GENO'S FIRST REMANNED ENGINE
The engine in question is a re-manufactured long block and the price doesn't include the core charge (add another $400 to the price)- you'll need to supply and install your own timing cover, oil pan, oil filter bracket, oil pump, shaft, and pan, intake, brackets and engine accessories. The builder of this engine may or may not give you the option of which block and heads you can choose, as they are a production engine builder and have engines in stock for immediate purchase- they will not pull apart an assembled engine just to give you the block or heads you want. It is fully machined, but you're getting the crappy 8-valve relief cast pistons with the chamfer around the circumference and basic cast iron rings- most likely you're looking at 7.2-7.6:1 SCR depending on the heads that come with it. This engine also has resized cast rods with stock replacement rod bolts, unless you opt for ARP's.
How do I know so much about these engines? I bought one 25 years ago (not from the same company) when I didn't know how to rebuild engines yet and had sucked a valve on the original 350P that came in my 72 Esprit. The company I bought my 400 from was more than happy to take my 350P for a core, because they had no 350P's in stock and my 350P had somehow managed to survive despite dropping a valve into the engine (remarkably the only damage was one cracked head and a hole in the piston the size of a silver dollar). The 400 I bought was also capped with no.48 heads (are those any good?
), so I reluctantly accepted their offer to buy their engine for the same price as what they would have sold a remanned 350P for- $1000.
The "deal of a lifetime" 400 lived for about two and and a half years before developing a rod knock. Of course I wasn't happy about it, but like all young guys with a quick Firebird I took the engine failure as an opportunity to actually learn how rebuild an engine, and took the wounded engine to Pierce College and rebuilt it there...AGAIN.
There's a lesson there somewhere in my story- LOL.
Geno