Greetings all, I came across a deal and am curious about a few things. First off a guy I work with tells me he has a 350 bored .030 over that he says he has no need for and will sell it to me for $100. I thought about it for about .00000004 seconds before I told him "when can I pick it up?" Well, now that got the gears going in my head and I am considering turning this 355 into a 383. So my first question is does anyone know of a place where to get a rotating assembly for it? Also I don't know if it would help much but does anyone have any experience with balancing and blueprinting an engine? I am just wondering what it would cost to have that motor balanced so I can decide if it is worth the money.

Eagle,and Summit as well as others have rotating assemblies for the 383.As far as blue printing I am not sure of the cost.However the cost of balancing my 383 was included in the machining cost.Which was $400.00
Hope this helps.

You can buy a rotating assembly already balanced...externally or internally. The thing is you will most likely need to have the block clearanced for the 383 crank and rods, it's not that expensive but are you aware of this? On the other hand if that 355 shortblock doesn't need to be rebuilt and is in nice shape, why bother, your getting a motor for $100 bucks, buy a nice set of heads and a cam with the money your saving. As far as blueprinting is concerned, if you assemble the motor correctly, and the rotating assembly is balanced and your bearings are within tolerances, then blueprinting is really overated...it's not likely your going to be running this motor up to 7000+ rpm for sustained periods...is it?

I've rebuilt and own both the 383 and the 350. I love the 383. The only problem I run into is the camshaft. You'll need to get a camshaft with 0.100" off the base circle. depending on what rods you use. The newer blocks don't need to be clearenced like the older blocks do. the older blocks take about 20 minutes of grinding. But you'll really be happy with the 383 i'm sure.

Well, I plan on just having a strong street motor. No, I'm not going to high rev it for long periods of time, but once I start thinking of performance mods I go nuts with it. I just wanted to get some input and see what information was out there. The more opinions and information I can get from people on here, the closer I can get to making an educated decision. As for the condition of the motor, the reason I am getting it so cheap is that he rebuilt the motor and the oil pump pickup tube fell off while driving. He didn't hook up his gauges so had no idea his oil pressure went to 0 and spun a bearing. He had an estimate for new bearings and that was about $170. The motor is a fresh rebuild, 40 miles before he spun the bearing. The camshaft in it is stock, I have a mild cam in my 350ci now but was looking to replace my stock heads with aluminum heads so I planned on getting a new camshaft anyway.

scat 9000 crank aready balanced comp cam cs xe268h-10 can be used with stock torqueconvertor use valve springs 981-16 with this cam to keep from wipeing it out a set of edelbrock or procomp heads dual plane manifold 700cfm carb nice = nice useable street eng. :bat_angel:

i hope you have a good builder motor there,,,
but when they run with out oil,,,everything go's bad fast...is it tore down yet?

check for spun main,cam bearings , bad lifter bores,look at the block behind the cam gear.

150$ to balance one,unless u go internal balance,and need heavy metal.

as far as "blueprinting" goes,measure everything,and fix what needs fixin.like he said

383's are great,like he said watch out for the rods bangin into things. "block,cam"

A 383 is an engine Chevrolet should have built long, long ago---its as good an engine as there is----I've loved everyone I've had---so have the people that have talked me out of them, great performance and reasonable economy in one package.................Dan

How about this?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/EAGLE-SBC-CHEVY-383-COMPLETE-ROTATING-ASSEMBLY_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trkparmsZ72Q3a1205Q7c6 6Q3a2Q7c65Q3a12Q7c39Q3a1Q7c240Q3a1309QQ_trksidZp39 11Q2ec0Q2em14QQhashZitem250375062186QQitemZ2503750 62186QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessori es

You say you already have a 350, why buy a damaged one with an unknown amount of problems? Your plan of new heads and cam for your engine sounds like the better way.

I've been looking into getting a hydraulic roller camshaft but haven't found an answer yet on whether or not I can use the Pete Jackson gear drive that I have in the 350 right now. Is it recommended that I use a timing chain or can I reuse the gear drive?

