Rebuilt $350 long block questions

[scenic760]

^^^
x2

Life lessons to be learned here as well. No disrespect to the OP, as you seem like a capable/intelligent guy, and I'd say most of the blame is on the machine shop. Best of luck and again keep us updated!

Much appreciated, I have had nothing but the best of experiences with this forum and it's members.. I really do appreciate all of the input

 

[Waylon]

The block visually looked clean... I was hoping for a .010 or .020 over...

I guess that's another issue I can't understand, why you would keep boring a block and install 2 sleeves if it was so jacked up on the first cut... that would lead even a rookie machinist to think there was something wrong with the block and its probably not worth building?

You are right on the money. No plain 350 is worth sleeving twice. And 0.060 over is the end of the road for a street engine without block filler.

 

[QBuff02]

Hey All,

I had a local machine shop come highly recommended and had them build out my long block. First the pricing went from $1800 ball park on the phone, to $2500 after it was dropped off and gone over for a quote to a final $3200 when I picked it up...I get it that things change but it almost doubled...

That being said, I took a closer look at the receipt and it said 2 cylinders needed to be sleeved and it they bored .060 over. The kicker to whole thing is that when I brought it in, they measured the bore right in front of me and said it was a STOCK BORE?! They also never said anything about sleeves or boring .060 over anytime I spoke with them on the phone or otherwise. I'm not sure how or why you would end up at .060 with 2 sleeves coming from an uncut block?

I tried to call them twice now with no answer to ask them if they messed up the billing or they really bored a stock block .060 over, installed 2 sleeves and went on down the road with a $3200 build. I think if they would have called me and said they were going to have to do that I would have picked up my stuff, paid their inspection fee, sold the 487X casting heads and bought a 290HP GM crate motor. Am I overreacting over here?!

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Back when I worked at the engine shop depending on the year/casting of the block, we saw a lot of old and tired small blocks require .030-.040 to clean up the ridge at the top of the cylinders to square (round) the bores up. It wasn't that uncommon. Some of the better blocks and good cores would go at .020. But if we had to overbore more than .040 the customer was always made aware, and ab-so-lutely the conversation was had if ANYTHING required sleeves. And usually about the only time we sleeved a cylinder in a production block was if the block had a bunch of prep work already done on it, as in it was an already built high performance engine being pulled down for a problem or a freshening with block clearancing due to stroker internals, or splayed caps, line boring, decking, etc. previously done to said block. If they measured it right in front of you did they say anything of the condition of the bores? Was there a very defined ridge at the top of the cylinders? Did you disassemble the engine yourself? Were the pistons hard to push out of the bores if you did remove them yourself? And what about your crankshaft and why they couldn't grind and reuse yours? Makes me question the condition and how true the main journals are and if they checked them. I definitely would have some questions about this build if it was mine. Because if i'm at the point of sleeves and a different crankshaft, I would have sourced a different block and than I would have sprung the extra money for a complete rotating assembly from the aftermarket and had all virgin parts. If you're already buying pistons and a reground crank, plus i'm going to assume reconditioning the stock connecting rods, then why not a complete new assembly? A crank regrind is anywhere from $100-$175 for a v8 here and you can get a new crank for say $175-$225 on average for a good aftermarket "stock replacement" type piece. But by the time you buy the pistons, do the rods, and grind the crank.. for a couple hundred more or LESS than what you paid for what they did you could have installed a complete new rotating assembly. But I guess at the end of the day if they can explain it so it makes sense that they did what they did and they give you a warranty on their parts and workmanship/build, i'd be a little less aggravated about it. The other work on the bill makes sense for a build, even if they don't know how to spell..

 

[Octane]

They had the new guy do the block,the "trainers"had to fix it.And the business is screwing you is a likely scenario.Refuse to pay,get a lawyer if you can.Picket their business out front

 

[82sbshortbed]

I think I'd tell them they could keep the motor and go buy a crate 350 motor for less than 3,200 that has 345 hp and a warranty and free delivery. I saw a lot of crate motors for less than 3k. Just depends on what you are looking for.

If they don't want to work with you. Because they're definitely trying to have you pay for their mistakes.

 

[Catbox]

Common guys, 350 blocks are hard to come by nowadays.
Its not like they are laying around everywhere....

