What would be more cost effective, buying a 350 from a junkyard, cleaning it and building it up, or buying a crate engine or an engine from Autozone or Discount Auto or somewhere and building it up? I am eventually going to replace the stock 305, and it will be a daily driver, and occational rice eater.

 

well it really depends on which kind of crate motor you choose. I was planning on finding a new body and dropping a crate motor into mine (ZZ4 385 Fastburn to be specific). The motor itself was around 3800, but once you factor in all the other accessories (PS pump, water pump, etc) it added to over 6000. Granted you could take some of the accessories off your current motor and put it on a crate motor, i still think it will be quite a bit more in the long run than fixing one up. However, you should be able to find some other crate motors that aren't as aggressive (300HP and lower) and can be in the 2500 +- range. Call up a few local shops and just ask them what it'd take to get an engine redone - chances are it will be a lot less. However, you don't have the guarantee that the motor will be running 'xxx' amount of HP, whereas you would w/ a crate motor (dyno sheets are usually packaged w/ the motor)

 

$1500, LO5 350 v8, from GM with 3year 36k mile warranty. You couldn't pay me to get a auto supply store motor. My cousin had one and it blew up soon after the warranty.

 

I was looking at an autozone crate motor the other day on display..they had the head off one side...one of the pistons was turned backwards....180*......NO THANKS...