[EDFHOBBIES]

I to am wanting to asm my own engine as well. Steve Morison's LS videos will be close enough and a few others on how to measure clearances.

I was going to have LME build it with stock LT4 internals for the wifes motor. she only has an LT4 fuel system so no need to use anything crazy since her fuel system would only support about 800 hp. Plus I have a LT4 crank & rods also only 4 good pistons from a buddies motor.

LME quote:
2295 for a block and the quote didn't say if it was new or not.
2400 for ASM and all the labor.
another thousand for tax, main studs, and rings

I had a few important questions myself:

Bearing Journals: What if the you have standard sized journals and standard size bearings yet there is to much clearance or vice versa.

Answer: I saw a professional builder use 1 over size bearing and 1 regular sized bearing to get the correct clearance. So I got that part down..

Crankshaft end play: what if you don't have enough? I know you sand down the bearing flange ever so slightly. What if you have to much? Do they make bigger flanges? After all the video I never saw this addressed.

Ring gapping: file fitting rings if you remove material do you take equal amounts of both sides of the ring so it holds a true circle for the bore. I've never seen this mentioned yet I have seen many videos on file fitting.

I'm pretty sure I can find a used block for 1100 to 1200 and let him do the machine work with the ARP studs aligned honed. maybe let him file fit the rings since it would be stupid to by a ring grinder for 1 small project.

the rest of the tolerances can be checked with the bore gauge.


I've rebuilt probably 20 small engines, 2 tractor diesel engines, one car engine. All have been just cylinder bored by hand with a drill they have all ran fine with no problems but I realize this is 1000 hp crank motor.

going to take the crank over today to Pete's crank grinding who LME uses.