Wait.
I have 3 350 block/engines.
One 283 block/engine.
One 454 complete.
2 or 3 VW engines.
Those are just the ones not in cars too boot...

Wait, you can find them everywhere.
There is no reason ever to sleeve a street driver block.

If they ****** it up when machining, they should have simply called and explained what happened.
Then sourced you a comparable block to work from.

Easy peasy.

 

[scenic760]

Back when I worked at the engine shop depending on the year/casting of the block, we saw a lot of old and tired small blocks require .030-.040 to clean up the ridge at the top of the cylinders to square (round) the bores up. It wasn't that uncommon. Some of the better blocks and good cores would go at .020. But if we had to overbore more than .040 the customer was always made aware, and ab-so-lutely the conversation was had if ANYTHING required sleeves. And usually about the only time we sleeved a cylinder in a production block was if the block had a bunch of prep work already done on it, as in it was an already built high performance engine being pulled down for a problem or a freshening with block clearancing due to stroker internals, or splayed caps, line boring, decking, etc. previously done to said block. If they measured it right in front of you did they say anything of the condition of the bores? Was there a very defined ridge at the top of the cylinders? Did you disassemble the engine yourself? Were the pistons hard to push out of the bores if you did remove them yourself? And what about your crankshaft and why they couldn't grind and reuse yours? Makes me question the condition and how true the main journals are and if they checked them. I definitely would have some questions about this build if it was mine. Because if i'm at the point of sleeves and a different crankshaft, I would have sourced a different block and than I would have sprung the extra money for a complete rotating assembly from the aftermarket and had all virgin parts. If you're already buying pistons and a reground crank, plus i'm going to assume reconditioning the stock connecting rods, then why not a complete new assembly? A crank regrind is anywhere from $100-$175 for a v8 here and you can get a new crank for say $175-$225 on average for a good aftermarket "stock replacement" type piece. But by the time you buy the pistons, do the rods, and grind the crank.. for a couple hundred more or LESS than what you paid for what they did you could have installed a complete new rotating assembly. But I guess at the end of the day if they can explain it so it makes sense that they did what they did and they give you a warranty on their parts and workmanship/build, i'd be a little less aggravated about it. The other work on the bill makes sense for a build, even if they don't know how to spell..

Back when I worked at the engine shop depending on the year/casting of the block, we saw a lot of old and tired small blocks require .030-.040 to clean up the ridge at the top of the cylinders to square (round) the bores up. It wasn't that uncommon. Some of the better blocks and good cores would go at .020. But if we had to overbore more than .040 the customer was always made aware, and ab-so-lutely the conversation was had if ANYTHING required sleeves. And usually about the only time we sleeved a cylinder in a production block was if the block had a bunch of prep work already done on it, as in it was an already built high performance engine being pulled down for a problem or a freshening with block clearancing due to stroker internals, or splayed caps, line boring, decking, etc. previously done to said block. If they measured it right in front of you did they say anything of the condition of the bores? Was there a very defined ridge at the top of the cylinders? Did you disassemble the engine yourself? Were the pistons hard to push out of the bores if you did remove them yourself? And what about your crankshaft and why they couldn't grind and reuse yours? Makes me question the condition and how true the main journals are and if they checked them. I definitely would have some questions about this build if it was mine. Because if i'm at the point of sleeves and a different crankshaft, I would have sourced a different block and than I would have sprung the extra money for a complete rotating assembly from the aftermarket and had all virgin parts. If you're already buying pistons and a reground crank, plus i'm going to assume reconditioning the stock connecting rods, then why not a complete new assembly? A crank regrind is anywhere from $100-$175 for a v8 here and you can get a new crank for say $175-$225 on average for a good aftermarket "stock replacement" type piece. But by the time you buy the pistons, do the rods, and grind the crank.. for a couple hundred more or LESS than what you paid for what they did you could have installed a complete new rotating assembly. But I guess at the end of the day if they can explain it so it makes sense that they did what they did and they give you a warranty on their parts and workmanship/build, i'd be a little less aggravated about it. The other work on the bill makes sense for a build, even if they don't know how to spell..

I appreciate the inside scoop!

