Note: In this post, the shortblock I am referring to will either be a 350 or 355 c.i. motor.

Real quick, my 94 Z has about 95k on it. Runs and drive EXCELLENT, and I think with regular maitenence it could last another 100k if I take car of her. But, I do want to do heads/cam further down the line and I would feel better with a built, or even just a re-conditioned bottom end. I wont be able to afford the down time of rebuilding the engine in the car as once I sell my current car to make room for the Z, it will be my year around DD. But, with selling my car, I might be able to get about 4.5-5k for it which will leave me with 4.5-5k in mod's directly for the Z. Now off the bat, I will say that atleast 2k of that will go into a paint job being on the same side, maybe less if a friend of mine comes through. The car is not really a looker, but by the time I'm ready to sell the DD, it will be atleast straight and ready for paint.

So, that would leave me with about 2-3k to mess with. Now, I could probably spend that 3k and buy an already built shortblock from various places to my specs and be done with that. But I could instead buy a bare block/cheap shortblock and get it oven cleaned, shot blast, etc. I could then spend the rest of the money on a good 12-bolt and some suspension to put on the car right then. Take into consideration, between me and my father, we can assemble the block itself and in the end, only pay for the installation and machine work. It would take a while longer to have it built, but buying a few parts at a time would afford me the opportunity to not cheap out on anything, and allow me to build it right the first time.

Sorry for the long post, but thats about it. Anybody with personal experiance, opinion, anything, please chime in. Thanks.

 

IMO I would much rather use a local machine shop to build up a shortblock.