Crate 360 vs DIY Built

it is not yours unless you build it. Iv'e been building my own engines since age 14.
ain't blown one up yet, pretty good for over 10 builds.
# 11 might get me, maybe not, but we are talk'n over 700 horse.
good block work is key, the rest is cake.

you must know how to read and use tools.

I bought a complete carb to oil pan LA 360/350 engine and I paid $5200 for it. It has been a terrible experience. First they told me it would be ready in a month wrong it took about 5 month. We installed it, It fired right up ran good looked great ever body was happy. Then 270 miles later it broke a pushrod and lost oil pressure. They told me I had to pull it out and send it back and they would fix it. My warranty says if less than 3 month old they would pay up to $1500 field labor. They refused to do this. So I pulled the motor and sent it back. This was April 9,2014. I still havnt got it back. It took me asking several times just to find out my cam and specks. They also refuse to move it ahead of other jobs. I had to argue to get them to re dyno it which I paid for the first time. So its been since Sept. till now and still no motor. This is a out of state shop but advertised in MOPAR mags. BBB gives them a A rating. This is my experience with my first and last crate motor.

Do it yourself. Worst case scenario you have to buy a couple new parts and do it again but that's called learning. I never understood why guys got so anxious about first time builds.

doogievlg said:

Do it yourself. Worst case scenario you have to buy a couple new parts and do it again but that's called learning. I never understood why guys got so anxious about first time builds.

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It's a little intimidating and scary for your first time. My brother and I started when I was only 13. It was good having someone with you for help/moral support.

We made some mistakes, but learned from them, and keep improving and learning as we go.

With the internet today, we cannot be there with you, but can still give you the advice and support to get you through your first build.

Get some service manuals to cover the year and model of your car for reference. I learned alot from reading the service manual for what I didn't know. "How to Rebuild Your Small Block Mopar" book is a good reference also. I prefer the older versions that have the parts ID section in Chapter 4, which they took out of the newer editions. Even so, the information on rebuilding in either edition is worth reading.

As mentioned before, if you decide to buy a crate engine buy it from Mike at MRL Performance. He has a 360 classic cruiser engine combo the makes 375 hp and 410 torque for $5750.

cudaracer said:

^
Assuming I don't have the resources like rusty to do much of my machining or assembly, or the lack of tools for that proper assembly, or the adequate experience with a bastardization of mopar components and their proper needed marriage, (cam needs, etc.) or for that matter....Any experience assembling a complete motor ever and the future time to do it myself....then how much of a gamble is the cheaper option of a warrantied crate motor?

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Cop out, it doesn't take but a couple cheap tools to do an engine, far from a large investment. Only difference between a professional and an amateur is they've done it more times, nothing like firing up your own engine you made in your back yard.

If yer scared, then I recommend this. Buy an old 318 from somewhere for 100 bucks. One that ain't locked up. A good core. Might can even find a free one. Tear it down. Mark all the parts from where they came from. Then reassemble it. No gaskets required. Do it as many times until you are familiar with it. You can even dering and rering the pistons to get a feel for how to do it. It won't matter if you break a few. Just learn how.

RustyRatRod said:

If yer scared, then I recommend this. Buy an old 318 from somewhere for 100 bucks. One that ain't locked up. A good core. Might can even find a free one. Tear it down. Mark all the parts from where they came from. Then reassemble it. No gaskets required. Do it as many times until you are familiar with it. You can even dering and rering the pistons to get a feel for how to do it. It won't matter if you break a few. Just learn how.

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Not a bad idea. :cheers:

great idea. Rob

1967 'cuda said:

The benefits you get from a good engine builder are features such as head porting, establishing optimum quench, flow testing, having your heads cc'd, cam degreeing, expert selection of components, etc, etc...

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You can do half of that that on your own for free!

1967 'cuda said:

Was it hard? No. - But I know I lacked the expertise to choose the best working combo for my builds.

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You aren't any closer now are ya? It's still a secret to you.



It comes down to this, do you want an experience, or an expense?

Had enough of that square head Charger dude. I'm comin after you. And there's nuthin you can do. LOL

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I agree 100% btw. Just my points are some folks just ain't got the budget.

<<<<<<<<< Now look in yer rear view. beeeeotch. lol

1967 'cuda said:

The benefits you get from a good engine builder are features such as head porting, establishing optimum quench, flow testing, having your heads cc'd, cam degreeing, expert selection of components, etc, etc...

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RustyRatRod said:

Had enough of that square head Charger dude. I'm comin after you. And there's nuthin you can do. LOL

<<<<<<<<<<


I agree 100% btw. Just my points are some folks just ain't got the budget.

