Thread: Blown SBC 350. What now??

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Drew, it normally takes getting a few posts under your belt for the system to accept posting photos, or so I'm lead to believe.

As far as parts, my best advice is to not buy ANYTHING until you have the motor completely torn down and checked for water leaks, cracks, etc. and have a complete build plan written down on paper.

We could start gettin' ahead of the game by finding out what motor we have for sure. You have no idea what year and what hp build the motor was unless you purchased it new from Chevrolet and it has not been out of your sight.

Lets begin with the block casting number. It's on the rear of the block on the driver's side, just in front of the bellhousing mating surface....
http://www.speednik.com/files/2013/0...asylum-com.jpg

The suffix number will be on the passenger side block deck just in front of the cylinder head and very close to the top water pump bolt on the passenger's side....
http://www.nastyz28.com/2gcog/blkvin.jpg

Many machine shops take a few thousandths off the block to level the surface and insure that the motor won't spit out the head gaskets. This is normally done when the block is bored and honed for new pistons and rings. Thing is, if you're going to deck the block, you need to determine the stack of parts that you will use in the block when you build the motor. That way, you can take a cut on the decks that will provide a zero deck and provide an excellent squish with a composition gasket. First though, before any of that, you would want the shop to check the main bearing bores for being round and parallel. If the mains aren't valid, nothing else will be valid.

Find a shop that indexes the block decks exactly 90 degrees apart to cut the decks. If the decks are off just a little bit, then the heads will be off and the intake manifold will be off and the motor may not seal up at the manifold/head interfaces. I have seen fellows chase an oiling problem and never find it because of the angle difference between the manifold and heads, causing a gap on the bottom of the gasket that allows the motor to pull oily crankcase vapors into the cylinders on the intake stroke. There is way more to this engine building stuff than you might think.

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