Your rebuild?

[edgewater1]

Ball-park it how much did you pay for a new or remanufactured engine, and who did you use?

[Mani]

To have my 351w block rebuilt with all new parts (pistons, rods, bearings, arms, pushrods, etc.) cost me a little over $800 at city motor supply in Dallas, TX. From my understanding of what it costs elsewhere around the country, that was a steal.

If I'm not mistaken, WakeMikey had a refurb engine put in his Supra recently. Might want to ask him.

[cadunkle]

That is insane Mani. At that price I would honestly question what was done to that engine and the quality of the parts and labor. I can squeeze a freshening up around that price point (rings, bearings, hone, lap valves, new gaskets/seals, etc.) but not a rebuild.

I'm usually around that price just in machine work. Throw in at least another $800 in parts. Want heads ported? Well count on 15-60 minutes per port depending on the head design and what level we want to bring it to, if it's not an engine I'm doing for myself, add another $500-$1000 labor depending on if it's a low performance quick and easy build or higher performance with more attention to detail.

Last engine I built was a mild 460 and it cost around $2000. That was cheaping out in some areas too as I was on a tight budget (hyper pistons, didn't replace valve guides, misc other shortcuts where permissible). Generally when I do a similar small block build it may work out a few hundred less in parts but not a huge savings.

[88MariahATX]

At the begining of the season last year I found out that I had a cracked block. So I found Rapido Marine in Florida. They had a 351w short block for $1200 and a long block for $1400. I went ahead with the long block just to have all refreshed parts. In the end it cost me $1500 including shipping and got it in a week and a half. I hadn't had any issues with it as of yet, it runs great. My only complain with Rapido Marine is that there customer service could be alot better.

[wotan2525]

$800 is INSANE!

I did the rebuild myself (first time for everything) because I couldn't afford to hire anyone to do it. I think I probably had around $1400 in parts and machine work. The machine work included decking and magnafluxing my block, valves + valve guides and leveling the heads. My engine did not need to be bored. For the engine it was new pistons, rings, bearings, crank, cam, pushrods, lifters, oil pump, gaskets and seals.

I did it slowly and in pieces so that I could afford it.

[87SunSportMikeyD]

Dug this up for ya. Sorry it's a ton to type out. PM me anytime. Edit: It's not a "NEW" motor, it's a newly rebuilt motor, please excuse my grammar below.

Ok here goes. We talked with XXXX and XXXXX dealers and they both wanted $120/hr labor. Neither was particularly eager to take on our project, and kept pushing the appointment out. We went and found a mechanic on Craigslist in XXXXX for $50/hr who also gets great prices on parts.

We believe it was a thrown rod but have not spent the money to have him investigate fully. It stinks to have to spend the money but it wasn't a tough decision to get the new motor, really.

We ended up finding the longblock for $950, it was rebuilt professionally by Jasper engines. It was still wrapped in plastic on the pallett. A repair shop had them and went out of business. He has at LEAST 10 different engines of different styles.

Ford PCM 351 Windsor is what I have. There is also a Cleveland model (based on where they were manufactured) but they are much more rare. I was told there are certain ranges of year that have slightly different motors. For example, for our 1987 SunSport, they had 351W's compatable with boats in the 1986-1989 range.

We ended up spending $950 on the motor and $1600 on parts AND labor. A dealership would have charged us well over $6k for everything and they would NEVER consider using a motor supplied by me.

Here are some pics of the engine and our boat. Also the thread details our ownership over the last couple of years and has tons of pics and movies of boarding and surfing. Feel free to chat me up about anything.
http://supraboats.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=3630&page=24

[cadunkle]

Not to rain on your parade Mikey, but I don't view Jasper in high regard. There's a reason Jasper and many other big name high volume rebuilders are cheap. Little attention to detail, only replacing parts when aboslutely necessary, high "acceptable ranges" on clearances, etc. They're cheap rebuilds that will run. I've pulled a few Jasper engines apart over the years and it's downright scary some of the stuff you find in them. Rods installed backwards, pistons installed backwards, mismatched pistons, mismatched pushrods, cranks only ground on some journals, blocks only bored on some cyls, etc. Just a lot of cost cutting. Sure they run, but they're often not done right and show that upon teardown or when they wear out prematurely.

[87SunSportMikeyD]

I had my private mechanic go through the engine thoroughly. Thanks for the confidence boost. I must be in a bad mood, but I really don't appreciate your comments at all. They do nothing to help me; and if you want to help someone else why dont you recommend they seek a small reputable machine shop instead of a large volume rebuild company, instead of just ripping on stuff? Your comments on how much you hate Jasper are not really needed. All you did is tear down everything I posted about to help others and all the hard work I did / money I spent. Thanks a ton buddy!

[cadunkle]

Mikey, I don't mean to put down any of the work you've done on your boat. You've done a lot of awesome work, and thanks for documenting it for us. I enjoyed reading through your threads and seeing all the pictures of what you've done.

That being said, I'm just stating what I've seen when pulling apart Jasper and other mass rebuild shop engines. They cut corners to the limit to provide a low cost rebuilt engine that will run. I think from my comments, others have fair warning and may think twice before going with the mass rebuilder option. Without saying why to avoid them, many will not see any reason to (i.e. some random dude on the internet said he didn't like his Jasper engine but never said why).

I used to work in a mass rebuilder shop (not Jasper, we did big rig axles and transmissions), so I know how they operate. Some of the stuff I reused there and put back into "new" transmissions was parts that if I were doing a build for someone on the side out of my own garage I never would have reused. That's how the shop operated though, and if I replaced all the worn parts that still had some service life left in them I would have been fired for being an expense and throwing away too many "good parts".

So please understand I'm not tearing down your hard work. You boat is sweet and it sounds like you've got it dialed in pretty darn good. My point is, you never know what you get from a mass rebuild shop. If you had a friend who builds engines tear it down and blueprint it, then you should be fine.

[Ptownkid]

I have to agree with cad here Mikey...it's not fair to be upset because someone has an opinion or experience that differs from yours. Thankfully your engine seems to be giving you no problems and that's great.

However: I for one definitely want to hear ALL opinions when researching something like this, not just one side.

Don't take it personally Mikey, no one is trying to take anything away from you.