Games & Entertainment

Muscle Car
how do I start to build a muscle car engine?

Wnat to start looking into building a muscle car engine for a mustang, chevelle, nova, camaro, or GTO. Where should I start? Any good websites out there? Should I buy a broken down one and build it, or should I start from scratch with the engine block? Thanks for answering!

First, you need to set a reasonable budget. You need to decide how much You Are willing to spend before you start buying parts.

You need to decide what manufacturer vehicle it will go into. You Don‘t want to spend a lot of time and money building a Chevy motor if it will be going into a Ford or a Dodge. If you are going to put the motor in a Chevy, then build a Chevy motor.

Next you need to decide how this motor will be used and what modifications will be done. This must be done early in the process. For example if you intend to use a supercharger or a turbocharger you will want to use a lower compression ratio than if you use a carburetor only. You must decide a reasonable RPM range as many components are designed to work best within a certain RPM range. For example very few street engines turn much more than 6000 RPM. If building for the street you won’t get the best bang for the buck buying parts intended to be used in the 7000+ RPM range. You want something that performs best in the 3000 to 5000 RPM range. However if this is going to be a racing engine, you may want to choose parts intended for high RPM use.

Start with the largest displacement engine block You Can afford. There is a saying “There is no substitute for cubic inches”. This means the larger the size of the engine, the more power potential. You have several choices here. You can start with a junk yard block and send it to an automotive machine shop to have it refurbished.

Or you can buy a new block. Or you can buy what is called a short block. A short block is an engine block with the crankshaft, rods, and pistons already installed.

This is your start. Next you will need cylinder heads, camshaft and valve train, intake manifold, carburetor, ignition, etc. Budget and intended use will dictate what you will buy here.

Once you have your parts list, before you start purchasing anything, you need to know what all of this is going to cost you. You may just find out that for the same amount of money you might be better off just buying a complete crate motor.