Tomorrow I'm getting ready to start a rebuild on a 1980 4 bolt main 350 that came out of a pick up truck. Now I've done cam swap and heads swaps before etc, but never touched the bottom end of an engine. So I'm new to it.

I'm just trying to get a read on how much it may cost, and a few other things. I have plenty of funds, but I'm not looking to make this expensive by any means. Want it to be a strong reliable motor, and I'm willing to pay a little extra for that.

For starters I'm going do take the block to a local machine shop to have it cleaned and bored. Anything else that needs done while there?

I'd like to cam it, nothing outrageous, just want a nice lope and bit more power. It'll have headers and a true dual exhaust installed, just want it to sound good. Question is, what can the springs handle? And if they really suck, what's a good replacement?

Figure since it's getting bored .030 over I'll need new pistons, good place/brand to purchase them?

Going with holley carb/intake manifold.

Plan on doing a little self porting to the heads, again, nothing outrageous. Just want to have a little fun with the build. I'll look up info on the best ways to do that.

Mainly worried about the bottom end. Any advise is appreciated. Car is daily driven.

C.

 

As a note. I'm picking the motor up tomorrow, haven't paid yet, and I just found a much more local 400ci. Block and heads only. Would it be just as easy to rebuild that or more expensive? 400ci sbc. They don't list a year.

C.

 

Since the truck is daily driven I have a really good setup for you. From cam to the bottom end and even intake manifold. But what transmission are you using? and rear end. The lowest gears I would go with would be 3.73 and then a eaton posi. You won't need a beefy rear end or anything. In your post are you talking about the original heads off the motor? And 400sbc is going to be ALOT more expensive. But they are really awesome to build if you have the money.

 

The engine isn't going in a truck. It just came out of one. 700r4 tranny. Already has 3.73 gears, though I don't see how that would matter. 3k stall. I'm not looking to buy an engine already rebuilt, I'm going to do it myself. I don't need advise on the rest of the vehicles build, just the bottom end. Just information.

C.

 

if your gonna have it at the machine shop, have it align bored, nothing is worse than building an engine yourself, and see your pride dissapear along with shredded main bearings, and if u plan on spinning any hard rpms, make sure you invest into hyper pistons and have the rotating assembly balanced, and or stronger rods, stronger bolts with a rod resize is a redundant process since your only making the bolts stronger on a mass produced factory rod, spending around the same amount of money after having them resized.
factory heads max valve lift? depends on the heads, some factory heads will only handle up to around .450 lift max because of issues such as seat clearance and such.

 

Do you just want to know how to put the bottom end back together? While I was in auto class this is the series we watched before building our engines, just without all the stupid ads. While your block is there you could have them put in new cam bearings and freeze plugs too. Probably take off the old pistons and put new ones on also. I guess summit or jegs would be a good place place for pistons. Just something to keep in mind is getting your compression ratio where you want it and same thing for quench height.

 

i baught valve springs that were matched to my cam, and my machinest shimmed them properly to my heads, something that i wouldnt reccomend doing yourself unless you really know what youre doing, and comes free with a valve job anyways. issue with factory springs as that they rob horsepower being inefficient, and made from cheap materials, and designed for sub .400 lift cams.

summit sells inexpensive valve spring kits for like 65 bucks designed for a mild cam which sounds like your looking for somewhere around .460 to .480 lift and maybe 220 duration max. and your carb choice is a great one, in my opinion holley is the only way to go, i opted for an edelbrock, got it cheap from my buddy.

edelbrock performer intakes can easily be had for 75 bucks or so on craigslist, just make sure they arent abused, i ended up finding an edelbrock performer eps that was ran on motors just for break in purposes, and paid 70 bucks, required virtually no cleaning and put a nice coat of engine black on it, turned out real nice.

Speed pro sells reliable hyper pistons at a decent price, around 130 bucks or so with rings. summit sells some for real cheap, but ive never heard of anyone using em. forged pistons arent needed unless u plan on racing/ revving the **** outta this thing or slamming it with tons of nitrous, also dont buy pistons until the final bore is determined, some that woudl be .30 overbores required a .40 over, maybe even a .60 overbore which itself has a 20% or so fail ratio on a sbc, i ran into that issue once, now i have a nice set of stock bore hyper speedpros sittin on my shelf haha. all this is determined by the machinest, ud be suprised by how out of round a cylinder can get with lots of miles/abuse.

and a 3k stall my friend, that is pretty big stall for a mild cam, 3k stalls are for cams with like 250 duration and .550 lift with a 2600/2800- 6500 or so rpm range. stock converter will work if u get a small enough cam, but one sure does help a car launch, just kills your lower end rpm range.

 

and any reputable machinest is gonna look your block over, and tell u if something else needs to be worked, business for him, and peace of mind for you, not all machinest are the same though, as long as u got a reputable one you should have no worries.

 

certain stuff such as magnafluxing and hot tanking is something you have to ask for, but visually things such as cam bearings/ expansion plugs a machinest will usually visually inspect.

 

Just take it to a machine shop and ask what they would recommend for the block such as honing or boring etc. But would you mind having to use premium fuel or do you want standard? Because that will depend on your pistons

 

I recommend these for your rods and crank:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/sca-35700

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/esp-1035034857au