Well, after all the turmoil I was encountering with my car and playing musical engines, I decided to take the most feasable route.

There is no way I could afford a Jasper or Crate, but I was sick of dealing with junkyards and pirvate "sellers". So I took a trip to autozone in hopes that just maybe, I would be able to get my ride back on the road.

The sales brochure looked promising. Rebuilt 305 (I'd appreciate it if all the die-hard 350 fans kept their opinions to themselves. I tried going this route, but ran out of time and money after I got ripped off) with all new freeze plugs, bearings and rings. New pistons and rods with all cylinders bored and honed and the entire engine resurfaced. Couple other goodies added in but I can't remember word for word right now.

Advertised as hot run and power tested for 30 minutes.


So I whipped out my trusty Static-X wallet that still lives in pocket since the 11th grade, and laid down 14 and some change. Now the shop has bolted up all the front end accessories, is putting in the dizzy and tossed on my edelbrock headers and valve covers and in a couple days will be attaching the TPI setup and dropping the engine into the car.

Well, last night I started reading on these surefire engines and got that same sick to my stomach feeling I had when My original 305 started knocking 6 months ago.

One story said it ran for a very brief period of time and then blew a head gasket, due to the head bolts not being tightened down. Another story said the rear seal began leaking after only about 6,000 miles. Another story said that ALL the freeze plugs started leaking, and the coup de grace was a guy saying his engine ran for 9 minutes, then dropped a valve into a piston shattering it. When they pulled the head, they discovered that only SOME of the cylinders had been bored.

Now, so far in my favor is the fact that all of these people went for the budget 800 or 900 builds, not to mention that I ahev even heard of Jasper (From someone right here on this board actually) of only boring out half of the cylinders. When the engine arrived at the shop, it did look very nice. As nice as I would have expected any Jasper or Crate engine to look like, minus paint. Which at that point I had the shop paint it.

So, with all of that said, would someone PLEASE brighten my spirits abit on the subject. I just can't afford anymore setbacks...

 

Well, as long as you have a decent warranty included, you shouldn't have anything to lose but maybe some time, if they have to redo it. You're certainly better off than trying to trust the stranger from Craigslist who assures you "it was running great when it was pulled out of the car". . .

 

I feel your pain. Many many moons ago I brought an engine to NAPA to have them rebuild it. It was a turbo 4 that cost $1800 to have done.
Lasted 600 miles before it developed a rod knock. Pulled it and brought it back. It came back the second time with some other problem that I never looked into. I just dumped the car.
I decided that if I can pay somebody else to screw up my engine, I could screw it up myself and have it cost less than $1800. Since then I only build my own. No problems either.

On the bright side.......you get a warranty.

 

Well you take your chances with any rebuilt or new engine you buy. When I had the shop I was an authorized Recon (big 3) warrenty shop through autozone and advanced auto. Basicly customers who had issues with thier Recon engine would come to me to diagnose the problems and reapair/replace through warrenty. Ive seen engines the same as above. Ive isntalled engines that dident make it out the door and some that have lasted 10 years and are still going as far as I know. I had done 4 engines for one customer before I finaly pulled apart the 5th and went over it with a fine tooth comb before installing in his car just to make sure I would not be doing it again. Ive had engines with rod knocks be denied by warrenty departments and one warrenty rep that will not touch foot in colorado for fear of his well being.

Chances are the engine you have is fine but if you do have any issues get it resolved quicly and document every issue. If you need to add a pint of oil or coolant at a certain mileage after getting your car back do it. It will save you alot of frustration if somthing has to be done warrenty wise. These places do a bare minimum to rebuild the engines to what they deem worth of a reman engine they rods can come from 8 different engines pistons are not always new only rings bearings and gaskets are replaced. Truthfully If I had to go reman route I'd personally want and engine that had a major failure just because it would have more new parts in it then the standard reman..

 

Keep in mind that this is a high volume engine rebuilder. Even if 1% of them are defective, that's a lot of horror stories. I think the odds are in your favor that it will be fine.

 

Improper installation, break-in, or maintenance is responsible for at least half of the problems with mass produced rebuilt engines. Kind of like the Vega in the 70's - they weren't bought by people with money to spend on things like maintenance (only owners manual I've ever seen that shows how to repack front wheel bearings. . .).

Get it in properly, start it up, adjust things properly, and see what it does.

 

I get your point on the maintenance thing, but the Vega failed because GM didn't figure out how to keep the silica suspended in the aluminum block. It all settled to the bottom so the bores wore quickly. By the time they finally gave-up and sleeved it, the Vega's reputation was trashed.

 

Actually, the Vega's engine problem was head gasket failure.

Point being people who spend more money tend to take better care of what they get.

 

That was a problem, but not the biggest one. Also not one maintenance would have helped. Anyway, I agree that people tend not to maintain vehicles they consider disposable.