I just found this thread, and I have to admit, that I thought resurrected meant you wreck the TBird. Thank God I was wrong.
Great looking car, can't wait until you get your 306 back in it. If you don't mind me asking, how much did it cost you to build the 306 the first time? I know you said the 5.0 cost you $375, but what about the GT40 heads, and Cobra intake?
Thanks for the compliments. As for the 306 cost, I could have taken several different routes with it to save money, but I ended up deciding not to take shortcuts and I'll explain those as I go through the list:
Stock 5.0 engine - $375
GT40Y Aluminum heads - $575
NOTE: I could have saved about $300 here by going with cast iron GT40P heads and gotten about the same HP, but having a set of aluminums had always been something I really wanted, so this was splurge #1. And the guy we dealt with was great - took us for a ride in the car they were installed on, and drove an hour and a half to deliver the heads to my house in person.
Stock 5.0 cam - free, came with the engine
GT40 Intake/throttle body - $200 shipped
1.7 ratio roller rockers - $125 shipped
19lb injectors - free, used over from my backup engine
Forged pistons - $575
Machine work - $525
NOTE: This is where I really spent most of the money. I could have saved about $700-800 here by either just using the bottom end as-is and just having it re-ringed. Or I could have taken a middle ground and saved about $300 by going with hyper-eutectic pistons instead of forged. However, with my future plans of a supercharger, I didn't want to spare expense in the bottom end. The 2nd iteration of the 306 will be even better with a brand new cast steel crank which is lighter and stronger than the used stock cast iron crank that was in the first build. With the new crank, forged pistons, and ARP rod bolts, the bottom end should be very stout and allow for a lot of future upgrading without having to take the engine out.
Then I'd say there's another few hundred bucks in odds and ends kind of things. I got reusable rubber/steel lined gaskets for the oil pan and valve covers, new fuel regulator, 255lph fuel pump, ARP head bolts, Cobra valve covers, yada yada yada. If there's one thing I leaned, its that the nickel and dime stuff KILLS you at the end of the project. I hated this part of it haha. I'm glad that I pretty much have everything already this time around except for a couple of gaskets.
So at the end of the day, I'd take a safe bet and say that the whole shebang cost maybe $2800. That's really not bad for a pretty much brand new 300hp engine that should last a good 200k miles, especially considering that I took a more expensive route in building it and it's already prepared for much more hp.
My dad has always told me that whenever you take on a big car project, figure out your budget, double it, and that should be a safe bet. He was right. I thought I was gonna skate by and take shortcuts, but when the time came I decided against doing that, and I'll be glad I did in the long run. I could have gotten the same horsepower from spending about 1/5th the money, but I want an engine that's going to last a long, long time, and be able to take a little beating along the way as opposed to just taking an old 5.0 and putting heads and intake on it.
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:doh:
(gotta love how the weather is clear for 3 months while the car is down, then it rains for several days straight once I get it back)
