Need a New 360 Engine

i guess replacing the engine is mildly easy for a run-of-the mill mechanic. As long as he/she is careful enough , for example, to take a lot of pictures for every step that was being done.

so in my opinion, being careful and dedicated is much more important than being a specialist. Or i may say there isn't any "specialist" for replacing a 360 engine, or any engine for that matter.

 

Exotic Auto Recycling is basically a wrecking yard, they part out cars. They are pretty good guys and have a lot of things so a good resource. Having said that, why are you replacing the motor and do you really want a used motor of unknown condition? Why not just rebuild your engine? But, the swap should be (relatively) straightforward.

 

I hate seeing posts like this...what happened? Brian (@97 Spider Spider) is parting out a low mileage 360 right now, contact him, he typically has really good prices.

 

Exotic Auto Recycling is a good spot to start. As above, what happened?

 

i have bought a few parts from those guys and they were great. Otherwise cant say if replacement or rebuild is better or worse but buying a salvage engine is pretty straight forward. Should be fine IMHO. Good luck...In central valley calif I guess?

 

Remember that change of the whole motor (block etc.) may affect resale value as the car no longer is "matching numbers". Rebuilding existing "short block" obviously won't make same effect. Plus building an engine will give you 100% new engine compared to even 10-15k mile used engine - you can't never tell how it was abused.

 

Interestingly enough, I drove a 360 where someone had warped the heads slightly so they machined them and put it together again. WOW! It is amazing what a few thousands can do to the power output of our cars. That car was fast and had a lot more power than my car. And yes, I had driven it before so I had a baseline compare.

 

No surprise there ... Warped head = blown head gasket = low compression = lower HP. Same formula since Henry Ford came out with his model T.

 

I meant that I drove the car before the blown head gasket and after the repair. A fairly small bump in compression by surfacing the heads resulted in a BIG jump in power (as measured by the butt dyno). And my car didn't have a blown gasket but was obviously lower power.

 

Interestingly all engines manufactured can vary in horsepower quite a bit. Then doing anything to improve on power can have a dramatic effect.

Back to issue at hand would the OP be keeping the original engine? That could help come resale time or you could purchase parts and rebuild it yourself as a project. None the less I’d not part with the original engine even if you put a used engine in

 

An engine with 70k miles on it (presume by the post above) means a car with 70k miles on it. Ain't no worth all "value of the car". Matching engine won't make it a pristine specimen at any point in its history.

Get a cheap running block, put it in and drive the **** out of it. With high miles nobody is going to care about the matching engine in the next 2o -30 years.

 

I'm the one who had my engine torn down to the bare block and rebuilt. I had 70K miles on the engine when the head gasket pushed out. I had 11 mils shaved off of the heads, a five angle valve job, the cylinders honed, new rings, new main and rod bearings, new chain, new timing belt, etc. CRAZY acceleration compared to the first 70K miles of driving. And the engine is still performing flawlessly after 30K miles on the rebuild. Highly recommended.

 

more importantly, what'd the rebuild cost you?

 

Interesting to see if it passes CA smog. It should though...

 

Also very curious what the price range could be for a full engine rebuild.
What kinds of numbers do you guys see? It's always nice to be mentally prepared for the worst.

 

I'd like to think that the more important thing was that the engine has performed flawlessly for the last 3X,000 miles, but that's me.
The rebuild was in the high four digit range (parts and labor) and took two weeks.
John Heim from San Francisco Motorsports did the work.

 

Wow, that's actually much less that I thought it would be . Remember looking at some receipts when I was car shopping, a refurb engine from a Ferrari dealer cost upwards of $26k. No reason to go used if you could get a complete refresh for under 10 grand and still keep your car original.

 

Agreed. I'd gladly pay a premium to keep the numbers matching, and $10k is far less than what I was expecting as well. I wonder how much 360 challenge engine rebuilds cost. I've ready they generally are rebuilt every year.

 

High 4-figure range isn't bad at all... much less than I'd expect quite frankly. Looks like 12-14k for a used engine ask on eBay. Depending on how redneck.. *could* just replace the bent rod and bearing IMHO. Take off the affected cylinder head, undo the rod at the crank and push it and piston up and out then reassemble. Not sure if this is even viable... Easiest way is of course to just throw a used engine/block in and go with it..

 

I've bought from Exotic Auto Recyclers and it was a good experience. They ask high, so offer at least 20% less. Also, I would rebuild the engine rather than replacing it.

Last 360 engine I saw that they had they were asking $14K. A rebuild would be less than that with some indy shops.

 

if you could rebuild an engine for under 10K, I don't know why anyone would bother buying a used one from ebay or a wrecker for more than that.

either way, this is good info to know!