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Engine rebuild question

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pulser9

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Ok so iv been interested in trucks since I was little. Right now i have a nissian pathfinder that i got from my aunt for realy cheap and iv done all the matnence on it from replacing the fuel pump, changing brakes, change rotors, ect.. But I want to get a real truck. My uncle that lives at my house now used to be the parts manager at Richared Childresses nascar engine shop, and knows a fare amount about enigines and general automotives. He gave me a engine stand and told me that a good start would be to try and rebuild a chevy small block 350 and he would do his best to help me. So im going to pick up a SBC 350 motor at the junk yard I guess. But what i need to know is, is there any websites that sell a rebuild kit that will include everything to rebuild it like including a a performace carb and like headers and all the gasgets, pistens ect.. I also want the engine to be a good engine like performance parts and the top performance stuff.

Thanks
Kevin
 
I used an Eagle brand rotating assembly for my rebuild. comes with everything you need for the bottom end. check out summit racing. it was like $835 or so for the balanced rotating assembly, and rings and bearings. As for your whole kit, I would say if that's what you're looking for maybe get a crate engine, but picking out your own combination of parts is half the fun. If you buy a kit you will have a motor like everyone else, but if you research your parts and pick which ones will work good for your application you might be more happy with your motor knowing it's YOUR motor. Know what I mean? But as for parts I usually get my stuff from summit. Hope that helps a little bit.
 
yea i definetly get what your saying about making it my own engine, but the only reason I would want to do a whole kit kindof thing is because i dont know exactly what parts im going to need to buy new off. If you get what im saying. Like this would be a learning thing for me.
 
i just jumped right in and did the same thing you are about to do, only w/ a 6.2 diesel. you'll find that it really is not very difficult at all, and you'll learn a ton. the hardest part will be checking clearances and mic'ing the bore's etc, properly. i think it may not be a good idea to get an engine from a wrecking yard, because you don't know if it works at all or if important components are brokent (i.e., it may have serious internal block issues - like broken cylinder walls or something of this nature). to make things easier, i'd pick up an old tired truck w/ a 350 which runs, pull the engine and you'll know that you at least had all the necessary parts to make it work. it would really suck to put an engine together, thinking you had all the parts and then can't figure out why it won't run later on only to find that you didn't have part x,y or z and you wasted 100 hours trying to figure it out. besides, you could always part out the truck you get it out of here on ck5 (course, you'd need a membership to post in the for sale section) and make some of the money back which you spent on the truck and on the engine. or you might find you want to just rebuild the whole truck. :D
 
yea, I guess I should start looking for an old truck. When did they introduce fuel injection into the chevys? I went and looked at a 79 chevy c10 that ran, but i would have to get a nwhole new bed for the truck but it was only 600 so maby i will look into that for just the engine.
 
fuel injection, if i recall correctly wasn't until mid-late 80's. are you looking to wheel this engine, or put it into something else?
 
im planing on puting in truck that will be my daily driver but it will be used for pulling my boat and snowmobiles. It will be going in a truck that has a lift and probly like 35 or 37s. Its going to be used for offroading but its going to be a daily driver to.
 
if it's gonna be mild wheeling - not much off camber stuff, just go w/ a carb setup. depending on how big your boat is, you may want to go bigger than a 350 - maybe at least make it a 383 stroker.
 
My boat is a 24 foot boat but id only be pulling that like 4 times a year cus we keep it in the water most of the year. But i would be pulling the 2 snowmobiles on the trailer 3 or 4 times a year and it would be for like 250-300 miles. But the reason I was mainly focusing on the 350 was because it would be being used as a daily driver so id want just a little beter gas milage.
 
should I go and buy a book on how to rebuild a chevy engine or is there a site online that has that information on it that would be as good as a book?
 
