time for built engine

[BrokenTsi]

my car runs. In fact it runs perfect. Nothing is wrong with it. Although, I have one problem. The other night, the 2 bolts that hold the intermediate shaft to the block broke. They both snapped. I diagnosed the problem and I found that I have a torn motor mount and it is causing the engine to flex thus causing stress on the 2 bolts. No big deal. This is the 3rd time it has happened. In a few hours I extract the broken bolts because its a huge pain in the ass. I tapped them to 3/8 coarse in the beginning of the summer. Since they were stripped, I had to. This worked fine all summer until yesterday. So I went to put in the new bolts and they wont go in. Stripped again. Cant tap it any bigger because it would be pointless.

here are my options:

1. Take out the engine, fix it properly by filling it in with weld, re-tapping it, install my new motor mounts and do a whole bunch of work and gain no performance at all.

2. Since I have to take the motor out, why not build up my extra 6 bolt block with forged internals and slap on the new remanufactured head I have.

Here is the real dilemma........I really dont want to waste hours of my time yanking out the engine to fix a stripped hole just to put my engine back in for nothing. I want a built motor.

Should I buy a pre-assembled block? or try to assemble it myself and have someone local do the machine work. But I dont trust guys that build v8's all day. I've never built an engine, but I cant imagine you have to be a rocket scientist. Who sells the best preassembled blocks?

goals: 450+ horsepower, not daily driven, 11's on pump, 10.9 on race gas

 

[diambo4life]

Honestly, if your car has good compression, I wouldn't touch it. You can go deep into the 11's on the stock motor. In my experience when I tamper with something that's working just fine, it just gets worse. :laugh: If the motor is fine, leave it alone. You will get the opportunity to work on it in the future.

Didn't Mike Riziotti just run a 10.9 @ 123mph on the stock shortblock (with a 7cm RED) like a few months ago?

 

[BrokenTsi]

but what sucks is that i have to take the block out to fix the holes. I could probably do it in a weekend.

I do have a remanufactured head on its way. Its gonna be mostly stock except for hks cams and valve springs/retainers. I'm not gonna bother porting it or nothing. I could drop the tranny, yank off the head real quick, then lift out the block, weld it up, retap it and put it back in. I think it would be easier that way. I can take out a tranny in 25 minutes.

I do want to be sick fast some day, but I was gonna wait til i blew up my motor.........I dunno, im so discouraged right now.

 

[mbird]

go with the built motor. buschur makes some good pre assmebled blocks. if you do it your self there alot of little tedious thing to be done. just depends how patient and how much time you have.