Thread: Chevy 350 build question

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I have a chevy 350 that I'm going to be rebuilding, I want to know what I need to get checked out and/or machined at a machine shop before I start to put it back together. Any information tips or help on anything to do with rebuilding is appreciated.

Depends on your budget, the level of your intended build, and your ability level.

If your budget allows, then you need only drop the parts off at the shop, any competent machine shop can take it from there.

Some of the biggest scratch savings is in doing your own disassembly / assembly.. the biggest thing is to mark your piston rod caps. Mark them to the front of the cap, one thru eight, front - to - back. Pull the pistons one - by - one, and put the cap back on, with the proper orientation. I like to leave the crank in the block, just break the mains loose. That way the crank is protected in transit.

The machine shop will need the block, pistons / rods, and heads. You can also drop off any parts you want cleaned.

Lots of books on the subject too. Any parts place that has manuals will probably have a rebuild book for a 350.

My best advice is to buy and read this book.....you don't know what you don't know....
How to Rebuild Your Small-Block Chevy: David Vizard: 9781557880291: Amazon.com: Books

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Thanks, I want want to build a motor with a decent amount of horsepower, atleast 300 but I also want it to be very reliable. Taking apart and putting it together is no issue, just wanted to know what I should have the machine shop do and any other tips or advise or anything like that with the build

Building a motor is no different than "paint by numbers". You begin at A and end with Z, as outlined by Mr. Vizard.
Most fellows though, will stop short of doing it properly. This entails squaring the block and cutting the decks to fit the "stack" of parts you will use.

Pistons are built with a certain "compression height", or CH. This is the meaurement from the centerline of the wrist pin to the crown of the piston, just above the top ring. The blueprint dimension for a 350 Chevy is 1.560" (one inch and five hundred and sixty thousandths). There are pistons that are shorter, down to 1.540" (one inch and five hundred and forty thousandths) and there are pistons that are 350 pistons that are taller, up a thousandth or so at 1.561" (one inch and five hundred and sixty one thousandths).

Small block Chevy rods, with the exception of the 400, are 5.700" (five inches and seven hundred thousandths) in blueprint length. Stock 400 rods are 5.565" (five inches and five hundred and sixty five thousandths) in length and are generally not used in any other motor except the 400. In other words, they are not generally used in hot rod motors except for a stock 400 build. Some fellows will use a longer rod in a 350 build, like a 6" rod (6.000"), but I doubt you'll see much difference in power on a dyno. 5.7" rods will work for most 350 builds. A longer rod would require a shorter piston (6.000" rod length, 1.260" piston compression height and 1.740" crank radius = 9.000" stack height).

The blueprint stroke of a 350 crankshaft is 3.484" (three inches and four hundred and eighty four thousandths), generally shown as 3.48". Half the stroke, or the radius of the crank, is 1.740" (one inch and seven hundred and forty thousandths).

Now, I'll get to the point I've been leading up to. The stack of parts to be used in the rebuild is added together....
1.56" plus 5.7" plus 1.74" equals 9.000", so that is the "stack" of parts that will be used in the rebuild. If, for instance, you used a "fosdick" (my term for anything that is screwed up or cheezy) rebuilder piston with a 1.540" compression height instead of the 1.560" compression height, your stack would measure 8.980".

The blueprint block deck height of a Gen I 350 motor is 9.025" (nine inches and twenty five thousandths), so when you bolt in a stack of parts that measures 9.000" (nine inches), there will be a piston deck height (measurement from the crown of the piston to the block deck where the heads bolt on) of 0.025" (twenty five thousandths of an inch). When Chevrolet built these motors, they used a shim head gasket that measured about 0.020" (twenty thousandths of an inch) thickness. The gasket thickness added to the piston deck height would put the clearance between the crown of the piston and the bottom of the cylinder head at about 0.045" (forty five thousandths of an inch). This 0.045" dimension would be called the "squish" dimension. Us hot rodders generally aim for a squish of between 0.035" (thirty five thousandths of an inch) and 0.045" (forty five thousandths of an inch). This near miss of the piston to the underside of the head squishes, or jets the mixture that is above the piston crown, over to the chamber side of the piston. This jetting of the mixture across the chamber and towards the spark plug creates turbulence that homogenizes the air/fuel mixture and contributes to a better burn of the mixture, creating less tendency for detonation and making more power. A tight squish will also allow operation of the motor on a lower octane fuel without detonation.

