84WHTBRD

ok, so i was in the middle of a 2.5L to 5.7L swap, wen the guy helping me totally bailed, which isnt to bad cuz the car was going to be sitting in my garage all winter anyways once it was done. anyways, the motor mounts are all in and the motors in, but it looks terrible, dont know wat hes done cant find half the parts and all that good stuff. anyways, i always said that once this car goes into storage for winter i was going to take the 5.7 out and either have it re-built or a new motor put in.

well, i got the car back to my garage last night and gutted it and decided to make it a project. theres some rust and wat not that id like to take care of before it gtes worse, re-paint it, new interiour, then it comes to the engine...so i geuss my question is do i get this engine re-built/bored out or w/e or do i buy a crate engine...what would be cheaper/better at the same time...i would like to run a supercharger ontop of the engine, so i dont iknow if that would have an effect on which way i would go, anyways, im kinda a newbie at this, i am a mechanic apprentice, so im doing the rest on my own. just looking for some advice along the way. thanks a lot, and sorry for the lengthy post.

Mat

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

To properly answer, we'd have to know exactly what engine is in there, and what condition it's in. Most likely it's a low compression, lame cam, dished-piston, large chamber smog headed anchor. Which means in order to build a supercharger-capable plant, you'd have to change the crank, rods and pistons to forged pieces, heads to something that actually flows, and cam to something intended for a supercharged application. Before you put any of that in or on the block, you'd want it magnafluxed for cracks and sonic tested for cylinder wall thickness to make sure it could handle the stresses it's going to see. If it has 2-bolt main bearing caps (which would be a good thing), you'd want aftermarket splayed 4-bolt caps installed and the assembly align-bored.

To buy a similar crate, you'd have to custom-order one to get what it takes to handle the supercharging. The typical off-the-shelf crate isn't going to cut it.

So, if the block is serviceable for the application, it would probably make the most sense to build it from scratch for the supercharger. If it isn't serviceable, you're looking at buying a custom-built engine.

84WHTBRD

yea, sorry.. the motor is a 350 from a 94 suburban..it had 180,000 miles on it, ran very nice tho.. so my best bet is to have the block checked out and go from there?...

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

That would be a one-piece rear main seal, roller lifter capability maybe machined, maybe not. Heads = anchors. Cam = doorstop. PM rods, nodular crank (I think), cast pistons. May or may not be 4-bolt main caps.

If you're serious about this supercharging thing, the block is about all you're going to reuse. Maybe the crank. Perhaps the rods if properly prepped.

If supercharging is really just a pipedream, then a standard rebuild with hypereutectic pistons and some different kind of head would be just fine.