hello. getting ready to bould up a 350 for my 'bird. i need to know what type of machining would need to be done to a junkyard motor before i drop it into my car so i don't have any headaches down the road. planning on doing light modifications to it. cam and bolt ons mostly, maybe heads. i know having it magnafluxed, bored and rebuillt heads and all new bearings and gaskets is a good idea, but what else? thanks

 

Hot tanked,turn the crank,deck the heads-block if nessary,Cam berrings installed, new valvesprings,new pistons if it needs to be bored 30+ new piston rings. I feel I am forgeting something but that is all I can remember right now.

 

Align hone and freeze plugs

 

Do what is necessary. If the main bearings have normal wear, there is no need for an align bore/hone. You can measure the main journals for inconsistency.

Decking the block, necessary if the block is warped or not decked correctly. But if the block is fine, no need to do it.

If the junkyard engine has oil/antifreeze in the crankcase, then magafluxing the block is a good idea. But if there is only oil in the case, why look for a leak that isn't there.

Try to do a compression test on the block before you get it. If there is good compression, that is a good start.

Try to take the heads off before you get the block. You can examine the cylinder condition, cylinder ridge, and cam/lifters within half an hour of work.

Once the block is at the machine shop, they can measure the bore an recommend new pistons or use the old ones. More that likely (if there is a ridge in the cylinder), you'll need to overbore.

 

Thats what you call a shady tree mechanic rebuild.

If I'm going through the trouble, I do it right. I've never ran across a block that each surface couldn't be improved. So improve them all and get the piece of mind knowing your block will be staying in the car unless something freak happens. If you're not looking for a performance rebuild do as he said. If you want to make power now, or even later, at least spend your money on the shortblock since thats what has to survive 120,000 miles.

 

Align honing and block decking should (in my opinion) be done only if an experienced and qualified machinist says it's needed. If you're going with a new crank or bearing saddles, definitely align hone.

Having it bored out and honed w/ torque plates is good. Machining and polishing the crank, good. Cam bearings and freeze plugs also good.

 

sounds like alot of stuff. just two more questions, small ones.

1) what should i look for when i get the motor

2) how much should i pay for a 350 w/o the injection system and wiring harness and how much will all the necessary machining cost?

thanx again guys

 

I picked up my 89 350 4 bolt main=383 block for 200 bucks. had original bore. (blown head gasket) the head was bad.

keep in mind you will only need a "core" block and specify this and that it has to be rebuildable. usually they will go down in price if you let them know it is being rebuilt.

 

I'd say about $650-$750 for machining costs, check around though. a place might giv eyou a deal if you have them do everything at once, my guess might be a little high too. just guessing off of what my machine costs were for one of my motors.

 

Um, I'm doing 11.01 at 122 MPH at 5800' elevation with that shady tree overhaul (all motor, no NOS, no power adder). Granted the engine was balanced and the block needed to be align honed. One of the mains were oversized and the main caps shown evidence of minor cap walk (one of the weak points of a Mopar B block). Studs on the mains also.

The truck engine (V-8 SBC) that has that same shady tree overhaul has 50k miles on the rebuild, and is going strong. Spend $600 on the overhaul, gaskets, and machine work. Included was overbore and I got away with just polishing the crank since the journals were within spec.

I've rebuilt other engines the same way ranging with 10k to 100k, and they are still fine.

My first car/boat engine, transplanted from a car (another V8 SBC), that had about 50k, has gone 5 boating seasons - 50 hours per season and runs fine. I'm supercharging and stroking that engine. So I took it down, all parts look great. The bores were 0.003 bigger (4.033") so I went with 4.040" pistons.

tpi_roc - Curious, you deck everything, but do you bring all you pistons to the same deck height? There can be up to 0.008" variance from piston to piston, but I typically see 0.004". Check the gap on your rings? Degree you camshaft? Ever check crank centerline to tranny centerline???

Maybe if you weren't spending unnecessary money on you engine block during the rebuild, it would be on the road now?!?! Maybe you need to bushing the lifter bores or bore out the camshaft holes, they are probably not aligned.


There are also a fair amount of rebuild/hotrod books that say, only do what is necessary.

 

I gotta agree. People throw thousands down the drain on unneccesary machine shop work they could do without.

 

Hehe. Reminds me of the "indexing the sparkplugs" debate.

 

Tried that spark plug indexing with the 11 second car (B Mopar), saw NO GAINS!!

 

Dude, I pulled my engine out of the junkyard, put in new bearings, and gaskets, and proceeded to run the times in the sig.