Advice for rebuilding a 350 on a budget

[TravisB]

I'm to the point in my rebuild on my 78 c-10 that I need to start on the engine. My truck didn't have the original engine in it but it was pretty tired and wasn't running properly when it got parked a decade before I got it.

I have a couple of options and am curious about the most cost effective solution to get my truck back on the road. I have the long term plan of making this my daily driver with an LS swap and complete body restoration but that will be a long way down the road and I would like to get it back on the road so I can drive it while I save my dollars for that.

The truck came to me with a 1969 date coded block and double hump heads and the issue of not running well enough to keep the truck going. I have torn that engine down and found no huge glaring issues other than the oil pump collar being broke, the oil pump pickup wasn't connected to the pump, there's a larger ring groove than I would like to see, and several valves are no longer air tight on the heads.

I have another 350 that was a GM crate engine at some point in it's life. Low compression heads, nothing to write home about but we aren't building a race car here anyway. That engine had a cam wiped and got full of cam material but otherwise was a pretty fresh rebuild.

My local machine shop quoted 400 dollars for the head work alone on the double humps. Hot tank and new freeze plugs and cam bearings with cylinder cleanup was another 400. So the engine that came with the truck would run me 800 bucks before I buy new pistons, rings, bearings, cam, lifters, gaskets etc. I see the price climbing sky high and that being the engine I leave there for a long time instead of doing the LS swap plan.

So this is where I am. Do you guys have any recommendations on how to thoroughly remove the old cam material from the fresher engine? Would you do some combination of the two like using the bottom end from the crate motor and have the head work done on the double humps or vice versa, get the bottom end work on the 69 engine and use the smog heads to save dollars? With both options I have to buy a cam and lifters, and gaskets so I know I have that expense but I want to keep the budget low and most the work here at home.

While you are at it, any cam recommendations for a driver that might be asked to tow as much as a zero turn mower once every couple of weeks on a 10' trailer? It will be in one of these 350s with an edelbrock performer, holley 670 street avenger, and headers.

PS: I added some pics from the engine tear down in my build thread linked in the signature. It's scattered all over my garage so getting my work bench back is pushing this to the front of my (s*** or get off the pot list)

 

[legopnuematic]

As a temporary stop gap I would use the crate engine and do a quick tear down and clean the oil passages, maybe some new cam bearings if they got messed up with the cam, and run it. A summit K1102 cam would be a nice choice for a generic smog 350, but still mild enough to not require a stall, valvesprings, or any other special work and good vacuum.

My 79's 350 had at one point let the nylon on the cam gear go, had at least two wiped lobes (and lifters), all I did was just made sure it was clean inside and put it back together (new cam, lifters, timing set), The oil pickup screen and the oil filter do a lot to remove debris.

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My 76 I had a Howards cam spec'd out for it, but is pretty similar to the Summit cam I mentioned earlier and it has no problems with towing. (the rear end gears and brakes are really the limiting factor)

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[TravisB]

As a temporary stop gap I would use the crate engine and do a quick tear down and clean the oil passages, maybe some new cam bearings if they got messed up with the cam, and run it. A summit K1102 cam would be a nice choice for a generic smog 350, but still mild enough to not require a stall, valvesprings, or any other special work and good vacuum.

My 79's 350 had at one point let the nylon on the cam gear go, had at least two wiped lobes (and lifters), all I did was just made sure it was clean inside and put it back together (new cam, lifters, timing set), The oil pickup screen and the oil filter do a lot to remove debris.

This is what I am leaning towards. What did you use to clean it out? Mine isn't in big chunks like that. Glittery oil is more accurate for what mine looked like inside when the valves started chattering.

 

[legopnuematic]

about 5 cans of brake clean, if you have some kind of fluid pump you can set it up to pump solvent (diesel or kerosene) into the oil pressure port and push through the passages, (or cooler line ports)

 

[Ricko1966]

I would clean everything I could as well as I could with brake clean to spray where I couldn't reach kerosene,pipe cleaners rifle brushes and compressed air blow throw everything both ways,including the crank journals,multiple times. The heads on the crate motor may not be terrible, some of the crates had an 882 equivalent I think the numbers were 993 anyway they ran those on l82 Vettes not as good as a lot of heads but better than many.
Read small block bolt ons chevys gone wild.
My personal opinion is the stock heads a decent cam and intake is going to have you right in 300hp territory,with good torque and drivability. The bottom pic is a stock l82 stock 882 heads and cam choices have gotten better. Add an electric fan,underdrive pulleys and headers. I think you'll be real happy. And BTW most of the customers that brought us their engines had blown them up. I don't ever remember 1 coming back on us because we didn't get the trash out. Compressed air is your friend.

