rebuild kit

I know I might be just missing a forum about this, but could someone tell me where I could get a rebuild kit fot the 3.8 sc. and who is the best parts provider for rebuilding an engine, cams, valves lifter, head gaskets, etc??????


Thanks

yeah, i ordered mine through northern auto, and it cam with pretty much everything needed for the rotating assembly, it gave me hypereutechtic pistons, lifters, cam, bearings, piston rings, etc. Great kit, mine is almost about to be put into my car, its black91sc on aol, and my e-mail is keithmcteeth@hotmail.com, if you want to talk sometime. it costed less than $600 too. Good buy I think. Well good luck with all, and if you have any more q's give me a hollar.


Keith
-91 sc 5-speed

Yup.

I also ordered my parts from nothern auto parts for the rebuild I did. Shipped fast, nice people, and everything was correct.

Couple questions on this guys. Im thinking of doing a rebuild on my 89 now that the hg's are gone. Do you have any contact info for northern auto? Also, how hard is it to do the rebuild? Or is it more convenient to take the parts somewhere and have it done? If so, how much would this run? thanx!

If you have never built an engine before I would not recomend that you learn on this engine.

Mike 38sc, why do you say that? This would be my first engine-tear-up experience, but i dont see how it would be different from taking any other engine appart. PLEASE correct me if Im wrong or if you have any suggestions.

This was my first. Had played with other engines, mainly external, before but this was my first project all alone. Think I did pretty damn good too.

Aaron, what can you tell me about the rebuild...any tips?

Please allow me to restate what I mean.
If this is your first rebuild and you are in a hurry to get the job done then this is not the engine to bust your cherry on.

I have no problem with a man that does his own work, infact I respect that and normaly encourage it. However there has been a couple of young men here that decided to tackle that job without really having a clue what they were doing, and things havent gone too well with them.
Now I'm not slamin the guys or putting them down in any way so I hope they dont take offense to this. But if you truly want to do this job yourself I suggest that you obtain some good books on the subject of engine building and go over them until you fully comprehend what needs to be done before you ever turn a wrench on the motor. Even then you will run into things you have qeustions about, but at least if you have educated yourself as much as you can you and will be able to talk to people in that build engines in a way that you understand each other and you can get the help you need.
I have no formal training on the subject. I learned most everything from the school of hard knocks and those are lessons you never forget.
The main reason I've been trying to help those fellas is I remember(even though its been a long time ago) how it feels to be where they are at. I've sat in that gravel driveway with my head in my hands wishing somebody would just put me out of my misery. I cannot explain it but I just cannot pass by there pleas for help and it costs me everytime because I have to cosume mass quantities of Asprin to keep my head from exploding. LOL!!!
Because this is a supercharged engine you need to pay attention to every single little detail if you want it to live more than 10,000 miles. Thats really my only point.
Prepare yourself well before you jump off that cliff, and your chances for success and getting help when you run up against something you had'nt anticipated comes along will increase dramaticaly.

Kind of hard to give hints. If you have never built or torn down an engine before then there are a few things you should do like Mike said. It is kind of obvious you know something about engines and cars because you are looking at doing this yourself. But how much do you know? If the internals are something completely new to you then you should have someone next to you to help you out with little things like remembering to mark your mains so they go back where they came from. Or how to be careful not to nick the rings when you slide them back in the cylinders. There a bunch of little things like that which would be a good idea to at least have someone walk you through the whole process. Those are just a couple of things that I remember, I'm sure I would remember a lot more as I went through it the next time. If these kind of things are completely new to you maybe you should find a book that walks you through engine rebuilding step by step. What to look for, what not to do, what to do. How to correctly use plastigage. There are a ton of things I found out along the way and you definately don't want to rush things your first time around. It took me two weeks to re assemble my engine, which is totally ridiculous, but I wanted to be very cautious. I also had a few snags along the way. Yet I have sit one night drinking beers with a friend and watched him tear down and rebuild his race engine inside of three hours.

There are a ton of things I found out along the way and you definately don't want to rush things your first time around. It took me two weeks to re assemble my engine, which is totally ridiculous, but I wanted to be very cautious. I also had a few snags along the wayYour timeframe was'nt ridiculous Aaron you were doing what was needed and took whatever time you needed to do it properly. No two people are going to do the same job in the same amount of time. Thats whats wrong with the dealerships way of time alotment. They assume a certain job should take a certain amount of time and only pay the mechanic for what time is listed in there magical book. Thats the big reason you get shoddy work at dealerships today.

Yet I have sit one night drinking beers with a friend and watched him tear down and rebuild his race engine inside of three hours.Thats apples and oranges Aaron. You were building a street engine and wanted it to last as long as possable. Most racers are happy if the engine lasts untill the end of the race. Thats not really a fair compairison. Your approach was correct.

Hey guys, thanx for the tips. I would consider my self rather mechanically inclined. I have pretty much done all the work on both my birds now...more because I had to as I am a broke college student...but also because I like it. I have read the 89 shop manual and hayes about doing engine rebuilds but I aways take this forum to be more presice. At first I was just considering to change the HG's on the 89 but since it has so many miles (look below) I think it would be a good idea to do a rebuild...nothing fancy, i just want it for reliability...for now. As far as having some one to help, well in a worst case scenario I can always get the REAL mechanic...but we only call him for emergencies and wont be able to be helping me all the time, but if I screw up or something, there's always a back up. Quick question...how would I know, once the heads are out, what parts to replace? What signs of wear should I look for in an engine with such high milage. Im hoping the engine was rebuild before i bought it so I wont have to do a rebuild and just do the hg's, but u never know.

My engine had 128,000 miles on it when I tore it down and highest wear items I found in it were as follows.
1.Rocker arm fulcrums and bothe rocker tips were badly worn.
2. Crank main bearings were worn through the Babbit material and into the copper shell.
3. Piston rings were stuck in the piston grooves not fully sealing.
4. Timing cover surface where the oil pump bolts on was scored and the bore in the cover for the pressure valve was worn oblong instead of round.
5. Pushrods were worn.
6. Valve guides were worn a little too loose, but nothing like a Chevy's at this mileage.

These are some of the things that I found, others may be different.

Are you a motorhead or not? I was the luckiest guy in the world at 17/19. My first was a 426 Hemi. I was walking on air when she first fired up. But then I am very carefull, read, and ask questions.

Thats wild Doug!...A Hemi! Man I know a guy thats got 10 or 12 of those engines. He drag races a Hemi Cuda.
Somehow I suspected you were an old Chrysler man.

Yea the SC is close to what I wanted my old Road Runner to look like. So I just have to combine the 2 cars with MOPAR under the hood of course. 2 birds of a diferent feather, ha. Donar car is a Charger in this case. If I get real carried away hope to mix body work of a 69 RR with an SC. Give it a coke bottle shape and more.