I threw a rod on my stock short block and have an LQ9 to build or I may buy a used short block 408 that I found at a decent price. If I go with either of these choices, should a I use my PRC stage I 243's and have them opened up for a 4.030 bore or sell them and my intake and go with an LS3 top end. Or maybe just find a rebuildable short block buy a new cam and swap my heads over. Goals are for maximum rwhp at the lowest dollar amount. Thanks for your input

 

Stroker's love to breathe and put more emphasis on proper head flow compared to FI builds. Personally with this consideration i would go with an LS3 top end. This could get expensive depending on what you can grab the short block for.

Option one and three with the rebuildable short blocks offer the same goal but different routes of achievement for each. If you threw a rod you're tearing it down to nothing anyway and having it checked out/flushed/machined regardless.

If you're looking at the price first build second, i would try to run what i've got. Tear it down and check how bad the damage is with a machine shop. Once the carnage has been assessed, decide from there the total cost to build what you have versus finding another platform to work off of. It would be wise to find out what failed to cause the rod to fail at least anyway. If running what you have is the more expensive route, then at least you can sell what you know is good and have machine shop approval to go with it in order to fund either of the other builds as you see fit.

 

you can get new stock ls3 heads at SDPC for $325 each,mite be cheaper then reworking your 243s..is buying the used 408 cheaper then building up you lq9 ?

 

Going stock ls3 heads and intake would be costly? I have seen intakes with tb, fuel rails and injectors for $550 and stock heads about the same price.

 

You said on a budget but i did not know how much - sorry. Some guys see $300 as expensive, to others it is chunk change.

As i said it all depends on what you can grab the 408 for.

 

I guess I should have said that I would like the best bang for my buck (I'm married/permanent budget). Thanks for your input