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[fast 99]

In the 80 and 90's we were doing re-rings all the time on vehicles with 80k miles. That is how long those old motors would last. Using a ridge reamer took that out, berry honed cylinders, cleaned blocks of visible dirt, cast rings, cleaned ring groves and Clevite 77 bearings. Usually didn't mess with cam bearings. Installed a new oil pump, reground cam, new lifters, timing set, reused the rockers, pushrods most of the time and got the heads rebuilt. Used all rebuilder generic parts as needed. We had 1 or 2 going all the time for about 10 years. They would usually last another 40k about the remaining life the body had. Can't remember one of these bighting us in the behind.

Keep in mind dislodged dirt could get inside the oil galleys. Only way to be totally safe is removing galley plugs. We did as little cleaning as possible.

What I am saying is don't over think it or over-spend. Less is more in your case.

 

[Rusty Nail]

Diesel fuel is much cheaper than aerosol cans of anything.
The L82 cam is win city.

Id reuse the good(er) bottom end and put it in the good(er) block.

Money will be well spent rebuilding the good(er) heads

 

[TravisB]

I let my dad have the block that had ate the cam. He’d been looking for a core to build a 383 from and his was at 60 over and needed work again.

I stuck the block from my truck under the workbench and started making plans for an ls swap.

 

[Rusty Nail]

Weak!

 

[Matt69olds]

What’s the budget? That will be a huge determining factor.

Can your nearest salvage yard. Around here, it’s easy to find late 80s-early 90s TBI engines.

Call your local speed/machine shops. The ones around here sell rebuilt short blocks.

It’s been years since I bought a remanufactured short block from advance auto/Napa/autozone, never had any problems.

 

[Camar068]

I let my dad have the block that had ate the cam. He’d been looking for a core to build a 383 from and his was at 60 over and needed work again.

I stuck the block from my truck under the workbench and started making plans for an ls swap.

yo.....I've got a harness and intake that came with the replacement for my locked up engine. I won't need them. That'll only help if your peicing it together here and there. Have a few other possible extra parts....why do I need 3 alternators and starters when I only have 2 engines lol.

 

[TravisB]

I might hit you up for a starter and alternator. I’ll have to see if I have a good one. I have came up with 4 of these ls engines since you were last by to visit. 2 had been through fires, one underwater after a hurricane and one wrecked so hard the block is broken. I have a few accessories from the crashed one but I’ll have to see what’s good when I get to that point.

I’m going the Tejas route for mounts and terminator x max for the electrical side. I’m getting pretty excited about it but my budget may stall things on engine build time. The mounts and terminator are here already.

 

[Camar068]

I might hit you up for a starter and alternator. I’ll have to see if I have a good one. I have came up with 4 of these ls engines since you were last by to visit. 2 had been through fires, one underwater after a hurricane and one wrecked so hard the block is broken. I have a few accessories from the crashed one but I’ll have to see what’s good when I get to that point.

I’m going the Tejas route for mounts and terminator x max for the electrical side. I’m getting pretty excited about it but my budget may stall things on engine build time. The mounts and terminator are here already.

I'm pretty sure I'll need a crank for the locked up one. May holler at you Sun/Mon. Not sure if your working Monday.

As for the one under water, if it's locked up, may try to put some molasses on it if it's rusted up.

 

[GTX63]

You can find new heads complete online for $500 or so; less than the cost of reworking those double humpers.
I had a 77 K10 with no motor. I also had a 79 Bonanza parts truck with a decent 305. Rebuild kit (gaskets rings pistons etc) from ebay was about $350. Put a $100 cam in with just a little lope to it. All honing, cleaning etc was done in my shop with basic tools. I ended up with about $800 in a build that turned the truck into a solid daily driver for years. It could have been just a bridge motor while I built the 350 if I wanted.

 

[GTX63]

In the 80 and 90's we were doing re-rings all the time on vehicles with 80k miles. That is how long those old motors would last. Using a ridge reamer took that out, berry honed cylinders, cleaned blocks of visible dirt, cast rings, cleaned ring groves and Clevite 77 bearings. Usually didn't mess with cam bearings. Installed a new oil pump, reground cam, new lifters, timing set, reused the rockers, pushrods most of the time and got the heads rebuilt. Used all rebuilder generic parts as needed. We had 1 or 2 going all the time for about 10 years. They would usually last another 40k about the remaining life the body had. Can't remember one of these bighting us in the behind.

What I am saying is don't over think it or over-spend. Less is more in your case.

I agree. My 6.0 late model Silverado should give me 300-400k with regular maintenance. However, technologies, oils, fuels, etc have evolved since then, and while I don't expect to pull 200k out of my gen 1 small blocks, they can be built today to last a lot longer before the blue ghost starts following the back bumper.