!

Also coming (hehe ... i'm giddy) is a set of Hooker 2055s, Magnaflow hi-flow cat, & Hooker catback!! I haven't been this excited in a while!

But I decided not to do the swap myself. I have an old-school mechanic here that understands all the intricate details of the swap and is going to charge me about $500-600 labor.