Gasket And Bearing Choices

I'm adding up the cost of everything I'll need for the block rebuilding. Going standard bore 302 budget rebuild. I figure machine shop decking, honing, tanking, cam bearings, freeze plugs, polish crank will be $400 to $500.

Gaskets, rings, bearings, timing chain, oil pump come to another $450 to $500. I'm not going to buy a kit since none of the kits contain the specific things I want so this price is the accumulation of selecting all the individual components to my liking.

I have questions on a few things.

1) Cometic head gaskets start in bore size 4.030, or at least I have not seen the listing for standard 4.000 bore. Will the 4.030 Cometics work with my standard 4.000 bore? I'll probably be choosing .075 compressed thickness to make up for head milling and block decking. I want to keep the compression a tad lower for the boost application.

2) Im pretty sure my crank will be good with just a polish so I'll be using standard sized bearings. However, I see available bearing with .001 oversize for extra oil clearance? What is the purpose of this? Should I do this and run a high volume oil pump? Or should I just go with standard bearing size?

3) About the oil pump. Is high volume really necessary? And again, What pump recommendation do you have in relation to any bearing choice?

Planning on Clevite rings and bearings.

Thanks for the replies so far. 10-4 on the standard Melling pump and 4.030 Cometics. I'll go with standard size bearings. Mobil1 10-30 is my normal in service oil. Should I break in with something else?

Now to find a reliable machine shop. I dont mind driving further than normal if I have to. I'm just tired of going into local shops and telling them what I want just to have them treat me like I'm some kind of dumbass and fill me with a bunch of bull. I took my GT40 heads to a local shop for milling. I had them already disassembled. The dude looked at the seats and told me they were shot. I had them already cleaned with a circular wire brush on a drill. I'm no machinist but thee seats looked great. All I did was lap the valves with grinding compound and they've been working perfect ever since. The dude was trying to tell me my heads were junk because he wanted to sell me a set he had in the back. Needles to say, he got none of my business and never will.

I have no problem with a professional making observations and recommendations to me. But don't try and BS me. Now I need to carry my disassembled block and crank in somewhere. I'm going to be asking for the crank to be polished, check block for cracks, deck surfacing, cylinder honing, freeze plugs, cam bearing and cleaning. I hope I don't get the BS again. I can hear it now. "your cylinder taper is out of spec, you need to bore it out, bla bla bla....."

This engine has 70k miles on it and the only issue is the deck on one side is not flat enough to reliably hold pressure under boost. Nothing else wrong with it that I'm aware of. When I get it torn down, I'll take some close up pictures of critical surfaces and post them. I bet it has minimal wear. Even before tear down you can still see the factory hone marks. The ridge at the top is barely noticeable when I sweep my finger across it.

mikestang63 said:

good .advice so far. make sure you get an ARP oil pump shaft. Are you going to O balance or keep it 50 oz?

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Is balancing something I can do myself? Can I balance the piston and rod as an assembly or would I need to remove the pistons from the rods?

I guess no to the balancing if I'm on a budget with using the stock pistons and standard bore with just a hone. To balance would mean taking the pistons off the rods. At some point this expense accumulation gets to the point I could just outright by a rebuilt short block. I don't know, maybe I'll ask the machine shop guy how much it would be or if it's even worth in my case.

I got a good referral to a shop in the York PA area. It's about a 90 minute drive for me but I'm ok with that for a place I want to do business with.