Originally Posted by trollaltdelete

My son has a 1985 corvette that the engine had a valve that was stuck. Was told that it was a hand grenade waiting to blow.

He only paid 2700 for the car and was very disappointed that after 2 months is went to crap.

We ordered the GM 350/360hp engine from Jegs. Took a couple of days to remove it. A day to move the parts from the old engine to the new engine. A few more days to install it and put back all the TPI stuff.

We did not add anything different except that engine as it arrived from jegs.

We are very pleased with how it turned out. Everything fit perfectly. Started right up and this car is much better that is was the day he purchased it.

Costs

Engine - $1500 on sale at jegs
Gaskets - Intake (about 40)
Gaskets Exhaust Manifold (about 27)
Oil 10 qts with an oil change right after the install 40
Harmonic balancer 70
Balancer bolt 25
balancer installer / Puller 27
Happy Hooker 79
We also changed the IAC, Knock Sensor, oxy sensor, oil pressure just because we were in there.
I had about all the other tools.

All in all it was about $2000 to have a new engine in that car. Eismann's Corvette center in Jupiter said it would run between 6 and 8K to have them do it. After completing the job and counting the hours, I think that their estimate was about right on. So by working with my son and taking about 4 weekends we saved quite a bit.

We put the car on jackstands and began following the engine removal steps in the manual. This forum and google in general were very helpful.

I found that when looking for torque specs it was easier to google it than to dig thru the manual.

While I cannot point to specific posts, this forum was extremely useful.

The coolest thing was that he got another car after the vette went down. We worked together on it and I suggested that he could sell the vette for now, since he is moving to denver and could use the money. His reply was really cool. "I don't know, since we built this car together, I am not sure that I want to get rid of it ever!"

Ken

Originally Posted by reno1985

I think that is awesome what you did. I have a 85 also that I want to do this. What engine did you get from jegs? Did you get everything else from them also?

Originally Posted by trollaltdelete

We got this engine.

http://www.jegs.com/i/GM+Performance...67353/10002/-1

I also got the harmonic balance and the gaskets from them.

Got the oil and other fluids locally. Wound up having to replace the power steering pump while we were in there.