you'd probably be fine to just go pick up a hayne's or chilton's shop manual. i found the book relatively useless, except for the tolerances listed in the back of the book and the torque specs at the beginning of any given chapter. there are many shop manuals at my local parts store about building high power small blocks (or BB for that matter), which you may appreciate as well. that will help you pick out those performance parts you were talking about in the initial post. essentially, rebuilding is taking it apart, taking whatever you want done to the machine shop, and putting it back together. take lots of pictures of how stuff comes off, and label parts as clearly and in as organized a fashion as possible so that putting it back together goes smoothely. believe me, doing a crappy job on labeling stuff gets really annoying when you're in the final stages of putting an engine back together and you have to basically do it 4 times (i know from experience). make sure you notice where timing marks are on any given part so that you understand that when you go to put it back together. for me that meant the timing chain, fuel pump gear and fuel pump itself, but that was for a 6.2 - i didn't pay attention and had to take the front of my engine apart about 3-4 times before i got it right. i think a350 only has the timing mark tho (i've only done my 6.2) - so not so much to keep track of. if you've got the cash and if you're looking for decent fuel mileage, you might consider getting a mid-80's chev truck w/ carb'd 350 (for simplicity) and the 700r4 transmission. I say "if you've got the cash" only because if you're going to be towing w/ that tranny, you should probably get it rebuilt w/ some heavier duty parts as they have a notorious reputation. the 700r4 has overdrive, which will help w/ fuel economy. running at least 4.10 in the rear will help w/ towing, but if you're going to do oversized tires/lift, you'll want even lower gearing to help compensate the added tire and to help in towing. to make things simpler, you should probably look at getting a 3/4 ton truck, but that may be difficult to find w/ the 700r4. converting to 3/4 is really easy and inexpensive, so consider your options. i.e. a 3/4 ton truck won't probably have over drive tranny, a 1/2 ton often will have the over drive and can be converted to 3/4 ton for between $100-$300. sorry for the book - i could keep going. :) got questions? ask away!
 
Iv been talking to this guy and trying to see how low he will go for the truck, The thing is it needs a new transmision and front drive shaft. So what I was think was if i do end up geting this truck and I get a new transmision in it and front drive shaft and work on istaling them and learn how to do that for now. Then in the near future pull the engine and rebuild and build it up so then it would have a fresh drivetrain to start a build with. What do you guys think of that. Also whats a transmision I should look into if I do get this also keep in mind that i would be building up the engine to put out alot of horsepower and tourque.
 
I think that's an excellent idea to build up the parts that actually move the truck first, at least that's what I've had to do, the non-running, shattered transmission 4X4 truck card is the one I was delt. That's just my 2 cents, it's better to get all that stuff out of the way, so it frees up money for the good stuff (lift, tires, etc.). A motor that is always needing maintainance can rob you of a lot of money in the long run. I think you've got a good thought process going.
 
i agree, tentatively. what's the truck? year, model, etc. definitely consider what i posted about the 700r4 - and then decide if you need overdrive. most people will tell you that a th400 will be the strongest way to go w/ an automatic. i would highly recommend at least starting w/ a 3/4 ton (again, reference above). swapping a tranny in is not really a big deal, but can be kind of a hassle. keep in mind if you change tranny's from what is currently in the truck you're looking at to another one that you may need a new rear driveshaft. i bet you could get yourself into a decent condition, working tranny, t-case and driveshaft for under $500 (i think that's even a high estimate). so if you get a decent K20, and tranny/tcase combo in good condition, you could probably do everything you've stated thus far about building a strong drivetrain, and with a very mild engine rebuild for about 2K. course, if you want a rebuilt tranny - you're looking a substantially more.
 
If I changed over from the t400 to the 700r4 i know i would have to change the rear driveshaft. But would i also have to put in a new transfer case? If so what one should look into? Also I think im going to use a rebuilt transmision because because this truck is eventualy going to be a daily driver and i dont want to get somthing of less quality that will probly start giving me troubles in the futre just to save a couple hundred bucks now.
 
pulser9 said:
If I changed over from the t400 to the 700r4 i know i would have to change the rear driveshaft. But would i also have to put in a new transfer case? If so what one should look into? Also I think im going to use a rebuilt transmision because because this truck is eventualy going to be a daily driver and i dont want to get somthing of less quality that will probly start giving me troubles in the futre just to save a couple hundred bucks now.
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to make sure you get the right t-case, the tranny would probably need to be from the same era - just make sure that the splines on the input shafts which go from tranny to tcase are the same *I think*. i'm not too knowledgeable on that stuff yet. should be an easy thing to do a search for tho. use the advanced function - it helps narrow stuff.
 
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