Off the shelf built engine vs rebuild own engine

[Jellybean]

Is either more cost effective? Other than maybe quick turnaround time, but you are also loosing a matching numbers car

 

Off the shelf built engines , bottom end or head ; what additional items do they need ; did anybody get one?

 

i.e. Are the core plugs replaced ?

[SupraTRD_MK4]

Hello there mate. Yes good points mentioned there. If you keeping the car then don't think engine numbers will be of concern to you after you do the licensing paper work. For a future buyer, perhaps it may cause an issue. I say if its your daily car then get the shelf unit. If its not, rather rebuild your own motor. As far as welch plugs, freeze plugs, core plugs being replaced, I have no idea but my guess is if they don't look painted and are gold looking or shiny silver, they they were replaced. One only needs to replace them if the cooling system was never maintained well as this would cause huge amounts of corrosion over time resulting in failure and loss of coolant.

The off the shelf item, are the builders reputable people? That can out weigh the choice of rebuilding your own motor.

My guess is they will issue you block and head as the rest are not really prone to wear. Std exhaust system could have obtained cracks over the years or become distorted but otherwise I wouldn't bother much bout the intake and exhaust side. The parts the motor doesn't come with, you can remove off yours and fit it over on to the new engine.

P.S I don't know who rebuilds motors by you area in Ireland so I am merely speculating.

If you can find a reputable engineer, I say strip the motor yourself, order the parts that you know need replacing. Await engineer's response on pistons and cylinder wall as well as crank and rod journal observations. These parts you can only order after they have inspected whilst the rest you can order in the mean time to replace.

With regards to the cylinder head, you can order new guides and valves and get the specs for the engineer to ream and machine where necessary for the right oil clearance. Hoping the cam journals are ok, a polish will do fine. Usually you don't need new valve seats and engineering work will cost a bit as they remove the old one and fit the new one but I heard they are not as easy done than said. Then they have to cut the new seats and cut the valve face angles to match.

There are other stuff you may consider doing like porting and polishing as well as some combustion area cleaning and polishing work that a skilled and knowledgeable engineer can do for you whilst the head is being redone for you.

There are other points I may have left out but yeah those are a few. If the budget isn't too bad, might want to get an uprated Titan oil pump unless its not really much besides the ported oil feed hole and smoothing of the flow area.

[Jellybean]

Thanks

 

Last year I put a titan oil pump on her, new water pump, valve stem seals

 

Going single, since she is 200k, was thinking best to get a refresh

 

Was thinking of getting a prebuilt engine from the UK, states

 

I rather not have the car sitting up, with the engine pulled,out in the elements

 

Maybe get the engine pulled and drop the car back into storage

 

 

[Swampy442]

Convenience - Get one off the shelf but its expensive. Although building engines on the surface looks easy, theres a lot of tricks of the trade the best builders use to get the best results.

I always fancied a Whifbitz off the shelf forged package but the surcharge for your block is frankly derisory in my opinion