A lot of people would probably want to know what your goals are before they recommend stuff. pretty much everything depends on what this car will be used for.

First I would look for a good short block. (block with rotating assembly in it) Once you find your replacement you may want to consider tearing it down (mark the rod locations) and dropping off the block for inspection. If the block is good youll need to know what you can do next. i.e.... bore or hone cylinders, polish or turn crankshaft, (these areas have to be "mic'd") then youll have to buy the correct sized parts. boring leads to bigger pistons and the rings to match. Honing alone you can buy a new set of rings and keep the same pistons. whether you polish or cut the crank you need to get the correct sized bearings. A machinist will give you the details after the machining is done. Then get your book and the proper tools,accessories,,,start assembly.

money is tight so im imagining that youll go with a stock build. The process is the same, but if you do decide to go aftermarket, you need to decide before machining starts. Some of the aftermarket parts will require different clearancing than stock parts.

good luck

Thanks for the info guys.

Goals are typical, 500-600 hp reliably. The motor popped around 450 this time so I'd like to blow past that with my next setup.

Idk what I want to do right now. Idk what I can afford. I'm too young to get a loan for car repairs.

I'd love a 2.0 build, aluminum rod, Weisco pistons, the works.

Well not to be harsh with you but don't try to budget build a 500hp car. It's not going to be "cheap" to get to those goals. You would be better off finding a used stock motor, and just build the one you have now slowly as you get time and money to do it the way you want.

I seen this on your Instagram. Might want to change your thread title to something more descriptive to your questions to get more help.
What is your budget and we can go from there.

450? That's insane on stock internals! Not being sarcastic, I am genuinely impressed.

First thing to do is get it out and apart and see what you have that may be good to use.

With you having a 98, I will have to guess you have the 7 bolt. Are you going to keep that ? Or go 6 bolt.

With your goals of 500-600 I will recommend you get H beam rods and forged pistons.

Looks like you will need $2500-$3000 for your build.

Also the head needs checked out, the hole than threw a rod may have sent the piston into the valves and bent a few.

I just went through a similar thing and with your hp goals you are looking at $3000. For me that included block, machining work, polished and ground crank, Arias pistons, h beam rods, gates timing belt, mls head-gasket, new race bearings, and machining the head with new seals (luckily no bent valves). I would not go anything less for a 500hp car.
So hope that is in your budget.

Yeah the car was flowing 44 lb/m on E85 at 25 psi with a 75 shot of nitrous and some decently aggressive timing. I tune the car myself and even though the AFR was perfect and zero detonation it still blew with the nitrous. My guess is the rod stretched and blew a hole out the back side of the block. I'll try to upload a pic.

I'm going to start tearing it down tonight or tomorrow and see what's still good in it. Id like a simple eagle/weisco combination on stock crank, stock bore, all new timing components, and HG ect.

Realistically my power goals are to hold the boost and the 75 or 100 shot again. Is a 6 bolt rod 7 bolt piston motor a bad idea? Id like to keep it 7 bolt but I won't settle for anything by a late 7 bolt black with the split thrust washer... Anyone know if that's going to be a PITA in itself? My block is shot, there's a hole in it.

Maybe I'll get lucky and the head will be fine but I'll end up building the head while I have it off anyways. Trying to do it right the first time.

So one thin that is very vague for me is the machining aspect. When I pick up a block I want to have it fully services regardless what the PO says. If I had to settle for a 6 bolt, can anyone dummy down what all sensor/drivetrain wise will need to be swapped from my late 7 bolt? When I choose a block, what all I do I need to have the machinist do? Without skipping any bases.

ervin00 said:

I just went through a similar thing and with your hp goals you are looking at $3000. For me that included block, machining work, polished and ground crank, Arias pistons, h beam rods, gates timing belt, mls head-gasket, new race bearings, and machining the head with new seals (luckily no bent valves). I would not go anything less for a 500hp car.
So hope that is in your budget.

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https://secure.buschurracing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=22_34_122&products_id=150

If you want to be easy on yourself here's a built short block. many other good supporting vendors who can build you a sexy DSM. I would way rather get a block built from a shop that knows about dsm's then a local shop honestly. Just check out whats out there and then set your budget.

Afizzle said:

So one thin that is very vague for me is the machining aspect. When I pick up a block I want to have it fully services regardless what the PO says. If I had to settle for a 6 bolt, can anyone dummy down what all sensor/drivetrain wise will need to be swapped from my late 7 bolt? When I choose a block, what all I do I need to have the machinist do? Without skipping any bases.

