Rebuild prices..

[buddiiee]

Its time to yank my engine and freshen her up for spring. I'm not lookin for an 8 second rebuild. I want her stock and thats ok with me. first off, when one says 'rebuilding my engine' what exactly goes into that. a typical rebuild. and not when theyve blown something up, just a standard issue rebuild, and what should that cost. tell me some typical ballpark figures.

now, what if i just want my motor yanked, new bearings and rings put in, and throw im arp headstuds in there while youre at it, and reinstall it. whats a fair price in your guy's past experiences.

[Doc]

I won't be able to give you any specific prices as it's been a while since I've had any machine shop work done on engine parts. But, I can tell you that it will vary greatly depending on exactly what has to be done. And, the only way to know exactly what needs to be done is to take the engine apart and inspect the various components. It won't be expensive to just swap in new bearings. But, if they find that you need some crank work, head repair, and a few new valve guides once the engine is torn down...well..that's a different story.

My advice is to find a good book on engine rebuilding/blueprinting. It doesn't have to be specifically for the Buick V6 as the procedures are the same on all engines. That will give you an idea what kinds of things have to be done.

Basically, the procedure is going to be something like:
1. Remove engine from car and strip it down.
2. Take engine apart. Clean all the parts.
3. Inspect all the parts (rods/crank/pistons/block/etc.) for proper dimensions and presence of damage/wear/cracks. At this point you will find out if you need to have extra work done, such as crank journal repair, fixing a warped head, valve job, etc....
4. Perform the necissary work and then re-assemble the engine, using new parts as needed.

If you want to save as much money as possible then you might consider doing some of the work yourself. The more work you do yourself then the less you are paying your machinst to do. Machinist time adds up quick! Of course, you don't have the requisite tools and know-how to bore out your own block, but you might be able to do the grunt work of taking the motor apart and cleaning the parts.

Generally, I do all my own strip-down and assembly, but I bring in individual parts to the machine shop for inspection and work. It helps save a lot of $$. Assembly is not difficult so long as you have the proper specs and follow the directions carefully.

[buddiiee]

but i dont have a garage though ;( and the winters here in detroit are hard as hell. so i gotta drive it to my mechanics, and let him do everything.
as far as maching things. my engine runs just fine, should i need anything machined ya think? can you warp a head, and not know it?

[Phatman]

What is lightly modded, how many miles on the current build?

Check this out, it should give you an idea as far as what may need to be done.

http://www.gnttype.org/general/rebuild.html

[buddiiee]

well, i bought sophie with 69 grand on the odometer... the moron that had her before me had the old kenne bell CAI on her, some gay ass mild steel dual exhaust with some F***** UP really weird crossover on it, and HACKED a test pipe in, in place of the catlytic converter, hooker steel headers on it (which is a huge no-no on a near stock setup) chrome mass air pipe, he said a newer 2800 stall, some lame kenne belle chip, a 237 afpr, and some super hard radial T/A's, ZERO grip. so i took the restrictive bucket off of the CAI, blocked off the throttle body pre-heat, blocked off that turbo oil line thingy, cleaned the intercooler, threw in some new one degree cooler plugs, msd wires, 160 t-stat, new coil pack, and an acdelco pf52 filter with 6 qts of amsoil 30 weight turbo formulated synthetic. and I change my oil every 1000 miles. (yes im anal, i dont care) she ran just fine when I hibernated her for the winter. on the way to hibernation, i had to take her for a few laps on the local strip, to see what she would do. she still ran really strong, but i was hearing a TAD bit of what seemed like knocking to me. i'm assuming its rod knock, as i have had 4 cars with rod knock before, so i know what it sounds like.. so im going to pull the engine, just to make sure. im gonna do rings, springs and head studs anyways so, why not. maybe a tad bit deeper oil pan who knows. or that remote oiler thingy as well. i cant wait till that first super cold, but really dry spring morning when i get to take her out. its gonna be on.

[Doc]

One thing that you might want to consider is that as long as you are paying for a mechanic and machinst to pull your engine, take it apart, and do all the other prep work for a rebuild is to swap in some performance parts at the same time.

For example, you might think about swapping in a set of heads. The Champion CNC ported Iron heads are about $1100. That is actually a pretty nice price when you think about it. That includes new valves, springs, retainers, honed bronze guides, all the valve job work, etc, etc... They are ready to bolt on. If you were thinking about having your machinist overhaul your heads, this might be a good option. Yes, $1100 is a lot of money. But, on the other hand, you're not paying any machinist or parts cost for your stock heads. You just bolt 'em on and go. If your heads needed a lot of work (guides, valves, springs...) then it might even be cheaper to use the Champions...

Even if they are more expensive than a rebuild, you need to consider that you're already paying a lot of money for the teardown and re-install of the motor. You might as well make the best of that when you rebuild.

[buddiiee]

absolutely, i agree. but i'm doing my own little bullshi* experiment. yep, an experiment in
I wanna see exactly how all of this 'speed knowledge' adds up. I like to see if what everyones saying actually works, and by how much. I'm going to build my engine the way it was when it was stock. (well, as close as i can anyways) im going to dyno her before the teardown, then yank the engine..
all im doing to the actual engine, is replacing the bearings and rings, then throw some new valve springs and arp head studs in there.
and while its apart, im going to add some accel 30 pound injectors in there.
ill put her back together as she was, then dyno again. then throw a new fuel system in, and dyno again, and so forth and so on.... as for heads? that will be one of the last things I do. by next winter, i hope to have allll the highspeed mods on. but for this summer..the goal is to see how fast i can push a stock car im going back to the basics. after racing about 10 grand nationals out of the michigan turbo buick club on woodward this summer, ive seen myself, how fast near stock TR's go....and its freakin amazing.