What have you guys paid to have an engine rebuilt?

[BaXTeR3221]

I'm toying with the idea of pulling my motor and having it freshened. Probably stick with all the stock stuff, just new seals/rings/bearings etc. I would just like the piece of mind that once i get my blower on, i'm not gonna have to pull it all off to rebuild anyway. So what have you guys paid for a complete rebuild. i'm talking total bill; parts, machining, and assembly labor. As much as i would love to assemble a motor myself, i dont have the space nor do i want to spend the time, i want to drive the car . So gimme some estimates.

 

[Curse]

My friend just had his engine "freshened-up" by a local speed shop. I think he paid $1000 or so for all new crank, rods and cam bearings, new piston rings timing chain, oil pump and a few other stuff(can’t remember everything). The $1000 included machining of the block, bolts, gaskets and install. For the quality of the work they did, I think he got a pretty god deal.

 

[my$100project]

a grand is not bad. Quality rod, cam, main bearings, gaskets, chain, water and oil pump, piston rings, freeze plugs alone is gonna run $400-500 in parts. $1000 is a steal, especially considering the cleaning and machining involved, valve grinding, etc. Your in New York. I would expect to pay a little more than that. -esp if you have any cylinder or piston taper. you'll probably want to go .030 over. No point in dropping that much $$$$ into it just to have low compression, blow by, oil consumption,etc after 25,000 more miles. And if your thinking of adding a blower you deffiently don't want any cylinder taper, that would really defeat the purpose. I'm guessing more around the $2000-$2500 for a good quality refreshing with no taper or egg-shell shaped cylinders. TRW cart pistions come stock, not sure what a set of .030 TRW pistons would run, bet its not more than $300 for a whole set.

 

[BaXTeR3221]

I was trying to avoid having to buy new pistons. Hopefully the block can be honed and ridge reamed and not have to be bored.


TTT for other thoughts.

 

[stang22]

I think that is a good idea but since you are there, save some extra money and have all of it done. If you car is running fine right now, that's what I would do. I am probably not helping any.

Tim

 

[BaXTeR3221]

I'm just sick of my car not running, and today i started it and its smoking when i rev it. So i dont know whether its just rich from the injectors or its burning oil. I'm ready to just sell it.

 

[stang22]

Are you pushing any oil into the intake? PCV problems maybe? If you are, I would imagine they are only going to get worse when you put some boost on the motor.

Tim

 

[BaXTeR3221]

No oil problems in the engine bay from what i can tell. Only the smoke when i rev it, again, which could be running rich, i can't really tell.

 

[stang22]

How many miles on it?

Tim

 

[BaXTeR3221]

114k and change

 

[Grn92LX]

What color is the smoke? Blue = burnt oil and black = very rich.

If your gonna rebuild it, i'd stick a good aftermarket forged slug in it. This way down the road you can add more cam w/o worrying about p to v issues.

 

[TrickFlow]

You could always take the motor out, and see how much wear is on the cylinder walls then go from there. You might not have a choice but to bore it. Mine was worn 19 thousandths, so i could have just had them bore and hone it to .020 over, and used the bigger rings on the stock pistons. but i figured everything was more geared to .030 these days, so i just went ahead and bought new pistons and rings and had it done .030 over. For my machine shop to bore and hone it .030 over, put all new bearings, new freeze plugs, polish the crank, deck the block, hot tank it (not in that order obviously) and fully assemble my shortblock (using stock rods, stock crank, and new pistons/rings and ARP hardware that i furnished) my total bill was about $980.00.

 

[BaXTeR3221]

Thats a pretty good price. Where i am right now is the age old debate of once its apart, might as well add better parts. Only problem is, if i go with better heads/cam/intake along with the blower, i'm gonna have more power than i want.


As for the smoke, it doesn't look blue, its darker, but not really as black as rich smoke usually looks, so i cant tell

 

[xherdlr]

$125 Cleaned,Honed, Magnafluxed,freeze plugs,and cam bearings
$425 Balanced Rotating assembly,Resized rods (arp rod bolts),line hone mains,& polished crank
$325 TRW Forged pistons stock size
$55 Clevite bearings
$0 Assembled myself


I have about a grand in the short block..Add $2049 for the Trick Flow kit and there you have it....


Kelly

 

[Curse]

How does the exhaust smell when you rev it up? I think youa are at a point when you need to back off the project a take sometime and relax. Nothing good can come out of working on a car you are mad at.

 

[mondos90lx]

just buy a brand new shortblock from ford or somthing if ur gonna be spending like 2000-2500$ you no

 

[Kerpal]

How does the exhaust smell when you rev it up? I think youa are at a point when you need to back off the project a take sometime and relax. Nothing good can come out of working on a car you are mad at.

Quoted for truth... sounds like you need to do a little tuning to make sure you aren't just running rich. If that's the problem that'll buy you some time to save up for a more through rebuild with better parts. Nothing wrong with sticking with stock HCI if that'll deliver the power goals you're after... but if you're going to bother to have it rebuilt you might as well make sure it won't need to be done again any time soon.

Not that I have any experiece having motors rebuilt or running a power adder, just trying to offer some logical advice...

 

[BaXTeR3221]

I appreciate all your help guys. Taking time off from this project is a good idea, but i've had all these parts on and almost running for at least a month. If i dont get it moving soon, its going to sit all summer and this is prolly the last summer i'll have to really enjoy it.


I think i'm going to buy the wideband i was gonna get anyway, throw the blower on and just tune it. If the motor lets go, it won't harm any of the parts i've bought and then i'll just evaluate the situation.

 

[Grn92LX]

I think i'm going to buy the wideband i was gonna get anyway, throw the blower on and just tune it. If the motor lets go, it won't harm any of the parts i've bought and then i'll just evaluate the situation.

Contact N8Miller on here for a very good price on an innovate motorsports LM 1 wideband kit. He sells them through his job. New in the box as you'd buy from any store but way cheaper. Myself and a buddy of mine each just ordered one from him.

 

[90mustangGT]

I bought a new shortblock for $700 but keep in mind I cam on a deal. It's a 306 with Speed-pro (TRW) forged pistons, machined and pollished crank, all the goodies. If I didn't run into this I was going to probally do a stroker. With this promotion comming at work, I probally will. After you figure the cost of machining parts vs. the cost of new parts and the advantages of those new parts, a stroker doesn't seem that expensive. This shortblock I have I am going to need different pistons because I'm running TFS heads and if I want any real lift I'll want more valve clearance, plus it only has 9.8:1 compression and I was aiming for 11:1.