<<<<<<<<< Now look in yer rear view. beeeeotch. lol

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LOL! Alright Stevey.

I had good advice from my engine builder: The Iron of today isn't the iron from "The Day". he says the new engine stuff is mostly recycled Iron, and the second time around it isn't nearly as good. I always try to rebuild a good original block, then I feel I have something. I had a crate Hemi back in 2004 From Chrysler, and it was a piece of junk. I had to literally rebuild it in order to run it. It wasn't bored properly, and had the wrong rod bearings in it, right out of the crate. To add Insult to Injury, my machinist said:
That looks like a Chevy engine, with Indy parts. it doesn't look like the original he has from 1966 in the back room. I sold it and went back to the Original 440HP.(GTX)
Someday i'll find an original 66-71 and do it again. But to this day I don't trust crate engines, or the people that build them.:happy1:

1967 'cuda said:

The benefits you get from a good engine builder are features such as head porting, establishing optimum quench, flow testing, having your heads cc'd, cam degreeing, expert selection of components, etc, etc...

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I have a great head guy in Detroit that ports and does all my valve jobs. He's good, old guy retired from an engine plant - know his ****. His son started working for Racing team who races twin turbo 1/4 mile after working with his dad in the back garage.


When John (my head guy) found out how racer's guy was prepping the valve seats, he asked to let him do a set for him. With John's heads, he went from 6 second 1/4 mile into the 5's. John will even do valve jobs on private planes, which are more strict than cars.

You don't always need the fancy equipment to get good results.


Some of the guys on here, like me have been doing this for a while and know how to match our components. RustyRatRod is one of them, and there are many others, that I can't recall all of their names right now. My expertise is with the street/strip, and daily driver engines.


Figure out who knows what they are doing and follow their advice. Also, the more people that agree on a point, should indicate that it is right. If 3-4 people agree and 1-2 disagree on the same point, then I would listen to the majority.


But if you want to buy an engine already built and ready to go, I would use Mike at MRL before going crate.


My philosophy is to try it myself. If I f*ck it up, I can always pay someone to fix it, or learn from my mistake and redo it until it works. You learn more by doing it yourself, even if you make a mistake.

Heck, it's WHEN I make a mistake that I learn the most.

RustyRatRod said:

Heck, it's WHEN I make a mistake that I learn the most.

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That is so correct...if you never do anything you never make an mistake...and you never learn anything either...

RustyRatRod said:

Heck, it's WHEN I make a mistake that I learn the most.

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Yes, I've learned alot from making mistakes... :banghead: ops:


The first engine that my bro and I built, the guy at the parts store told us the wrong way to install the bearings and we ruined our crank. We bought a new crank and used REFERENCE BOOKS to install the bearings correctly. Never made that mistake again.... NEVER....

And I learned to use reference books for information when in doubt. Service manuals are great for reference. Too much information won't hurt you like not enough will...

PoisonDart74 said:

You can do half of that that on your own for free!





You aren't any closer now are ya? It's still a secret to you.



It comes down to this, do you want an experience, or an expense?

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We've probably done 90-95% of all the work ourselves on the vehicles we've got. The 408 that I ordered from Mike is the only engine I haven't put together in one of our shops.

I will be doing the 512 that's slated for our Charger myself too. But am I as confident in the decisions I've made on the 512 as I would have been if a really good professional builder had been calling the shots? No. I called several cam companies seeking advice on that build. Not all the advice I got was the same.

I did do my own porting and port matching. I polished the interior oil galleys as smooth as possible to improve oil flow. I de-burred everything. We did have Mark Kinser re-clearance the blower for us after we polished it. I modified the intake for distributor clearance so we wouldn't have to buy an offset. I always make up our own ignition wires. I've done all the body work. (replacing the floors, quarters, fenders, trunk floor, rear valance and repairing the rockers, roof, window gutters, cowl,hood, and front valance) I straightened and re-polished the trim myself. After getting out of the service, my son completely rebuilt the 4-speed while at tech college. I rebuilt the dash, rewired the car, rebuilt the grill assembly out of several parts grills. I did the 4 wheel disc conversion, subframe connectors, brake and fuel lines, mini-tubs, totally rebuilt all of the window crank/roller/guide assemblies, etc, etc,...

I'm not one of those guys with a big wad of cash that has everybody else building his cars. The cars and car parts I have are from 40 years of accumulating stuff. Most of my projects have set idle during the decades after I got divorced. Before I kick off I want to finish as many of 'em as I can.