I actually sourced and purchased the block disassembled because the engine I pulled out was complete toast. The block was in remarkably good shape (to the naked eye anyways) with no ridges...I dropped it off at the shop and after we unloaded everything he grabbed a piston and ran it through a couple of cylinders, he then took the rings off the piston and hit it with a mircrometer and he looked kinda surprised and said "That's never been bored" he looked at the crank and said, "Hmm..we are probably going to have to grind that .020 which is abut the max you want to go, we probably have another crank laying around the shop we can use." The only conversation we had about boring it was "We will probably just go .030 over" which I was OK with and felt that going .030 over would guarantee a one punch truing of the bores, rather than cut .010 then look, etc...we talked about putting a little bit beefier cam in it and I said sure but I still have to have it pass smog..he asked me to give him a few days to look it over and work up a price.

He called me a few days later and said he would bore it .030 over and it would be around $2200...I said OK and my thought was that the extra $400 over what I was initially quoted on the phone was the cam upgrade...He said he needed to send out the crank, flexplate and balancer to have someone balance it so I needed to drop off the flexplate and balancer.. I started thinking about it and I called him back a few hours later and said if we are going to have to do all of that why don't we just do a 383 (and I asked if he thought that would pass smog and he said it would) and, as you said, get a completely new rotating assembly already balanced. He said he would work up a price for that, which in my head was maybe a couple of hundred more. The next conversation we had on the phone was that the stroker was going to cost me $3500-$3600 because there was some extra work they needed to do above and beyond a 350 rebuild. I told him it wasn't worth it to me for the extra $1300-1400 and said just keep on the path of the 350 build...he then brought up the cam again and said that was going to be another $300 on top of the $2200...at that point I was like you know what they came highly recommended and $2500 for a solid, mild street performance motor build wasn't all that bad. Not to mention they had all my stuff...

Next call was hey, your engine is ready...I said cool, I'll come get it tomorrow. And that's how it all began!

I think as you said everything would be explainable right up to the point they bored out the block .060 over, put in 2 sleeves, forgot to mention that part and hit me with a bill $700 more than our last conversation. That to me is an almost unbelievable scenario and something got lost in translation with shop tickets flying around and getting added to the wrong build, etc... I'm not really sure how that whole process works but I'm sure there is some accounting method. However I have tried to call twice now and no answer, I thnk next phone call I'm going to call from a different number! The knowledge I'm gaining from this thread is going to help me immensely when I do get them on the phone.

 

[QBuff02]

I appreciate the inside scoop!

I actually sourced and purchased the block disassembled because the engine I pulled out was complete toast. The block was in remarkably good shape (to the naked eye anyways) with no ridges...I dropped it off at the shop and after we unloaded everything he grabbed a piston and ran it through a couple of cylinders, he then took the rings off the piston and hit it with a mircrometer and he looked kinda surprised and said "That's never been bored" he looked at the crank and said, "Hmm..we are probably going to have to grind that .020 which is abut the max you want to go, we probably have another crank laying around the shop we can use." The only conversation we had about boring it was "We will probably just go .030 over" which I was OK with and felt that going .030 over would guarantee a one punch truing of the bores, rather than cut .010 then look, etc...we talked about putting a little bit beefier cam in it and I said sure but I still have to have it pass smog..he asked me to give him a few days to look it over and work up a price.

He called me a few days later and said he would bore it .030 over and it would be around $2200...I said OK and my thought was that the extra $400 over what I was initially quoted on the phone was the cam upgrade...He said he needed to send out the crank, flexplate and balancer to have someone balance it so I needed to drop off the flexplate and balancer.. I started thinking about it and I called him back a few hours later and said if we are going to have to do all of that why don't we just do a 383 (and I asked if he thought that would pass smog and he said it would) and, as you said, get a completely new rotating assembly already balanced. He said he would work up a price for that, which in my head was maybe a couple of hundred more. The next conversation we had on the phone was that the stroker was going to cost me $3500-$3600 because there was some extra work they needed to do above and beyond a 350 rebuild. I told him it wasn't worth it to me for the extra $1300-1400 and said just keep on the path of the 350 build...he then brought up the cam again and said that was going to be another $300 on top of the $2200...at that point I was like you know what they came highly recommended and $2500 for a solid, mild street performance motor build wasn't all that bad. Not to mention they had all my stuff...

