Remanufactured motors?

[turbowannabe]

Hey guys,
Well I'm looking at options on getting my car running. I have the motor down to the short block and found a lot of metal in the oil pan. Lifter and cam look good, from what I can see without the whole cam out. I took 3 out of the 4 mains off and none of them are spun. I still need to take off the last main and all of the rod caps to check out exactly what happened. I'm going to school in about a month and a half and need to get my car going. I'm not sure I'll be able to get a machine shop to get it done within that time.
I see that there are some cheap remans out there like ATK and such and would like to know how they perform and how the warranty holds up. I know these motors cannot handle mass amounts of horsepower, so I would just be wanting to run it for maybe a year or two untill I get my stocker built up how I want it. How do these things hold up? Let me know

thanks
Dan

 

[eiuskoalman]

correct me if i'm wrong but i think i've heard this story before. do yourself a favor, sell the damn car and buy a new car with a warranty. you're obviously way tooooo hard on cars to be driving something that you cant fix yourself or send in for warranty work. 2 gn's both grenaded within the first week of owning them, might have something to do with your driving style????????

 

[turbowannabe]

Aaron,
Do you have some sort of a personal problem? Why don't YOU just save yourself some time and shut the hell up. I'm only 18 and I still act like more of an adult that you! Grow up buddy, you have to learn how to let things be and stop being such a little bitch by trying to make fun of me. I've gotten over our little deal a long time ago, and apparently you should too. This is what, the second or third time you've posted a reply with a remark like that for me? Mind your own bussiness and let someone that might actually not have some brainless remark to make answer my question.

-Dan

 

[eiuskoalman]

yeah, i have a problem with you, prick. you and your daddy come to me and threaten me with a lawsuit over a 16 year old car with 115,000 miles that YOU destroyed. you attempted to make me look like an ass on this board when it was YOU that trashed the car and tried to get your (dads) money back. i got the real story then all of a sudden you guys back off, no apologies at all. as they say, what goes around comes around.

 

[spooky]

note to self.................

stay out of Peoria!

 

[wlaukaitis]

I've been to Peroria, her name was Dawn. That was dumb.

 

[Gary Wells]

Heaven forbid:
Don't ever get caught with your pants down in Peroria, Il.

 

[turbowannabe]

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Your talking about stuff that happened almost 2 years ago. I had already decided to put it in the past and hell I wasn't going to hold any sort of grudge against you untill you started replying to my posts. But now I see how much of a baby you are even after you got $7200 in cash and were on your way. Obviously you are trying to get some point across to the guys on the board here to shun me or something. What's the deal? I don't go around talking bad about you to any of the buick guys I met, I have better things to talk about. I try not to live in the past. But since we're on the subject here's a few things I bet you forgot to mention in the "TRUE STORY"

-you said the car was rebuilt at 100k 3 years ago when the turbo cranks were still being made but i think i found out somewhere that GM stopped making those cranks over 7 years ago, i talked to the guy you bought it from and he says it was rebuilt at 92k 6 years ago. Kinda makes me wonder if the right crank was put in there at all.

-you also forgot to mention the turbo was rebuilt not just once but twice

-you told us the a/c needed recharged but come to find out it needed possibly a whole new unit, evidentally someone had got in there and screwed the a/c wiring all up plus there was a leak somewhere in the system

-you told us you would get the documentation of the rebuilds, not "i'll see what i can do" and i ended up having to track it all down

-Oh and i looked up one of your post and you failed to mention the excessive knock that you had with the car during boost, which could also cause some problems.

-You didn't tell us about how there were no rear seatbelts and the front door speakers didn't work

To tell you the truth I talked to one of the fellow buick member and he had a similar incident. Bought a GN and a few days later the trans went out and he was pretty upset about it hiimself. And you know what, he tried to get his money back too. It would have taken more time, money and energy to come through with anything so we just cut our losses and got out. There's probably a few other things I can't remember right now

 

[kh440]

Everybody take a deep breath and relax. To answer the original subject here do a thread search under user name "jimmymopower" He found a reman turbo long block for I think 1500-1800 and a pretty good warranty. The specific thread you want to read was something like "death rattle" good luck....

 

[turbowannabe]

KH440,
Thanks for the reply, I'm doing the search right now. I'm planning on going to BG, but I can't find anyone to go with me right now. I'm hoping that will give me some major insight on what to do with my car. But, I'm going to see if I can get this thread deleted since and start over. Thanks for the help


Dan

 

[wlaukaitis]

Yes I have been to Peoria. The local CAT plant was on strike and it seemed the whole town was at home. This was 1993 or so.