I de stay with the 355 for a good strong street engin, hood set of heads maby if you want to spend the $ as far as the cam if you go roller you need to change a lot valve springs, push rods will need to install a button & ware plate, for what you are talking roller not needed your looking to spend a good $800 - $1,000 for a roller can & lifters ECT. call comp cams tell what you got what your looking to do & they will match the cam to your engin.
you should be able to reuse your gear drive I am building a 407 cid was a 377 and am useing my old gear drive I dont care for chains had 1 come apart 1ce what a mess, besides a gear drive sounds real cool..
it all comes down to what you want I personaly want it all 550hp in a street engin but to do it right make it bullet proof (you hope) cost $$$$$$$$ have about 6k in mine or you can do a good strong 350 350+hp for $2,000 give or take

Either the 355 or the 383 would be a great motor. How about pricing out both the buildups and see which yields the greater HP per $ ratio?

My guess is the 355 will be more cost effective (unless you didn't get a crank and pistons with the block purchase).

On the cost of balancing, it depends a lot on how much work the shop has to do to get it balanced. Standard pricing around here (RI) I think is between $150 and $250 for a V8. My shop cut me a $100 break because my pistons/rods had been previously balanced and all he really had to work on was the crank. Unless the engine was going to see 5500 RPM or more or you were going with an aftermarket crank, I personally wouldn't bother balancing it.

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Master Wrench I personally wouldn't bother balancing it.
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to not balabce a engin is asking for trouble

quote:mnunn (http://elcaminocentral.com/member.php?u=5598) http://elcaminocentral.com/images/lustrous/statusicon/user_offline.gif
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Master Wrench I personally wouldn't bother balancing it.
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to not balabce a engin is asking for trouble

Agree with you "If" you're going to spin it up.

It's wasted money if you aren't.

You might give some thought to building a 377. Thats a 400 block with a 350 crank and rods and 400 pistons. you could use your 350 crank and rods and with the weight of hypereutectic pistons you should not have a big cost to balance it. The 400 block really unshrouds the valves and that combo just loves to rev. They build big torque also. I could help you out with a fresh 400 block and a forged crank and hd rods from a 350 that were balanced. It had .030 over forged pistons so if you get .030 over hyper 400 pistons the weight might still be in the ballpark. Just something to think about.

Been my experience that the 383 is the way to go. Once you step on the thottle of that new BIG small block, you'll immediately know where that extra few dollars went for that crank. :nanawrench:

As to balance, that is a no-brainer; as to blueprint, there are a lot better things to spend your money on - :hail2:

Michael

I've been running a 400 (408 these days) since the 80s The thing about a 400 is the cooling. You really need a 7 blade fan with a clutch. Don't know about the 377. The siamesed 400 block is where the cooling is affected, (no gap between cylinders). Any time you decide to use after market or 350 type heads, they would need the steam holes drilled in the heads. No big deal there with a 400 head gasket for reference. The 383 has the advantage of the cooler running 350 block. As to timing chains, don't use cheap stuff. Cloyes tru-roller or equivelent is the way to go. Roller cams in older blocks need the expensive set-up to convert to rollers. Might be less expensive to use a Vortec block with original roller design. I was thinking at the last "re-fresh" to go to a roller. The tab for that was pushing 900 bucks, including the cam. I didn't go there. A bit more radical cam can be run with Rhoads lifters, which bleed off some of the duration at low RPM, providing decent vacuum for power accessories like brakes and heater/AC controls. They pump up as the oil pressure comes up, to deliver the cam's designed duration. They do "tick though" , and sound like the old Duntov solid lifter cams.

An engine that has failed from bearing spin would have to be completely dis-assembled and hot-tanked, just to get all the debris out of the oil passages and other parts of the engine. Other wise it's on borrowed time.

Sorry for the long post.........didn't intend to write a book:???: