I had a "built" 350 in one of my cars back in 1992. RV cam, 2bbl carb, not much more. But the carb matched the cam, which matched the rest of the motor.
I get customers who want a Holley 750 double pumper. They also want the biggest lift cam they can find. They don't know what duration, or what rockers, or what compression ratio they'll have. But their motor has better bragging rights than my $300 rebuild.
Mine impressed a lot of gear heads. And lasted a long time. And drove beautifully.
You nailed it Kramer. Your car could probably open a can of whup-as$ on some much hairier but somewhat maligned competition. I knew a fellow in college who bought a "600 hp" small block from a local circle track hero. He proceeded to install said engine into his otherwise stockish '72 Nova. A Nova replete with 3.08 gears and a tight converter. To everyone's amazement, it was a dog. You just could not get it into its powerband
Im interested to find out how long my motor that my friends and I put together will last. It is just a typical Integra GSR bottom end with ITR pistons with some headwork...I've made it nearly 2000 miles and survived a bolt backing out from the timing belt cover shredding part of the timing belt and jumping timing. This was my first go-around.
Every noise that motor makes me paranoid. Friend's who done similar builds or have had B series VTEC motors for years say it sounds fine, but coming from a nonvtec motor, I wasn't sure what to expect.
I guess it depends on what you call "built"... I put over 100k on a slightly warmed over 85 Honda CRX Si engine a few years back- mostly stock except for overbore and some port work and bolt ons...This one I assembled but had the head rebuilt. This one was probably ~105 hp at the crank vs 92 stock.
My daily 93 Integra after this had a similar stockish B18 LS in it that went over 100k in my hands that ran well- similar 'build' but pretty stock. This one I bought from a Honda mechanic who had this in his daily driver but wanted something more...
Most semi-modern engines will do fairly well with decent tolerances, etc with moderate gains over stock..but it really depends on the goals and parts, etc.
codrus said:docwyte said:In my experience, most engine builders can't put the motor together as well as the factory can. So, no, "built" motors don't last better than factory.
Sure they do -- for their intended application. The engine I built might not do 200K miles of commuting, but a factory Miata motor would be lucky to last 5 minutes at 25 psi of boost. :)
I was at Lights Out 9 two weeks ago, and for one Camaro, the announcer mentioned "They had their race motor fail, so they just swapped in a junkyard 5.3 block in the pits yesterday, and they're going to try to run 35 pounds of boost on it!" That engine made it about to the 200 foot mark under its own power before exploding in a very spectacular fireball.
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