gronlit Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I'm getting ready to rebuild my engine (70 454) and am looking for some advice. I've talked to a couple local machine shops and one them quoted the following: -Clean block/heads -magnaflux block -pressure test block/heads -cylinder bore -line bore -crank grind -valve guides -hardened valve seats -balance rotating assembly -check bearing clearances -Enginetech rebuild kit (hyperutectic pistons, bearings, oil pump, timing set, cam/lifters, rings, freeze plugs, gasket kit) they quoted ~$1800 for the above (~$1600 w/o bearing clearance check or rotating assembly balance), but since they haven't seen the engine the price could go down depending whether or not i need everything. Since i have never been through this before i have three questions: 1) does the price seem reasonable. I thought it did considering all the work/parts that were quoted 2) is Enginetech a good rebuild kit? Anyone else have have good or bad experience with them or recommend a different company? I'm planning on keeping the engine stock 3)At what point in the rebuild should i paint the engine, going for stock look. should i paint all parts before assembly, or wait till heads,oil pan, valve covers, water pump, etc installed? Thanks in advance Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam (Bones) Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I would definitely "pony-up" for some forged pistons over the hyper's and spend the money for the balancing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike 57 Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Like Sam I would go for balancing If you have performance in mind forged pistons are a good idea. If you are looking at a stock rebuild forged pistons are not as important. Stock are cast, cast hypereutectic are a step up from stock. Forged are best but they are also noisy on start up because they require more clearance. Enginetech: I was on their website, no idea where the parts are made. Some of the parts seem to be non standard in sizing to save machine shops machining steps. Like valves that are .008 larger on the stem so the original guide is just reamed instead of installing a new guide Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wallaby Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 You're going to be surpried how fast it all adds up. With my heads, it was cheaper to buy some assembled cast-iron Merlin heads than have my stock ones gone through. I wanted larger valves and hardened seats, but they couldn't do both with my stock heads. Another thing to consider is a different camshaft. The stock cam has little lift...of course that means going with different springs and long-slot rocker arms also. I went with a Lunati 60202 cam in mine; it has a smooth idle but brings more lift to the party making the engine more efficient...and adding torque & HP. There is no real downside to this swap. As for the engine kit: if it were me, I'd just feel better if it were from a brand I'd heard of...maybe TRW or something. I went with the hyper pistons and don't feel a need for forged. I was also demanding that my piston-to-deck clearance be set at zero. Chevy set the pistons down in the hole a bit to drop the compression. With a zero deck and a small dome piston with 113 chambers and a standard composition head gasket, I get 9.5 compression. Talk with your builder; the possibilities become endless. The big areas where improvements can be made are in compression and valve lift. You can make improvements in these areas and still be pump-gas friendly. I have no problem running 87 octane cheap stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heff Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 The price seems reasonable, I just had pretty much the same thing done to my 402 for about the same money as you mentioned. I would also look at reconditioning the rods, and using ARP bolts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72 LS5 Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Tim - let us know exactly what you are after performance-wise for this engine. I remember having the stock cam in my LS5 when I first got the car, and it really ran out of breath by 4000 rpms. A slightly more aggressive cam, maybe just under 230 duration at .050, and about 520-535 lift will not affect low end torque a bit, and will give huge mid-range gains. I also ran cast pistons for 22 years straight with that LS5, eventually getting in the 12s, with tons of 6000 rpm (and several accidental near 7000 rpm) passes with no issues. Call it luck, I dunno. Hypers are not bad, but I hear some manufacturers are better than others, so do your homework if you use them. Heck, GM puts Hypers in their 500+ hp Z06 Vettes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyDavey Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Hypers work fine in a n/a car but if you have any plans for spray you pretty much need some good forged pieces. The hypers are designed to run some tight clearances to keep the noise down from things like piston slap. They will need some good break-in time before they get flogged to hard....Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daprincipal Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I'm getting ready to rebuild my engine (70 454) and am looking for some advice. I've talked to a couple local machine shops and one them quoted the following: -Clean block/heads -magnaflux block -pressure test block/heads -cylinder bore -line bore -crank grind -valve guides -hardened valve seats -balance rotating assembly -check bearing clearances -Enginetech rebuild kit (hyperutectic pistons, bearings, oil pump, timing set, cam/lifters, rings, freeze plugs, gasket kit) they quoted ~$1800 for the above (~$1600 w/o bearing clearance check or rotating assembly balance), but since they haven't seen the engine the price could go down depending whether or not i need everything. Since i have never been through this before i have three questions: 1) does the price seem reasonable. I thought it did considering all the work/parts that were quoted 2) is Enginetech a good rebuild kit? Anyone else have have good or bad experience with them or recommend a different company? I'm planning on keeping the engine stock 3)At what point in the rebuild should i paint the engine, going for stock look. should i paint all parts before assembly, or wait till heads,oil pan, valve covers, water pump, etc installed? Thanks in advance Tim Let me guess Windy City? They just did the work on my 383...good shop good people excellent prices... I would upgrade on the bearings and pistons though...I went with King bearings throughout... They assembled my motor with the machine work, bearings and head and intake gaskets and bolts for 700.00... Good deal which shop are you going to? The one on stony or the one on 31st? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gronlit Posted January 24, 2011 Author Share Posted January 24, 2011 The place ive been talking too is Pakes's engine and machine in Janesville WI. I'm not looking to do anything extreme...was origionally planning on staying all stock, but now am maybe slight can/piston mods to unlock some of the available power. Plan to keep stock manifolds, carb, etc. No plans to race, just want sometime fun to drive which suspect the stock 454 would deliver. (car hasn't been driven for close to 30 years, i've never driven it) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72-CLASSIC_RIDE Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 I think $1800.00 is a real attractive price for whats being done! I spent around $2800.00 in a machine shop when I had my 402 rebuilt. He selected the new parts & performance Cam, Bored, Line honed, mic'd everything for fit and balanced as well along with all the normal work. That included all the Head work with hardened seats, bronze valve guides, valve grind, pressure testing and other details I have likely forgotten about. I did tear motor down for him and did all the reassembly myself though. I assembled motor with the Heads when I painted the block. As I was putting stainless hardware on selected locations, I did paint those areas that would be exposed to the paint first and then did the bulk of painting once assembly was together. For example, I painted the area around the fasteners on the oil pan and used old valve covers to protect the head internals. If you have a old intake manifold, I would use it to make a pattern when painting around the Intake side of the Heads. Other than that, I believe your good to go! Regardless of cost, I am exceptionally pleased with the work I had done. Don't want to have to go back into it because I skimmped on it. (A few extra dollars & thought can make a BIG difference in performance/reliability! Good luck on your build and hope it is more than you had expected as a result of the work done. Doug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gronlit Posted February 9, 2011 Author Share Posted February 9, 2011 Put together a spreadsheet so i could compare different options to see what happens to compression ration, quench, valve/piston clearance, etc. Armed with my new spreadsheet I started looking at some different options Looking at the enginetech kit it, if i assume their head gasket is .037" thick and the 0.030" over bore, this will drop my stock compression ratio from 10.25:1 all the way down to around 8.93:1 due to the lower compression height of the piston and the flat piston instead of domed. As Mike_57 mentioned i'm guessing this is to make this an easier solution for the machine shop. I would like to stick with the factory compression of ~10.25:1. After i find out how little of an over-bore i can get away with i'll pick a piston/gasket to get me there. Any reason i wouldn't want to stick with the higher CR? I'm willing to stick to premium gas to avoid detonation. Anyone have suggestions on where to look for the rest of the engine rebuild parts. I was looking on summit and found some sealed power kits, but there is only one kit with a domed piston and it requires a .060 bore, but i don't want to go that far if i don't need to. Also drops my CR down to ~10:1. I can buy all the parts separate, but it looks like if i buy all the exact same parts in the kit separately i will end up paying over $100 more. Looked on Jegs and couldn't find any kits. Anyone have recommendations on where i could get a configurable kit where i could get what i want but still get a break on cost for buying the kit? Or do i need to take the hit and buy everything separately? Any recommendations other then jegs or summit? I talked to Lunati about cam choices and they recommended their 302A6LUN cam. They said the 60202 would have a risk of detonation since it bumps up the dynamic CR. Still waiting to see what comp cams recommends. Planning to take the engine to the machine shop later this week to get started....i can see this is going to add up quick, and i haven't even gotten to all of the other component rebuilds (dist, carb, alt, water pump)! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmanabba Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 Something you might want to try is to go to the website of the manufacterer (Sealed power, Probe ect.) get the part number of what you want. Then go to Summit or Jegs and put that part number in the search area. I have done this and 90% of the time it will come up with the part. Summit and Jegs carry a lot more than what is listed in the catalog. I liken it to a grocery store that will push certain items ahead of others. Sometimes it saves you -other times not. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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