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settle for a 6 bolt? I'd prefer the 6 bolt, but it does take more work.
Just remember machine work can really screw you over, or make a great engine so I would make sure you get it done at a good dsm shop.

Btw your sure theres a hole in your engine??? wheres it at?

jakk220 said:

Well not to be harsh with you but don't try to budget build a 500hp car. It's not going to be "cheap" to get to those goals. You would be better off finding a used stock motor, and just build the one you have now slowly as you get time and money to do it the way you want.

Click to expand...

bingo that is what anyone with a daily driven dsm should do or people like you and myself on a tight budget a built motor isnt cheap at all and thats what you would want to make 5-600 awhp reliably yeah people say they do it on stock block in my opinion that is just a ticking time bomb

one thing you have to consider is your trying to make a high horse power car out of a car that was NEVER intended to have anything more than what it came from the factory with so things will break which im sure you already know this as you said you were at 450 which is a good number for a street car in my opinion

jbeaton9292 said:

bingo that is what anyone with a daily driven dsm should do or people like you and myself on a tight budget a built motor isnt cheap at all and thats what you would want to make 5-600 awhp reliably yeah people say they do it on stock block in my opinion that is just a ticking time bomb

one thing you have to consider is your trying to make a high horse power car out of a car that was NEVER intended to have anything more than what it came from the factory with so things will break which im sure you already know this as you said you were at 450 which is a good number for a street car in my opinion

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Plus he's spraying nos so, I'm pretty surprised it held it.

It was holding it great. Problem is I was running late for some midnight racing in Mexico so I did 90 mph the whole way there.. Coolant temps were 183-185 like normal, but I feel like the bottom end was hot and when I jumped straight into pulls without stopping to cool down things went south. Just a theory though.

Sigh, idk where to go. Seems like a stock swappable 7 bolt fits my budget but I just can't justify it with the motor already out of the car. Who knows what the head looks like too. Sigh... More updates tomorrow when I get everything apart.

Yes I'm sure there's a hole in my block .

I would find a 6 bolt block and plan on boring it .020" over to be guaranteed its straight and fresh and find a good set of pistons and rods for it and call it a day.

FS: Eagle/Wiseco 6 bolt shortblock!!! CHEAP - DSM Classifieds
looks like this guys is going to Florida soon just meet in Tennessee haha..

^^^ You still end up with an unknown used block at that point though.

So you know for next time for every 50hp of nitrous you want to take off 2* of timing. That's probably why you broke the rod.

You're right about that. I got happy with the tune and ended up running my "no spray" tune while spraying. Basically bumped my timing back up to boost only and leaned it out a tad more. I threw in a little bit bigger fuel jet in the n2o nozzle to keep the shot a little rich.

Upon tear down today I discovered the vac line coming off the boost source was torn and split about an inch 1/2 down preventing the EBC brain from knowing when it open the brain. Went back and looked at the datalog... Sure enough it spiked to 33 PSI.. That's with a 75 shot on top.


Anywho, my new block is ready for pick up Monday and the blown block is ready to be pulled out... Just waiting now. I'll keep you guys posted.

The block I'm picking up is a stock 7 bolt with 97k miles. It's from a trusted friend who I know and have seen his car run and drive. It's still in his car which starts and runs fine, just has a bad trans. As long as it passes a compression test I'm buying it for a REALLY good deal. I'm active in the Mexico racing league here in TX and he loves that I hold it down for the fwd DSMers. New timing kit from Epsi is on it's way so I'm pretty much waiting on that.

Any ideas on what else I should freshen up while I have the motor on a stand?

I just spun a rod bearing, am having the crank machined 10 over on mains and 30 over on rods. I am replacing the rods with oem 6 bolt rods, but i am wondering with the acl tri metals oversized, will I need to do any machining to the rods if they are std bore. Will i need to oversize the rods to match?

Afizzle said:

Yeah the car was flowing 44 lb/m on E85 at 25 psi with a 75 shot of nitrous and some decently aggressive timing.

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Great, now you have me worrying. I'm running a similar setup on the stock bottom end. Same deal (without nos), e85 and I just cranked her up to 28psi (about 46-47lb/min now). If I may ask, how much timing and what rpm were you at?

EDIT: I just read in your profile that you're running 750cc injectors...outdated info??