Originally Posted by altereddoug
On a budget what would be a better block to buy?
I doubt if I could afford a new block that is cnced to exact specifications. In a perfect world I would love to have one, but the reality is that most bracket racers can't. The masses of older Gm blocks would probably fail miserably if you were to probe them.
Basically what I am getting at is that this post really makes me wander what to do. Becasue on my limited budget I previuosly bought a short block from a east coast builder, complete 540 bbc with a merlin 3 block. And I ran it about 60-70 passes. Inspected the bearings a few weeks ago just to inspect it and found that it had some slight bearing damage. So I pulled it all the way apart and had the crank ploished. Then while cleaning the pistons off I noticed that they were wearing funny. So I measured the P/W clearance and it varied from .0075 to .0085 and spec from wiseco was .005. And #1 cylinder had a nice .003 scratch down the side. So it was eother bore it .030 ( because it was cheaper than going .010 for the pistons), buy new pistons,rings and have it rebalanced or sell the block and buy a new one and keep the rotating assembly.Which had just a very slight wear on the skirts and top ring land. Where as, I would still be almost the same in price for upgrading to a better billet main block. Unless I have to spend a additional 500-800 in block preparation.
Decisions, decisions..
Sounds like whomever did your machine work did a crappy job. I have a Merlin lll and I haven't had those kind of problems. The "East Coast builder" should have checked all of that before he put it together. I can't/won't debate that it is as good as a Dart because 1) I never had one and 2) The guys in the know here have already said the Dart is better, and they have used them both so I will take their word on that because they definitely know more than me...but just because it isn't as nice as a Dart does not mean it is a bad block. It is still FAR beter than a 30 year old factory block..,.No mater what block you have it is only as good as the machinist that prepares it.
JMO