Thread: Engine Buidling Class?

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Hey guys-
My son is showing extreme interest in the engine feild. He is always asking me how things work and how he can get his hands on a decent engine of his own just to wrench on. However, before he goes off on his own, I was wondering if anyone knows of some type of class or something being offered.I am looking for it to be in CT. And also if you have any other suggestions about engine building such as where to statrt or where to get him 1 to wrecnh on, I will be thankful.
Thanks again.

Jut, your in Monroe? I am guessing Monroe North Carolina? If so then how old is your son, is he still in high school? If yes to all of that then there is Career Center there off 200 I think the highway is and the Auto Tech class there is a great start. Either that or CPCC community college.

Nevermind, you said CT. Look at a local community college. Also look through some books, invest in something like the "How to build a Chevy Small Block 350" and all. Go to Amazon and they have them on there. I hear those books are really good and will save you tons of money when going to build an engine. There are big blocks too if that is what he is into. There are books on Ford engines as well like how to rebuild them, etc. That's all I know about, I don't know much at all about Ford engines.

Here is a great thing to try. This can take you and your son some time, and give you something to do together, but try this. Get yourself a book from Summit racing on "How to hotrod your small block Chevy". Get a standard autozone book on standard small block Chevy rebuilding. Call the local junk yards and look for any carbed (not a fuel injection engine) engine and find the cheapest. I would think 100-250 should be your price. Now take it home and get a cheap engine stand and put it on there. Now, with your help, and only your help, He has to be the boss......lets use the books and tear apart the engine. Once its striped take the heads and block in and get them tanked and magnafluxed. If all checks out, at your time and money allowance start a plan and start collecting parts, think of porting, start measuring. Look at my post in the SBC section and you can see the parts/machine work required to "Do it right". Now as you check out your crank, rods, pistons, heads, all the parts....decide what can be re-used and what is in need of replaceing. You can make this as cheap or as expensive as you wish. It can be a simple ring/bearing job, or a total build like I did. He will learn alot, you may learn a thing or two as well. This will be a stepping stone to someday having a career as a NHRA top fuel mechanic where he travels the US keeping his 5 second engines ready to do battle. You never know. I rebuilt my first engine at age 12, it ran.

My post is http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...threadid=10799 and I give pictures and descriptions that I think are better than the books I have laying around.