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The decision to have someone else do the 408 came down to a time factor. I still had to swap out the 904 for a 727 that needed to be gone through. I still had to swap out the 7&1/4' for a Dana that I had narrowed. Yes I farmed out the narrowing of the Dana because I had a friend that already had the jig set up to do the work, but I gutted all of the 8-bolt lug stuff off it first. I also had to replace the fuel line with a 3/8 line and remake the brake lines to the rear end. I had subframe connectors to fab and install. I was replacing the power steering with a manual setup. I had an air fuel gauge that needed to be tied into the dash and exhaust. I was doing a lot of cosmetic changes to the car too. I'm still struggling to get all of the work done before the motor arrives.

I'm all for guys doing as much of the work they can themselves. But it's not always the best option open to them.

The 512 should be mean......with 5 plug wires yanked off.

I won't push the OP hard either way but.....I do most of my own work on all sorts of parts of all sorts of cars and trucks simply because of the lack of consistent reliability from so many shops at all levels.. JackDodge's story is sadly not all that rare. And the risks inherent in going with a crate engine from some large shop is not that much different.

To add to the stories...I built my first serious engine not having ever built a full enigne on my own before; I had replaced some valve guide seals and helped with a flathead rebuild. I did a lot of studying and asked a lot of questions and did not do anything too wild:
- just a good cam, carb, header, etc.
- basic porting on my own after a lot of reading on what was good for that engine at that time
- block, balance, and head machine work at a good local shop that did race work
- learned about and bought good quality bearings and rings (Clevite 77's and moly top rings) and TRW forged pistons
- and then paid close attention to clearances, torques, etc.

I got over 100K of hard miles on that motor, with a lot of hard street race miles and towing a race car for thousands of miles later on. (It sits in my garage covered with tires waiting for a new body some day!)

SO I add my vote to build on your own. There is so much good info avialable on this forum and others these days that you don't need to wait to read a year's worth of CarCraft and HotRod to find out what are the good parts to use and the good things to do for your engine. I had basic car tools before, and added a torque wrench and learned how to use Plastigage and Locktite for that build.

Get that tranny rebuilt at a good local shop. Good luck!

The bottom line is, the more work you do on your car, the more you learn about the hobby that you chose to get into. It just never made sense to me why people get into a hobby, but won't do some of the main stuff it takes to get the car done. I can understand maybe farming out paint work and heavy body work, not everybody has the specialized equipment and knowhow there. But things that screw together with nuts and bolts......no offense meant, but a chimp could learn do that. It's really that easy. There's absolutely no reason not to do it unless like said above time or something else keeps you from being able to.

doogievlg said:

Do it yourself. Worst case scenario you have to buy a couple new parts and do it again but that's called learning. I never understood why guys got so anxious about first time builds.

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Im anxious cuz ive already owned the car for almost 5 years and still haven't had any fun on it! hahaha least not the tire smoking kind of fun:burnout:

Any recommendations on a building book? there are tons so I never know whats a good reference. I really hope I can get this engine to push around 20mpg and 300hp, but im flexible on both. The fun factor has to be there, but it needs to be economical enough that I can drive this to work and school when I return to civilian life!

I highly recommend this old Petersen book; it has a ton of general rebuilding info on cars of this era and shows lots of illustrations that helps you understand general operating principles, and includes a section on engine overhauling. I learned a ton from this book; it does not have everything on every car, but it has so much info that you can usually get started in the right direction from this.

[ame]http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/400613452242?lpid=82[/ame]

300 HP and 20 mpg is doable, you just need to go with a torque motor build with a torque cam and good breathing mods (mild porting, moderate sized valves, headers with long collectors or H pipe, good intake manifold), not a cam with lots of duration and overlap and a wild lope that is made for lowest et's on the strip. Compression ratio in the 9.5 to 10 range tops (with today's fuels). Light valve train parts and good lifters that won't tend to pump up will help you rev to 6k. Have the bottom end balanced with the right external parts, rods prepped (you can find best info for this engine on this forum I bet), journals polished, perhaps rods and crank shot peened, and everything in the bottom end measured and re-measured for clearances, and then you can rev without fear. I'd stay away from high RPM stall torque converters, and no steep rear gearing is needed on the street; you can do fine with a tall rear gear in the low 3's range with an auto trannie; moderate level of shift kit in the trannie. 600 cfm vacuum secondary carb will do adequately and keep good mileage. Put $$ into good internal engine parts and all new stuff, including oil pump, distributor, timing chain & gears.