How many assemble their engines

How many assemble their own engines... and how many of you do not

  • Yes I assemble my motors

    Votes: 205 63.1%

  • Yes I assemble and do some machining of my motors/engines

    Votes: 85 26.2%

  • No I do not, Im not equipped to do and I pay other to do so

    Votes: 16 4.9%

  • No, I dont know how and I pay somebody to do it for me

    Votes: 19 5.8%
  • Total voters
    325
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I assembled my 318 while in highschool. Had local machine shop bore it out. That was over 10 years ago, and the car still isn't finished.:cheers:
 
I do all machine work and assembly I can. That was a LOT more than what I do now before my house and shop were burglarized about 15 years ago when we still lived in Macon.
 
i have always done my owm work ecept the machining part. Now with the cost of parts and machining. I have a short block done and I put my own cam, ect. in and together.
 

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Disassembly and assembly but no machining . Just picked up a 340 from a member on here for the Dart.
 
Machine work I don't have the knowledge or tools for,but assembly I can handle !!
 
I have only replaced wear items - rings, bearings, cam, timing chain, maybe 4 of my engines 4,6,8 cyl, all Mopar over 25 years. Honed cylinders with an electric drill. Heads I take to a shop. I mark all pistons and connecting rod caps so it all goes back as it was. If assembling a new engine, there are many more things to check - piston fit, valve clearances, and such and more ways to screw up.

It would be nice to "blueprint" everything even on a re-ring, but my thought is since the rings are much smaller area than cylinder walls, that is where most wear occurs, and I only making it better w/ new rings anyway. If minimal ridge at the top (after removing carbon crud) and you can still see the honing marks (at least at the bottom), a simple re-hone should suffice. The Mopar book says "OK to get just another 10K miles out of an engine". That sounds like a nagging Nelly. I get 200K miles.

When I pull the rear main cap to change the seal, if the bearing looks good and I know its history, I leave the others as is. I have replaced them from the bottom with the crank in place. The rod bearings more commonly show wear, so I usually replaced. I never tried measuring axial play and such.
 
I,ll do any work on my cars,except the machining part.With my race engine I leave that to the engine builder,to easy to screw up without the proper tools.:study:
 
I love to build my own engines. It's the only way that you know that it is done right. I don't have the machines to do my own machine work.
 
Hell I just do the easy stuff like installing the cam,heads,like said the easy stuff I even had Cindy install the heads on my old 318 and torque them.
 
Like most said, I do it all except the machining, but I do my own porting and polishing.
 
I do all work on everything lol.You should see the piles of my car right now.I will do all the body work replace one floor pan,prime and paint.All the engine work will be assembled by me and any head work if needed.If I had the multi-grand machines I would do that too.I do have access to a few machines but not a boreing machine so any over work will be hired out.
 
Last time, I had a neighbor help me with installing the pistions, crank and cam. Did the rest by myself. That was a 327. Am I allowed to say that here?
 
I do all my machine work, both heads an block, as well as my own assembly, but then again, I'm blessed to be able to go to school for automotive high performance.
 
65DartGTConv said:
Last time, I had a neighbor help me with installing the pistions, crank and cam. Did the rest by myself. That was a 327. Am I allowed to say that here?
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I'm surprised it made it thru the filters you have to type 3*2*7.
 
68dodge said:
i have always done my owm work ecept the machining part. Now with the cost of parts and machining. I have a short block done and I put my own cam, ect. in and together.
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Thats a great looking engine! I think I shall start a thread to show off engines now! :glasses7:

I have yet to NEED to build a motor, but when the time arrives i shall build my own
 
I have completely assembled quite a few in the past, but recently I let the machine shop assemble the short block to take care of any warranty issues and I do the rest. Degree the cam and setup the heads. So I do some of the work.
 
Wish you had the option of never rebuilt a engine,but planned on rebuilding one.
 
I grew up on LEGOs. If it can bolt on, slip in, or even pressed on, Im on it. If it has to be ground, bored or turned, its off to my man Slim. Peace of mind, and no one to blame. Machine work done.. "Trust, but verify" -- Ronald Reagan
 
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