Okay well maybe they were dished pistons that someone cut the reliefs into, I just can't see them looking that crappy from the factory they're not symetrical at all a few look good but most look diy.

okay lets say since we've been going off bad bearings that say they burned out on this piston thats rotated, that they got thrown out or something that would give enough gap to twist that much right? Or it got stuck and the connecting rod tore away from it. How do I tell which one should be up in correspondence to the opposit side

 

Heres a pic of the left cylinders, #2 would be farthest right


so this side is nice and evenly spaced but the corresponding piston to the other side seems to be twisted as well
and as for the thing in the water jacket I can't get it out lol

 

The goods is SBC chevy parts are cheap. The bad news. It dun blowed up. LOL

My very fist disassembly was done on my dads garage floor in the corner. No engine stand. If you eat your Wheaties you'll notice the engine can be flipped over by hand. Then pop the pan off. At the end of the day I had everything tore off and stacked neatly in the corner, were I left it for the next 15yrs lol. Its still sitting just at my house. Pull the pan and well have a look see. I'm thinking the crank is damaged and the caps may have come off the rods. ie broken rod bolts.

Yes you need a balancer puller to get it off. There cheap though.

I know your new to the engine stuff so I'm going to suggest watching some you tube. There are tons of educational videos there.As well as just googling. You have all the resources at your finger tips. Anything that I have told you so far can be read somewhere. I'm not saying to stop asking me but I think it is more beneficial to see thing get put together, then be able to immediately do it on your own. There are some stupid vids there but some are done well. Watch them all. I have learned almost everything from the giant stack of magazines next to the toilet.

 

So I won't damage anything by just rolling it over? and I could even figure out a way to suspend it with my hand crank hoist that I've been using with it I've just been waiting cause I didn't wanna hurt it. And for videos and imformation I was gonna order the box wrench dvd for christmas they seem very good and hands on.

 

alright I got everything I could get taken off. Note viewer discretion is advised due to gory, sad, sad photos.

 

The cylinder walls look good but the bottoms of 4. 3. are chipped bad.
Pistons and rods for 4. 3. are shot, the rest seem good but when replacing those isn't it just best to replace them all?
Idk about the crank but it seems good, and I plan on a new cam and lifters so those don't really matter.
Ah I never said a challenge wasn't a good thing but this might turn out to be a bit much.

 

It's toast. Sell it for scrap metal. With that much damage in the bottom of the cylinders it wont be worth spending a dime on, or anymore sweat and tears. Sorry James.

 

Man that guy got over on you pretty good. It looks pretty much exactly like I pictured though. As for the block IDK. Toss in the truck and take it to a machine shop for their opinion. It almost looks like some work with a die grinder may make this all good. I have some pretty knarly marks on the 383. This was done on purpose for the rod bolts to pass by. There in the same location though. If it is toast try and get your money back.

 

Idk about toast just yet, the chipped area is only about an 1/8 an inch farther down from the original grind area, obviously I'm not an expert and your knowledge surpasses mine by infinity. But I at least wanna have it checked to see if a grind will fix it and If I remember right I was reading about a 383 build where they had to grind an area such as that down for clearance, but time will tell I guess but as it sits I'm gonna need new connecting rods, pistons, cam, lifters, pushrods, I think the crank is good but since this isn't an easy fix here's what I'm thinking.

Okay so the 350 needs to be pulled and tore apart so I know whats bad, so these are my options, the 400's gonna need about a grand on a rebuild just on parts, if I can use the block after all. so I can save up and make a good build out of it this summer.
And I can rebuild the 350 for a now engine since it shouldn't be as bad lol.
Or I could combine the 2 and make a destroked 400, a 377 I believe? this build uses the crank and rods from the 350 right? or is it just the crank? or just the rods? I cant remember what I was told/read

I'd rather wait and build the 400 later and do the 350 now, but then again it depends on if either of them are rebuildable, waiting on the 400 build brings a whole new dart block to mind but that would be another year of saving and honestly I can't see that happening cause by then an apartment and an engagement + school will be on my table

 

But on another note, what do you guys think happened to this engine?
I can't see bad bearings being the reason that the rod came apart the other ones seemed fine.
I think that the guy either didn't get one bolt tight enough or over tightened it on the rod cause in the scraps I found one loose bolt and nut from the tore up rod but the other bolt is still in the tore off half of the rod end lol but I'm just guessing here.