so as you can figure out by the title, some of my stuff was hit by Sandy's flood waters. Luckily my car was at my house, where the flood water came up 2 houses away on the front and back of our property. Unfortunately for me though, my rebuilt 350 TPI which was just waiting for a new cam to go in was at my parents house, where it was under about 4 feet of water. (so was my dad's monte carlo project).

The motor had no oil in it, but since the storm has passed, me and my father have drained all the water we can out of the motor and filled it to the rockers with diesel (its his theory that if we can coat everything with as thin of an oily substance there shouldn't be much of an affect by the salt water). I have personally cranked the motor over by hand a couple times so its not seized.

But heres where I seek advice and tips....

Hopefully sometime in the very near future we plan on starting to tear the motor apart to check on the bearings and such. Does anyone have any advice on what else we can do? It kinda sucks that i spent money on a fresh rebuilt 350 TPI (you have no idea how hard it is to find a USED 350 TPI just plucked out of a wrecked car around here) and now have to basically rebuild it, so we kinda dont want to go too too far if it doesnt seem like it needs it. Hopefully the block doesnt have to go back to the machine shop to be cleaned up again.....

I also find this as a second chance to try and beef up the motor with maybe some of summit's aluminum heads they say fit the L98, and it supposedly helps a larger cam.

Any tips or advice would be extremely helpful!

 

Tearing it down to take to a machine shop is probably the best idea. Also, any 638 or 880 block will do, if you need a different one. A 350 tpi roller was a 2 bolt main 638. You don't need an engine specifically out of a tpi car. And, lastly, I like my Trickflows but if I had it to do all over again, I'd go AFR's.

 

thanks for the help...i was trying to avoid having to shell out more cash to bring it to a machine shop. and i'll probably just stick with the steel heads on here, i dont have $900 sitting around. If i really had the money to do it, i'd convince myself to turn it to a 383 stroker, but i think 350 with a few mods will be plenty fast for me.

thanks again.

 

heres another question too....how much does stroking out the motor usually run? I figure if the motor needs a lot of work, and the price is somewhat reasonable i may just go for that route. kinda always wanted a 383