355 Best engine option: rebuild or replace?

If it was me I would replace with a known good one, later year the better with good compression and leak down. I have had other motors touched and had friends have various built motors and they are never the same as factory, always some issue, builder never makes it right, claims it normal or this and that. You can always part your out old one, sell heads, intake, bottom end etc, what ever to recover cost.

Maybe pull your heads, rebuild them ( while the patient is open no sense in risking a valve guide issue in 10 miles or what not) then swap them onto the new bottom end and sell the rest.

Good luck hate to hear it.

 

Do the valve job, replace the liner on the bad cylinder.

 

If you inspect and find a piston is seized, its seized in a cylinder liner. One would pull the motor and press the liner out and press in in a new liner and reassemble. Of course one can expect the ole "while we were in there we found {fill in the blank}". Bad bearing clearance or what not, next thing you know the whole motor needs to be redone. There is thread out here on a 355 to that matter actually. Went from an expensive machine work/minor rebuild to second mortgage.

Have it diagnosed, then assessed, get quotes, best case and worst case then go from there. The cost will almost definitely not be best case as while it apart if there are probably issues they should be done then as its cheaper than doing it again in 30k miles or what not for example.

Hope for the best prepare for the worse basically. Even if you put a used on in you never know what up with that motor.

Best of luck!

 

Right was answering how would I know that it has a bad liner, not that that's your issue.
You need to determine if its valves/guides or piston first off then go from there. A leak down will tell you that.

 

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/100-000-miles-in-a-355-whats-the-highest-mileage-355-that-can-be-documented.124714/
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/355-high-mile-thread.483406/
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/355-what-is-high-mileage.286302/

 

I've rebuilt my 95 from bare block up two years ago. You want to avoid it if you can because of the cost of parts even though you will do your own labor. Complete engine rebuild with bearings, head work, intake porting, rings, liners, etc. without labor will be $25,000 for parts and machine work.

 

Yes, i to rebuilt my engine my self 4 years ago. The milage was 50 k miles. Once i was in tbe engine,there was not to much wear which surprised me.
My rings, bearings, gaskets ect were bought from superformance. The cost was not as bad as one would imagine. Of course the cost of having the crank polished or reground is standard procedure, again any plus sized shells can be bought from superformance.
I found that the nikasil coat on the liners ment that the bores were in fantastic shape, needing just a light hone to seat the new rings in.
If you do do this your self, please feel free to shoot me a PM and i can send you pictures and videos of the rebuild procedures i used on my engine.

 

Just how common is it for 355's get their engines rebuilt?

 

I'll start by saying buy a better car. Why screw with someone else's mess. The problem here is you don't know what's bad.

What does running poorly mean? You could have 150 psi compression in one or more cylinders and the engine would seem to run fine. A few years back a guy posted that he bought a car that "ran great". Had a minor problem that lead to finding poor compression, bad leak down on two cylinders.

If you must buy this basket case, start by doing a leak down on the block it has. That will tell you something about rings and liners.

Are the heads assembled? You can do a leak down on the heads with the same type of plate used on the block.

How are the liners? Visual inspection. If liner(s) are bad (scored, warn), so are rings.

If the liners are just warn you can pull them and send them out to be plated.

I would not buy the used motor without compression and leak down tests perform first and also check the play in the thrust bearing. A video tells you nothing.

One last comment, if you are going to do 5-7k miles a year, you car going to be spending a lot of money on major services if you adhere to the 15k rule.

 

I agree with the other, find out what wrong with it first. You might get away with a simple valve job or sleeve, might be something more. You wont know until you disassemble it.

If the parts are good, the I would imagine the machine work would be the same as a chevy 350. An align hone, block decking would all me similar procedures.
The part that gets expensive is if it needs a lot of parts. Main bearings for and chevy LS1 for example would be ~$70, for the 355, $400-$850. There are a lot of valve guides and springs, valve seats etc if they need to be replaced. They do make .010 over bearing btw.
You can get an idea of prices here:
http://www.superformance.co.uk/355/eg.html

 

Is this the same superformance and plus size shells i have just told him about?
Also there is nothing simple about changing a sleeve/liner. Especially with out the special expensive tool.
However, if i was going in that deep, might as well re new the shells and rings anyway.

 

^ Would block decking be the same as a sbc?

I've never looked into it but I wouldn't think you would deck it the same. Would guess the sleeves would need to be removed, aren't they usually slightly proud of the block deck surface on a design like this?

 

Ehh your probably right, Im no machinist, but I too would imagine the sleeve would have to be removed for decking the block.

 

The sleeves do sit proud of the block.
The workshop manual gives the correct specifications of by how much.
Also the liners sit on top of a water seal that will also need renewing if the liner is removed. If not seated correctly, warter will leak into the crank area, thus mixing with the oil.

 

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How much is a Zytek V8?

 

This is when you know you need a new liner. But don't wait til then.

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This is another way to tell if your liner is bad. All those lines are caused by rings scratching the Nikasil liner.

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