Well I thought I could beat the price of a crate engine AND improve a stock engine, but I ended up spending about $1800 for a very mild 350, compared to a $1500 Goodwrench 350. The only benefit in doing it yourself is that you can peicemeal the costs rather than pay a crate price outright, but then you should be able to buy a crate motor on a credit card and pay it over time anyway. All I can say is that I could have bought a 383 for about $2100 but did not because I wanted to be able to burn 87 octane and so I chose a torque cam for low rpm in a 350 to go with a 700R4 OD transmission. In retrospect I can tell you that if I knew the essential prices I should have realized that you really can't beat the prices of the crate engines. Still for me I wanted to know what everything is in my engine, but I know from previous rebuilds there are always potential problems that you run into as a home builder that mfgrs. would avoid. So if you have at least $2500 get a crate engine, but if you are really trying to do it cheap you MIGHT have a good experience along with some risk of screwing something up. Actually I have rebuilt four engines previously, a VW flat four (twice), a Pinto 2000 and a MG Midget 1250 and although they ran I did not get as much mileage-longevity out of them as one would expect from a factory crate engine and now my first experiment with a SBC 350 is still untested, BUT knowing myself I would still prefer doing it myself just because I like to see engine innards! If we were practical we would proably all be driving Hondas anyway so I want to do it my way because I am not exactly a practical guy, and basically I got hooked long ago on my Dad's '69 Chevelle with a 350; an unforgettable experience!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder