Hi again
I've got a 383 stocker engine (v8) with a edelbrock carb (4 Barrel). I only. Paid $1k for the whole car. Minor issues (replacing hoses and plugging others). I'm just curious as to how much it's worth.
Thanks!

 

 

A month after I bought it, he texted me this. But only because I asked him for all the info he had on the car.

 

without dropping the pan to verify, hard to tell. 400 balancer might be a give away if it is put together like a 400. Good running 350 can sell for up to $500 most of the time. Real 383 with a lot of unknowns still would not be over $750 or plus/minus $300 depending on the local market

 

Ahh okay! Thank you!

 

Lots of deciding factors but the two biggest ones will be the heads and cam installed.

Flat tappet cam probably with some factory heads maybe 4-500. Roller with some decent heads 1000 is probably right.

 

In a word (well... 2 words), not much.

Practically any time something is sold "used", it's automatically assumed to be suspect. Used UP, used HARD, improperly installed, built half-a$$ed, overheated every time it ran, you name it.

Then, as has been pointed out above, there's the problem of verification. You obviously haven't been around cars very long; or you'd AUTOMATICALLY be wary of phrases like "came out of a Vette", "runs to good to be a 305", "lots of potential just needs a tune-up", and so forth. VERIFICATION - the root of all honesty - is hard to come by. What was it Ronnie Raygun said... "trust, but verify"? How ya gonna do that?

Then even worse, the mere fact of "383"ness doesn't guarantee that it's any good. Did BillyBob and Cletus jam it together out of spare parts they swept up off their garage floor after acoupla demolition derby weekends? Was it built by Reher-Morrison or some such, and you have the dyno sheets that came with it, and none of the SEALED hardware has been turned, not even the valve cover bolts? What's it built out of... what crank is in it, what rods, what pistons, heads, cam, machine work, attention to detail, external touches like lightweight fuel pump rod, ... ??

Bottom line remains, the answer is, and must remain until proven otherwise, not much.

But a question must be asked at the same time: why do you ask this particular question at this very moment?

Sight unseen, I wouldn't give $1000 for it. Might not even give $50 for it, because if I screwed up AGAIN and then came to the day of reckoning, like if I had to move to a new place, I'd have to pay somebody that much to haul abuncha HEAVY-A$$ GARBAGE off my property. Might give $4000 for it but I'd have to be MIGHTY SURE of what was inside it.