hey guys my pop and i are looking into purchasing a used short block, in its previous life it lived in a 98 ws6 and had about 125k on it. the kid pulled it from his car because he's investing in a lq9. I'm pretty sure i should take it to a reputable machine shop and have them "check it out" before i blow a wad of cash to rebuild it, but what does "check it out" intail. . . i just don't want to go to the machine shop sounding like the neophite that i am

 

The only way they can "check out" the motor is to tear it down. With that mileage, just have it rebuilt and be happy for another hundred thousand miles.

 

Have it magnafluxed to check for cracks first, no sense in machining a cracked block. All you really need is to have the cylinders honed (not bored) out to 3.905 inches, thats .007 over the stock bore size. Also you can have the deck surface checked for flatness and shaved a few thousandths if its not perfectly flat.

 

you can't really mag an aluminum block, but square deck it, hone it to 3.905" and maybe check the bearing clearance on the mains and see if it needs align honed.

 

Anything in particular need to be done if i wanted to build it as a 383

 

A little bit of block casting needs to be ground off but thats about it. Heres a step by step of a 383 build. It shows you are areas that need to be ground a little.

http://www.gmhightechperformance.com...ild/index.html