Alright so me and one of my third gen friends were drooling over a jegs catalog and noticed this 350 GM Goodwrench Crate Engine. It's a brand new 350, 4 bolt. 260 horse, 300 lb/ft. Nice. Then I looked closer. 8.5:1 CR with 76cc heads. It's only $1300. Can find it for a little cheaper at other places. Well what we came up with, not really thinking it through, is drop my ported and polished 416 heads on there, or maybe a set of 64cc heads to bump the CR up. Drop a bigger cam in, my Performer intake and Hedman LT's and drop it in the 84Z. How would that combo work? And glaring holes?

 

it would be a huge waste of money considering your replacing the heads.. you could get a good seasoned rebuilt 4 bolt short block with flat tops cheaper then just ad your heads, cam, intake, etc... 416's are 58cc, they would yeild a better boost in compression then 64cc heads would.

 

It is the garbage.

Basically, you buy that engine; then you discover that you have to change every single piece, one piece at a time. Heads, cam. pistons, rods, crank, cam,... name a piece, you'll need to change it to make it into anything beyond the cheapest thing that will get a disabled phone company van back on the road. At the end you'll discover that the only thing that's worth keeping is the block, which you could just as easily have bought out of a blown-up pickup truck as Pick-A-Part for $50. So, you end up spending about $1250 too much for a block.

 

Hi all

I fully agree with the above statements...that engine is a waste of your hard earned cash.....I had one they are complete junk, as stated above look for something else, that engine is a replacement stocker ment for low performance applications, any performance that you would like to extract from it would require a big outlay of CASH not worth it .......... look for a good core and build that you will be far better off, I went through 3 of those "goodwrench" engines all in 5000 km ... finnaly got wise and bought a crate 350 HO never looked back good luck with whatever ya decide , ....GTA......

 

It's done well in my van pulling the horse trailer for the last 70,000 miles.

 

I dont get why people always know this engine. Its cheap and its brand new. The parts in it may not be the top of the line for performance but for what you seem to be wanting to do with it itll be fine. If you want a 400+hp street motor go get a build short block but with the parts you mentioned you wont be close enuf to that mark to worry about it.

 

You'll spend about a grand to buy a rebuilt 4-bolt shortblock with cast pistons, why not just buy a new 4-bolt shortblock with all new components for the same kinda price which is what you get with the Goodwrench? And it's decent parts, nothing fancy, has a nodular iron crankshaft, LT1/LT4 powdered metal connecting rods, low-po cast pistons, etc. Most cheap rebuilt shortblocks have the same or worse stuff in them. And the goodwrench can make around 300hp with a decent intake, headers, and a cam swap. That's fairly decent. If you want more you sell the heads off for $200 and go with something else.

That's what I did a few years ago. Bought it for $1200, sold the heads on the classifieds here for $200-$250, I forget, and threw some Vortec heads on it, which bumps the compression up to a decent level. Then added a CompCams XE262 cam. So for around $1500-$1600 including the Vortecs and XE262 I had a engine that would stomp the stock 350 HO crate motor (due to the cam) for less price, I don't see how you come out ahead with that $2000+ HO instead... You get the same crank, same rods, 4-bolt block, cast pistons (probably the same pistons, who knows), etc that they use in the the non-ZZ "performance" crate motors like the HO, so how exactly are you coming out ahead there??

Other than being non-roller it's a better shortblock than the L98 shortblocks running around in so many 3rdgens...

 

What on earth did you do to them? Ive been driving hard for the last 40,000 miles and wasted another trans and rear along the way and the engine is still working fine.

 

What would you recommed to swap to out my 88 IROC 305 TPI? Although I would like to retain the TPI. My engine budget is $3k..