Next call was hey, your engine is ready...I said cool, I'll come get it tomorrow. And that's how it all began!

I think as you said everything would be explainable right up to the point they bored out the block .060 over, put in 2 sleeves, forgot to mention that part and hit me with a bill $700 more than our last conversation. That to me is an almost unbelievable scenario and something got lost in translation with shop tickets flying around and getting added to the wrong build, etc... I'm not really sure how that whole process works but I'm sure there is some accounting method. However I have tried to call twice now and no answer, I thnk next phone call I'm going to call from a different number! The knowledge I'm gaining from this thread is going to help me immensely when I do get them on the phone.

If those two bores either showed evidence of cracks or coolant ingestion due to cavitation/pitting and the like once they started working on it they should have at the least made you aware of it, and the potential remedies and talked it over with you at the very least before just going to town and boring out and pressing in new sleeves I feel like. And I don't think it's any fault of yours just to be clear, but if an engine guy can look at a crankshaft and determine it's going to need at least .020 under to clean up I would start questioning the rest of the engine as it's at first glance had a tough life or lack of proper care at best. I'm not trying to bash an engine shop but their practices sound marginal at best, and they either aren't very big or not well versed because any engine shop I've ever walked in to that does performance work has had an in house balancing machine. But that's also what confuses me more, Is this guy knew or suspected it would need balanced (truthfully it's cheap insurance and good business especially when you're doing component changing from factory weights) and at the cost of grinding, reworking, sending out for balancing and installing did it anyway. But for arguments sake it's almost a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of deal. because at the cost of reconditioning your existing parts and buying new rings, bearings, pistons, etc. you're going to have several hundred dollars in your bottom end, but on the other side of the coin for a few hundred dollars more you can buy a rotating assembly that's ready to go. So what it really boils down to is your intended use, because those factory parts will run a long damn time when they're made to be good as new. So the point i'm trying to make here, is communication could have went a long way with your engine.

As far as converting to a 383, yes there are additional costs involved, as the block will need clearanced for the extra stroke and the connecting rods will need material removed to clear the cam, and if you do only say two rods that need material removed to clear the cam now you have to do all 8 the same AND then have to have the rotating assembly rebalanced accordingly. So there is extra cost in both the parts and prep work to make it a 383, which dollars wise, he probably wasn't out of line on. At the end of the day, when you're spending a couple grand plus, you want to have a warm, fuzzy feeling about it. and the way they went about it understandably doesn't leave you with that. They need to make it make sense so you can feel good about it, and if it's got a warranty, that would make me feel a little better about it. There's a lot of good advice in this thread already, some of these things are just my .02, respectfully.

 

[scenic760]

If those two bores either showed evidence of cracks or coolant ingestion due to cavitation/pitting and the like once they started working on it they should have at the least made you aware of it, and the potential remedies and talked it over with you at the very least before just going to town and boring out and pressing in new sleeves I feel like. And I don't think it's any fault of yours just to be clear, but if an engine guy can look at a crankshaft and determine it's going to need at least .020 under to clean up I would start questioning the rest of the engine as it's at first glance had a tough life or lack of proper care at best. I'm not trying to bash an engine shop but their practices sound marginal at best, and they either aren't very big or not well versed because any engine shop I've ever walked in to that does performance work has had an in house balancing machine. But that's also what confuses me more, Is this guy knew or suspected it would need balanced (truthfully it's cheap insurance and good business especially when you're doing component changing from factory weights) and at the cost of grinding, reworking, sending out for balancing and installing did it anyway. But for arguments sake it's almost a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of deal. because at the cost of reconditioning your existing parts and buying new rings, bearings, pistons, etc. you're going to have several hundred dollars in your bottom end, but on the other side of the coin for a few hundred dollars more you can buy a rotating assembly that's ready to go. So what it really boils down to is your intended use, because those factory parts will run a long damn time when they're made to be good as new. So the point i'm trying to make here, is communication could have went a long way with your engine.

