I recently discovered that one of the guys I work with has a complete TBI 350 for sale. Complete engine, ECM (747 I think), and possibly the wiring harness.

What is all this worth?

What's an easy way to tell if it's truly a 350 and not a 305 w/o taking a head off and busting out the dial calipers?

 

You've to weight in several factors such as miles, engine maintenance, how complete is the EFI system, etc. Can you hear it run??? How bad do you want it. Or, I should say, how desperate is your friend to get rid of it??? As always, it is one man's junk is another man's treasure!

In SoCal you can find (if you're patient enough) 305 or 350 in a 'handy package' (police department auction) for about $300 to 500 for complete car or truck. JY's want more, private party come and take it away can be had. So, it all depends on circumstances.

For engine displacement check driver side, back of the engine, on the flange just above bell housing. In the eighties GM started to cast intended block displacement in liters - you should be able to see 5.0 or 5.7L. Alternatively look for block casting numbers or VIN pad / RPO id on the front passenger head flange which makes it a bit more time consuming to id. GL

//RF

 

lol beat me to it.

 

He said it ran when it came out, probably could use a rebuild though. No problem, I was kicking around the idea of getting a 383 rotating kit for this new block then swapping the shortblock underneath all the rest of my parts on the current engine in the truck.

He pulled out the 350 to replace it with some carbed 502 monstrosity. Asking price is 200 bucks. I figure I'll go check it out, try to bargain a little bit, 200 bucks doesn't sound terrible at all though does it?

Thanks for the ID info.

I'm thinking I'll take my dial calipers with me, and pop at least one head off and see if there's any meat left in the cylinder bores before I buy it.

 

If it's an L05 with the '747 ECM, then it's very unlikely that it's a 305 which is good news.
I'd be a little wary after his statement "could use a rebuild", though. That might mean that it's knocking, smoking or even has a burned piston.
But if you want to rebuild it anyway, this would be a good deal because $200 is a standard price for an engine core and you get the injection system with it.

Just my $0.02.
Lou