Anyway, I would go with a reputable engine builder. I once assisted in the installation of a Jasper engine in a Saturn. Everything was OK except for the 1 lifter that wouldn't pump up. They sent a dude out to fix it but I think we (Absolute Performance) had to pay $75.00 or something.

It could have been a freak thing though.

 

[Blue87T]

ATK engine

I have an ATK engine in my car now. I only have a few hundred miles on it so I cant really comment on the longevity of it. I will say that it came 0.040 over and the pistons dont look like the best ( or even average ) . I didnt pull any caps to check the crank . Came quickly and went in easily. It came with a front cover which I was initially told it wouldnt. My trans is out right now so I cant put any more miles on it right now.

 

[kh440]

Just for the sake of asking Dan, is your motor beynd rebuilding or do you know for sure?

 

[weeee_6]

Originally posted by wlaukaitis
Yes I have been to Peoria. The local CAT plant was on strike and it seemed the whole town was at home. This was 1993 or so.

Anyway, I would go with a reputable engine builder. I once assisted in the installation of a Jasper engine in a Saturn. Everything was OK except for the 1 lifter that wouldn't pump up. They sent a dude out to fix it but I think we (Absolute Performance) had to pay $75.00 or something.

It could have been a freak thing though.

I was in Peoria on 4th of July weekend, in 96 or so. Everybody was out of town! Cold have napped in the middle of the street, and not worried about being hit. No traffic, whatsoever.

 

[zam70]

In a response to the rant -
Anyone who smokes 2 motors in a short time and has no clue as to why needs to find a solution.
A) You are buying cars with problems (buyer BEWARE!)
B) You are doing something to blow them up and need to figure out what.

Do you have a scan tool?

Either way, you need to figure out the problem and stop doing what ever you are doing.

Now - as for reman engines.
I was told when I bought mine that it had a Jasper short block in it (unverified). So far, it has been great and I run 26 lbs of boost. If it is a Jasper, it is a tough SOB.

I have heard decent things about the ATKs too.

 

[Mr.Buick]

Interior

Zam70 where did you get the interior? It looks great, good job. What is the color on your car, gun metel gray? looks good

 

[zam70]

Front buckets came out of a 2000 firehawk, rear seat was custom made/covered and the rest of the panels were all painted to match the seats

Exterior is Midnight Gray metallic - a 2000 Lincoln LS color

 

[getchasum]

Grooms

Dan, Check this link out, I've heard lots of good things about the guy that builds their Turbo engines.

http://www.groomsengines.com/buick-231-turbo.html


Maybe you'll be back on the road soon.

 

[turbowannabe]

Hey guys,
Just got back from BG last night, what a great event! I couldn't believe I would ever see that many GN's in one place, and all of the other kick ass buicks that were there.

Yes, I do have a scantool. I have scanmaster, and whenever I was getting on it last before it started knocking I only got maybe 2* of knock retard. It started knocking after I got off of it, it sounded good before.
I got the motor completely torn down except for the cam is the only thing that hasn't been removed. I've been really busy lately with graduation and such that it took me a little while to get the engine all apart. I found out my problem though. No spun bearings, but I either had lack of oil pressure, or lack of lubrication caused by moisture in the oil, that caused the bearings to have too much friction. The #1 rod bearing was pretty sad looking; it was pretty mashed up but not spun. The rest of the journals and mains look alright, somewhat scuffed up but I couldn't feel any ridges in the any of the other journals besides the #1 rod journal. So I'm guessing I will have to have the crank turned.
Right now I'm debating having my motor professionally built by someplace like ANS, or buying a used motor from Brian Weaver at Gbodyparts.com. If I go the rebuild route, I'm really wanting to use that new 4340 Eagle crank. I found a really good deal on what at BG, and it would be a good way to go to be sure my bottom end is good. The motor that Brian is offering sounds like a good deal also; he gave me a garuntee the motor had fresh bearings, pan and main gaskets, and was inspected and everything was up to par.
Right now that's bassically where I'm at with my car. I decided I don't want to take a chance with a reman. I really would like to purchase one from Grooms Engines, but they cost $1900+$600 core charge. I would really want to keep my stock motor as a spare to build, and don't want to have to pay $2500 to do so. What do you guys think?

thanks
Dan

 

[onefastjackass]

I think that $1900 if he is using good parts and doing it correctly is a bargain.

But I don't know how much the salvage one is or how much it would cost to rebuild youres so I can't say which way I would go.