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Looking for a little advice here.

Not sure weather to rebuild or just purchase a crate engine.

The 373 Cleveland I have now is a decent motor that is good for around 450 HP. However, I was hoping for more, possibly in the mid 500's or better. I know this is possible as I see it often. Superior Performance in Southern Cal claims they can achieve the high 500's for around $8500 to $9500, assuming that my heads and block are in good usable condition.

However PI can sell me a new crate "Hammer" for around $9500. This confuses me, I thought the asset of the all the parts would be half of the cost. Wouldn't I be better off going with the all new engine? Seems like the cost is comparable, and I would still have a complete 373 Cleveland. Even though I don't need it, it may be just what someone else is looking for.

So this leads me to ask, what is it worth?
It has aluminum C-302 heads, which George has spoken highly of and a single plane manifold along with a brand new 650 Demon carb. Miles are unknown, along with compression. I now that it must be higher than 10.5:1 though, as it pings under hard excelleration. So octane booster must be used.
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I could see how it could be confusing to think that you could buy a brand new motor for the same price as simply rebuilding yours, but if you think about the process I guess I am not surprised.

To get 500+ hp out of your Cleveland, they are basically going to throw all your components away and start from scratch. If you are spending that kind of $$, they aren't going to re-use your timing chain. They are going to clean up the bores which will mean new pistons, new connecting rods, new gaskets, new everything. I imagine they will need to re-work the heads to get the kind of flow that will give 500hp.

Basically, there would be no diffenece between rebuilding your 450hp stroker and rebuilding a junkyard Cleveland that doesn't even run. You would have to spend a little more money cleaning up a junkyard engine, but not much more.

PI's 427 is a Windsor, so as mentioned you'd need new headers and some other things... But I've ridden in two Panteras powered by these engines, and they do work very well.
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