As far as converting to a 383, yes there are additional costs involved, as the block will need clearanced for the extra stroke and the connecting rods will need material removed to clear the cam, and if you do only say two rods that need material removed to clear the cam now you have to do all 8 the same AND then have to have the rotating assembly rebalanced accordingly. So there is extra cost in both the parts and prep work to make it a 383, which dollars wise, he probably wasn't out of line on. At the end of the day, when you're spending a couple grand plus, you want to have a warm, fuzzy feeling about it. and the way they went about it understandably doesn't leave you with that. They need to make it make sense so you can feel good about it, and if it's got a warranty, that would make me feel a little better about it. There's a lot of good advice in this thread already, some of these things are just my .02, respectfully.

Thanks again Q... I agree that you want to feel good about dropping a few grand especially for a quality product that gonna last you many a mile... and as you said, a professional machinist should know, or have a very strong suspicion, a block is going to need a sleeve WELL beforehand...

 

[scenic760]

Ok...talked to machine shop and the story was that two cylinders were out of round and he couldn't put two sleeves next to each other, whatever that means.. I reminded him the whole reason I did what I did, in sourcing a new block, was because I didn't want it .060 over as I was already at .030 over on the block I had. And the response "Well there is nothing I can do about it now. I can't take it back down and rebuild it." I had to grab a drink of water real quick to calm down...

I said why didn't you call me? "I probably should have but I got caught up" I told him if I had known it was going to need 2 sleeves and go .060 over I would have looked for a new block..He said well you know a 4 bolt block is a little harder to find, blah, blah...he kept saying "It's going to run fine, there is nothing wrong with .060 over" and I told him that I would hope it would run fine but I kept reiterating this isn't what we talked about and not what I was wanting. The other issue I'm worried about is that if two of the cylinders were oblong without the thing ever being bored, is it a defective block? So now I have a $3200 motor built on a defective block... I really didn't even go into the cost overrun issue at that point as he obviously isn't listening (I read an article somewhere that to sleeve a cylinder is about $400? That almost lines up exactly with the overrun) ...so I left it with "well, I guess I'm just going to have to figure out what I'm going to do from here..."

So I'm not sure where to take it from here folks...obviously they (or more in particular the guy who I was dealing with the whole time) isn't interested in making it right so most likely I'll have to go down the credit card dispute route. The problem there is that I think the entire charge gets disputed whereas I see a little bit of value in what they have done. I guess the way I'm looking at this is I have a rebuilt SBC 350 that is .060 over so when it does die, the block is dead. There is still some value to the valve job, etc... not exactly sure how I should be looking at this but I'm thinking it's probably WORTH 1/2 of what I PAID at this point?

 

[scenic760]

So now I'm at the point of being completely pissed off as I've spoken with a couple of friends who build race trucks (they live out of the area so I didn't ask them for the machine shop rec) and they said they have NEVER seen an unbored block that would need to go .060 over for out of roundness, much less a sleeve...much less 2 sleeves. They said if they screwed that up that bad (and lied about it), what else did they screw up? The shop is giving a 6 month, 6k mile warranty but given what has transpired so far I'm counting that as worthless...

So the way I'm looking at this now is that I have a potential time bomb by putting this in? Really, the true equitable solution would be for them to take this engine back, refund my money and give me a complete unassembled, unbored 350... however, I really don't see this happening

Now I'm thinking the only value they brought to the table was a valve job?

 

[Catbox]

I would dispute the entire bill.
If they want it back to make that happen, then so be it.
Give it back.
You are out the cost of the parts engine you took to them at $350, but you have don't have a janky engine and that constant wonder and distaste for your pride and joy.

In SoCal you would think that you would be able to throw a rock and hit a competent machine shop.

 

[Bextreme04]

I agree with catbox. I don't think I would have even picked it up TBH.. I'd return the motor, dispute the charge on the CC and go get a crate motor that hasn't been FUBAR'd.

 

[scenic760]

Thanks for letting me bounce that off you guys...I'm not trying to leave someone high and dry and I just wanted to make sure I was thinking clearly... the other thing that is really starting to piss me off is the dismissive "Yeah, I probably should have called but got caught up" comment..

 

[BillK]

My main concern was that they gave you a quote and then the final bill was substantially more. Without having seen the block its hard to say why it needed two sleeves. But ..... I have seen plenty of standard bore engines that were left sitting with water in a couple of cylinders and ended up either needing sleeves or a new block.

The $3200 final price is not all that bad. Its hard to build an engine and stand behind it for much less than that now days.

Bottom line is that they should have called you before doing anything above the original estimate.