Project: Resale Red - Page 5 - Lateral-g Forums

rickpaw · #41 03-13-2014, 06:41 AM

Looks like a wrong coolant was used? Wonder what those spots are on the cylinder wall.

U-turn · #42 03-13-2014, 08:27 PM

This continues to get worst. I would rebuild it.

65_LS1_T56 · #43 03-14-2014, 02:30 AM

FWIW, my 98 LS1 that had 172,000 on it looked almost identical when I tore it down. After a simple rebuild, cylinder hone and a crank polish, new bearings and rings, it's working great. Mine even had the 806 perimeter bolt heads like those, which ended up in the aluminum scrap bin as they aren't worth anything. Found a set of cheap low mileage 241's on craigslist to replace them. Not the best either, but the price was right and they looked new.
A Compcams trunnion upgrade will take care of the rockers too. Good luck, cool project!

rickpaw · #44 03-14-2014, 03:58 AM

You should check to see how much it cost to rebuild the engine vs buying a crate. It may be cheaper to rebuild it.

**GregWeld** · #45 03-14-2014, 04:21 AM

I've had several motors rebuilt -- and have also bought "crate" motors (if you consider (Smeding Performance a crate motor - which I do). It - like most things - comes down to QUALITY - and QUALITY doesn't come cheap. In order to get the costs down - production has to rise - or corners have to be cut. And like most things -- it all depends. Depends on how you plan to use it. Frankly - you don't need much of a motor to cruise around to car shows... you need a completely different build if you want to hammer it on the drag strip.

A really DECENT motor is the HO350/350 from GM.... you can get one complete carb to pan - including distributor and spark plugs even (the distributor needs to be recurved!!) for very little money. Smeding Performance has some variations of horsey power and use -- also pretty affordable and complete.

Some crate engine builders actually offer a warranty - nice peace of mind....

Or a simple rebuild or yours... like RickPaw pointed out - just do some comparison shopping.

rickpaw · #46 03-14-2014, 04:35 AM

Another thing to check is warranty from rebuilt engines vs GM crate engines. GM crate engines have 24 month warranty (there maybe fine prints). Rebuilt engines may not have warranties. My engine builder said when I picked up my rebuilt short block/heads years back that I have a 10 step warranty (10 steps out the door then I'm on my own).

**n77nxc** · #47 03-14-2014, 06:00 AM

Thanks for the input guys.

Has anyone ever dealt with Thompson Motorsports near Dallas. I ran across this engine package:

http://www.thompsonmotorsports.net/p...havmsf2qptjvm7

**n77nxc** · #48 03-14-2014, 06:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by U-turn

This continues to get worst. I would rebuild it.

I'm taking the positive attitude on this one….its getting better because now I can tell the wife I "need" a new motor. Haha!

Evan Iroc-Z · #49 03-14-2014, 07:30 AM

I have heard of Thompson, never dealt with them directly, but reviews have been positive.

On that motor, I am not entirely sure I would want to take a 5.3 and bore it out to 5.7. I know the iron 5.3s have thick cylinder walls and can take it, but I have always been against enlarging cylinder walls, just to enlarge them.

For the price you are going to pay for that one, why not look for a completely stock 6.0 with low mileage. If you search hard enough you will be able to find one with under 10K miles, that technically hasn't even been broken in yet, for less than the 5.7 you are looking at.

Your car, your money, just my opinion.

NvrDun71 · #50 03-14-2014, 08:18 AM

Check out the Texas classifieds section on ls1tech. There are a few ls1's for sale on there now. Short block and long block configurations pop up for sale fairly often. Rebuilding seems to get expensive quickly, unless your planning a stroker or big power I would look for a low mileage 6.0 as mentioned above, prob your best bang for the buck