if I could do it over I'd buy a forged 347 from W2W. 
How much do you have in your motor?
How much do you have in your motor? Looking into prices on forged internals, Rods and Pistons at least. Just wondering how much you have spent between balancing, assembly, etc.etc. I wanna see if it's cheaper to buy a shortblock or just swap the guts on mine. I've seen some decent deals from sponsors just wanna see whats out there. Thanks.
honestly, If I had to do it over again, I would have bought a forged shortblock from a sponsor that was built for boost. Yeah, mines built for boost and all forged and studded out, but it would be nice to either have the old engine sitting on the engine stand, or sell the old engine and put that towards the cost of the new engine.
Check out HPE, one of the sponsors. I shopped around for engines and they had the best deals for the money. They really know they're stuff too. I wanted to build my own but after talking on the phone about LS1s with Erik at HPE for an hour and a half, I realized the small amount of money I would save putting together my own engine would not be worth it. Have one of these sponsors do it... they prob do at least one LS1 per week and have a huge amount of experience.
-Dave
-Dave
Its cheap to buy one than it is to build one. I learned the hard way... twice. I built the motor on my car, but when you have to pay full retail on every little piece, nut and bolt, it add up past what a shop can do it for. My next one will be bought.
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Another problem with building your own I ran into is finding a local shop that knows anything about LS1s. But by the time you buy the parts, pay to get the machine work done and buy the tools like a ring filer, piston installation tool and some mics, dial bore guage, rod bolt stretch guage, good torque wrench etc its cheaper just to buy one unless you plan on building a few of them. Of course you can just get the machine work done and slap it together but sometimes mistakes do happen and you need to check stuff when assembling. But if you have the tools, scout around for deals on parts and have a local shop that does LS1 stuff you can save some money by doing it yourself.
I went with W2W since they do a lot their machining in house, that makes a big difference. If not you are at the mercy of a third party doing the machine work in both quality and time. I have assembled dozens of engines and even did a lot of my own machine work but since I dont have a machine shop at my disposal anymore I'll just buy a shortblock these days..
I went with W2W since they do a lot their machining in house, that makes a big difference. If not you are at the mercy of a third party doing the machine work in both quality and time. I have assembled dozens of engines and even did a lot of my own machine work but since I dont have a machine shop at my disposal anymore I'll just buy a shortblock these days..
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