Hey Y'all

I am brand new to the Forum so go easy on me. I have been searching for some advice on a reliable but affordable remand engine vendor. I have called Jasper,Phoenix engines, and Gearheads engines. All have drastically different prices. I suppose the reason I am writing this is to see what peoples experiences with these vendors are and if someone has a better recommendation.

Also, Before I get to far ahead of myself. The reason for thinking of replacement.

When I got the truck it was running ok but after a few days it started to Idle poorly. Then It got worse to where it had no power what so ever and would stall when put in gear. backfire from the carb and overheat.

So I pulled the Carb cleaned to bowls put a new fuel filter on and did a tune up. Cap,rotor,wires,plugs,and pcv. Checked and adjusted timing, checked Vacuum(which is low 13-14) but steady. I then was faced with no time as I just had the birth of my first child!

So I took it to a trusted classic car mechanic here in town. He ran a compression test and bad results. Cylinders 1-3 had 0 number 4 had 125 Cylinders 5-6 had 30 and 7-8 had 125-130. He suggested instead of a rebuild he would replace the motor with a crate motor. however at the low low price of $5,700 I can not afford this.

Sorry about the very long winded post but I wanted to avoid a bunch of back and forth with questions. Any help is much appreciated! also if you are in the Austin,Tx. area and love craft beer maybe a deal can be struck!

 

Also the 400 is topped with a Edelbrock proformer intake and a Holley 4bbl 600cfm carb.

 

5700 is robbery. You could build 500hp with your 400 and that budget. Thats a small block right? If you want a new engine try different size. Prices will probably vary a good bit.

 

My question is when is there no compression on those cylinder, and close to correct compression on four. There all on the same bank.. that price is alittle high but not that far off. A long block of the same size 351/400 you could probably find a gently used motor and drop it in your self for alot less

 

Jayz Daddy- It is a small block when I asked the engine vendor if I could switch to a 302 they said it would not bolt up.

Johnboy 429bbf- They are doing the compression gauge crank test. They did not preform a leak down test. Also excuse my ignorance but where do you look for gently used motors? I have looked on ebay with not a lot of luck. I suppose I could look on this forum?

 

Im assuming they mean the tranny wont bolt. Not sure if your tranny has a removeable bellhousing. Have you tried craigslist?

 

You whould find out exactly why theres no compression on those cylinders. Could just be a ring job man. And you just got to look around for motors. I bought my SCJ 429 for 600$ it onky 42ooo original miles

 

A junkyard motor is an option too. I'd get away from the M series engine, there's not much for them for parts and they're pigs. Just about any popular v8 ford engine could be made to be totally rebuild and badass with over 400 hp for the price of one of those Jasper engines. Your best bet is a local scrap yard and there's a ton of different motors that will work. Just about anything will and it's all a pretty straight forward installation to someone with some mechanical ability.

Do you have a buddy or two who knows a thing or two about vehicles? A couple of decent garage mechanics and a rented engine lift can complete just about any swap. If you WANT to spend $6000, you can pretty near order a nice ford racing crate engine or a edelbrock ford crate engine. If you want it done cheaper, find a good junk yard engine, rebuild it and throw it in. You don't NEED to rebuild it but it sounds like your budget is reasonable and that way you'll know what you have.

What engine do you ask? That depends on a million different things and what you're looking for as well. You could go about rebuilding your engine that you have too but a ton of us in your case would be using this as an excuse to ditch the "modified" pig under the hood for something better.