Problem with using a shim head gasket on a rebuild is that many times either or both the block and/or heads have been subjected to the heat of operation and may not be as flat and parallel as they were when they were bolted together at the factory. If there is/are any non-flat surface(s) on either the block or the heads, the pressure of compression can find a way out by breaching the gasket and you have a "blown head gasket". Fellows who plan to use a thin shim gasket will generally make certain that the block and heads are flat and parallel by using a precision straightedge and a thin feeler gauge blade to insure that there is less than 0.002" (two thousandths of an inch) variance from one end of the block/heads to the other. If the block or heads are bowed up or down more than that, then you should either cut them on a mill back to parallel or use a thicker composition gasket to compensate for the difference in factory blueprint dimensions. Composition gaskets will begin at around 0.028" (twenty eight thousandths of an inch) installed thickness and run up to around 0.071" (seventy one thousandths of an inch).

Now, we have determined so far that the proper squish (measurement between the piston crown and the underside of the cylinder head with the piston at top dead center and with the head gasket in place) is 0.035" to 0.045". Now, let's assume that the block measured 9.025" and the stack measured 9.000". That leaves 0.025" piston deck height. If we then add a composition gasket to the mix, even with the thinnest gasket we are over 0.050" (fifty thousandths of an inch) and are beyond the design spec of 0.035" and 0.045" for squish. We need to do some cutting on the block.

Have the machinist inspect and measure the main bearing bore for each hole to be round and parallel with the other four holes of the main bearing bore. If the mains are valid, great. If not, have them corrected by the machine shop. You must begin with a valid block or you are just kidding yourself. Once the mains are valid, chuck the block up on the main saddles and cut the block decks according to the stack dimension that you will use. Let's say you will use a 9.000" stack. Cut the block decks to 9.000" and use a 0.040" thickness composition gasket to set the squish at 0.040".

What I have just written for you is mostly unknown to fellows who are building their first few motors. You have a jump start. Good luck.

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Thanks for that, that's a lot of help

Originally Posted by techinspector1

My best advice is to buy and read this book.....you don't know what you don't know....
How to Rebuild Your Small-Block Chevy: David Vizard: 9781557880291: Amazon.com: Books

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Between the fellas here and a good book like this to help fill in the blanks and explain more of the theory behind what information you get.....you will do a fine job.

Everyone here help walk me thru my first motor build and it came out a success! Fired up on the first revolution after the build!

Making sense of information goes a long way and the vizzard books help explain with additional information and theory, opposed to just raw facts, in most of his books he gets into the why`s a lot more than most books, which really helps when you are new to things and not familiar with principal or theory.

Above all .......HAVE FUN!

God ,I wish I had a few hrs. to go thru this with you. It takes me more time to disassemble a engine that it does to assemble it. Most people just grab an impact and a big hammer and destroy things. Little things that if you pay attention can save you money and end up with a better engine. For instance ,DO NOT go to Harbour freight and buy a number stamp and bang the crap out of the rods and caps. If you do you can rest assured the rods will all need to be rebuilt or replaced. I just keep the caps and the rods together ,it makes NO difference which hole they go back in if they are straight and true. most people will argue with that point. Thats the same thing as saying a crankshaft from one 350 chevy won't fit in another 350 chevy. As long as everything is the correct specs the parts do not know where they came from. Make sure you have gas hose over the rod bolts when pushing them out past the crank. I have seen many cranks need grinding only because the rod bolt threads were banged into the crank.
When taking the rods off look at the bearings very closely, They will tell you by their wear patterns if the rod is bent or needs rebuilt. You did check the side clearance on the rods right? when everything is machined and going back together is the wrong time to figure out end play on the crank, side clearance on the rods ,deck height ect ect ect. Find these problems when taking it apart and you won't have to run back to machine shop 5 times .
Use the same rod and piston and bearing and install on all four corners on the block ,feeler gauge and check the deck height on each corner.This will tell you if the block needs decked and how much to take off. Check main bearing very carefully and you can tell if you need a line bore on the mains.All head bolt threads need to be run when disassembling ,If you deck the block that means your headbolts will screw farther down the hole. If those holes are full of Rust the torque rating will not be correct. TAKE your time and don't destroy things . you would be surprised how much damage you can do without even knowing it.