Suggest a short block, Finally got H/C/I combo on the road and my engine is cooked

[ram360]

Well that pretty much says it all. Just got the car done last saturday. As some of you know it's an 83gt converted to fuel injection 91 mass air engine, p heads, b cam, etc....etc... Details in sig for those that don't know. This car has spent more than 2 yrs in my garage. Wiring was a big deal considering I had to track down every piece of it from several 89 gt's to get the electrical system on this thing up to par. I did the H/C/I swap on this car a little more than a year ago and never got to run it due to the wiring issues that I needed to corrected. Needless to say I finally finished and got to hear the car run for the first time in a little over a year. While I was at it, I made sure to surround myself with an array of autometer phantom gauges just to monitor all the vitals since I really don't trust the factory stuff too much. Anyway I took the car out for a ride today after working out some minor problems. It ran good and I was pretty happy with everything however, after taking a quick glance at my oil pressure gauge I realized something was wrong. My oil pressure was aroud 40psi at idle when I started the car. After it warmed up I started to drop and would only go up if it reved the engine. By the time I got home stopped the car it would idle w/ something like 5psi of oil pressure. So it look like my oil pump and/or main bearings are shot. I'm not planning on investing anymore time or money into this stock bottom end so I'm looking for a new short block for my car. I have other obligations right now and I'm not looking to drop a huge chunk of change into this car. I just need a decent 302 or 306 short block to bolt and and be done with it. I just need it to hold on a year or two until I have the time to work on a bigger and better engine combo. Anybody have any experience w/ remanufactured engines from autozone, etc..... Like I said it's got to be cheap. Sorry guys no DSS, etc.... Any help would be great.

 

[Chris6050]

Check E-bay. If you search for Ford 306, there's a company that usually comes up with rebuilt 306's for like $895 shipped to your door and comes with gaskets and new oil pump. I'm not sure how long they last or how the quality is though, maybe somebody else would. I think it came with like a 6 or 12 month warranty or something like that.

 

[tmoss]

Get a good lower mileage Explorer engine from a JY. You can sell some parts and reduce the cost.

 

[87'GTstang]

Get a good lower mileage Explorer engine from a JY. You can sell some parts and reduce the cost.

I second that. Comes with the junkyard price yet still the tuff and reliable factory build of a 302! Considering a lot of stuff on them is of the GT-40/cobra hardware, you can pick and sell whatever you want for good change on ebay yourself.

 

[ram360]

Well a friend of mine ended up having a 302 from an 89 gt laying around. Needless to say the price is right so that's what I'm going to go with for now. Like I said it's only got to last me a year or so and probably less than 10k mles in that period of time. Hopefully not asking too much from a 90,000 mile bottom end. In any case since I'm not dealing with a new motor what should I look for before I drop it in? I really don't want to have any major problems like this again for a little while. I'm just using the bottom end so what should I do to check for any potential problems etc... Just want to make sure it's in good enough condition. Thanks guys.

 

[tmoss]

Do a leak-down on the donor car engine just to see if you get blowby around the rings. 90K is not a lot for a well maintained engine. When you pull the heads on the donor, you'll be able to see what condition the cylinders are in.