dhirocz

OK, so I have a well running 383 sitting on the stand that I've had for years now. I put a total of 35k miles on it in my old Z28, never had an issue with it that I remember. I'm considering reconfiguring it and putting it in my '88 GTA.

I pulled the bearings to check them for wear and clearance. The bearings, Clevite H's, look almost brand new, except for a few scuffs. They resemble bearings with very few miles on them. Spec sheet when I built it says the clearance on the mains was 0.0028" and rods at 0.0024. The bottom of the piston skirts shows some wear, mostly to the skirt coating, which is some places is so thin it's almost not there anymore. There is no windage tray since there are ARP main bolts in place. Bores show some minor scuffing but nothing abnormal.

Engine had good compression and no piston slap but hot idle oil pressure was not what I was looking for (M55 with 15-20 psi, 45-50 at speed)

I rather not spend too much on this build since it'll be a street only engine, driven mostly between idle and 3500 RPM. The bottom end got a little bit dusty and dirty, which makes me want to strip it just to clean it. But then I'd be looking at 2 sets of main and rod H series bearings (to tighten the clearances), metric moly piston rings, and possibly wanting to put in a fresh set of pistons at $300 plus getting them pressed on.

Strip the engine and spend almost $1000 to make it completely fresh or clean it up and spend that money finishing up the install?

Kevin Blown 95 TA

I'd leave it alone except for the windage tray delete - I'd fix that. Oil pressure sounds Ok to me. Maybe new front and rear seals.

thewheelkid

You didn't say at what RPM that oil pressure was. Smokey Yunick, in his book Power Secrets, says a SBC needs 10psi of oil pressure for every 1000 RPM's to survive.