Hey Guys,
I'm brand new here so please forgive my possible ignorance. I'm here searching for wisdom on finding a good shop, relatively near Boston, that specializes in engine swaps and such. I own an '84 firebird with a chevy 305 in it, and what I'm looking for is a shop that will help me with swapping in a 350 with a T56 transmission. It would also be great if they could install parts that I provide. Any info would be great! Thanks!

Best,
lyk9336

 

Hello and welcome to the forum .

Now , to address your question , I will ask , you are talking about Boston Massachusetts , yes ? If so , I hate to bring negativity into your project but I must warn you of this ; Going "shop rates" in the Boston (Ma.) area are presently hovering between $100 to $200 per hour depending on the shop . To simply replace an existing engine would be one thing , but to replace the engine & transmission , with the transmission replacement being a conversion install , would run into SO many billable hours that your best to sell what you have and buy a 3rd gen already equipped with the engine and transmission you want it to have . I know you don't want to hear this but it's true , such conversions are labors of love done by folks that do the work themselves , and even then , even not paying one penny for labor , the resultant expense is FAR greater than the value of the car itself provided the conversion is done right . Another issue being that most if not all of the shops I know of are going to insist on procuring the parts themselves , they will say to protect themselves against claims for defective parts but the markup on the parts is a pretty strong incentive for them to want to obtain the parts themselves .

If you could do the work yourself , by all means it's a great and fun project as long as it's understood that you'd spend more than you could sell the car for later . To pay a professional shop to do it ? Like I said , would you really $pend $15K to have a shop convert a $3K car ? The smart money here would be to buy one already done , letting the last owner take the hit of the depreciation of not getting close to what went into it when labor hours are considered ....

 

Thank you OrangeBird!

Yes I am talking about Boston, Massachusetts. Sorry that I didn't clarify that in the beginning >.<i I see what you're saying about this being a labor of love, and I get it. I bought my firebird for 800 when I was on-route with a friend cross country. I love this car for all of it's flaws (currently has a lot!). So according to what you said, working on the car myself would be the best use of my money right? Is there anyone who is in the Boston area that is experienced with this kind of thing? If anything, I would like to know you're guys' experiences with garage building a car in Boston!

 

Great , now that I know your in Ma. , I can offer you this suggestion ;

Provided you can do the labor of the engine/transmission replacement yourself , and of course this depends on your mechanical aptitude as well as your determination to see a project like this through till the end (as if there ever really is an "end" , any car 30+ years old will always be somewhat of a work in progress) your best bet is gonna be to scour the for sale ads and find a wrecked/rotted one with a working drivetrain of the right kind and swap all of the pieces into your car . The reason being that if you buy a "parts car" that has the right engine/transmission your looking for , it's also gonna come with all the other bits that'll nickel & dime ya to death on a project like this (clutch pedal , center console for std transmission instead of automatic , engine wiring harness and ECM if your still planning on using that , and so on) . If you look here at the for sale ads you'll find there is a guy in Townsend Ma. that regularly parts these cars out and sells the parts here , maybe you could check with him on some kind of package deal of buying the major bits needed for your swap .

Just remember , it's gonna get expensive .... STUPID expensive .... expensive that no wife or girlfriend will ever possibly understand or condone .... Part way through , you may even question yourself "oh why did I let myself get into THIS ?!?!?" , , , but the first time you pop that clutch and do a two wheel burnout you'll be glad you stuck with it .

Oh , and , make sure your brutally honest with yourself about your car's present condition . I was lucky , crazy lucky , Orangebird was a florida car it's whole life before I got it , and so there is not one little bit of rust/rot anywhere on it's body . If your car has any major rust or rot it's highly likely to not be a good candidate to do a drivetrain swap/upgrade to , just like Neil Young said "rust never sleeps" , so check underneath real well before buying multiple thousand$ of dollar$ worth of parts for it , lest the rust/rot make your project with all your money go "POOF !" right before your very eyes .......

 

Call the independent garageman Association in Boston, the chains are set up to suck all the money they can out of you and half are crooked to boot. the Independents know who is good and who isn't and point you in the right direction.

 

You’ll have to look 45 min outside of Boston (North or South Shore) to get a good independent that won’t rip you off.. it’s also hard to find someone who will actually want to take the job.. It is possible with a little patience..