Judd and I were planning to do an intake/cam/spring swap in his Durango at some point. We snagged a Hughes dual plane intake a while back and had been looking at cams and springs.
Tuesday, I ran across an ad on FBM for a rebuilt 5.2L Magnum shortblock with a CompCAMs XR268HR cam, KB399 pistons, Eagle I-beam forged rods, stock crank, balanced, new timing cover, new oil pump, intermediate shaft, timing set, bare stock heads and a couple boxes of Magnum parts for the whopping sum of $300..... in OKC, 250 miles away. The guy was moving and could not take it with him, hence the fire sale. Judd and I blasted over there yesterday afternoon/evening and got back at about 12:30 last night. Long trip, but worth it.
The bad: The pistons are wrong for Magnum heads. They are domed for the open chamber of an old style LA318/360 head. Not sure the guy knew it as he had not got to the point of doing heads, but I noticed it right off from the pics in the ad. We would have taken it all apart and to check stuff anyway, so we will just swap to a KB167 or similar. The 167's are a little lighter, but not so much to be a deal breaker. We *could* swap to some 360LA heads, but that is more of a science project than I want to get into for a daily driver. It involves drilling oil passages and intake bolt holes in the heads and running external oil lines to feed the rocker shafts.
Cam: The 268 is a little bigger than we planned, but I think it will be fine as long as we keep our static CR at 9+ and we have HP Tuners at our disposal to tweak the efi a bit if necessary.
We basically got the shortblock and extra parts for less than the cost of the camshaft. Whoo hoo!
Tuesday, I ran across an ad on FBM for a rebuilt 5.2L Magnum shortblock with a CompCAMs XR268HR cam, KB399 pistons, Eagle I-beam forged rods, stock crank, balanced, new timing cover, new oil pump, intermediate shaft, timing set, bare stock heads and a couple boxes of Magnum parts for the whopping sum of $300..... in OKC, 250 miles away. The guy was moving and could not take it with him, hence the fire sale. Judd and I blasted over there yesterday afternoon/evening and got back at about 12:30 last night. Long trip, but worth it.
The bad: The pistons are wrong for Magnum heads. They are domed for the open chamber of an old style LA318/360 head. Not sure the guy knew it as he had not got to the point of doing heads, but I noticed it right off from the pics in the ad. We would have taken it all apart and to check stuff anyway, so we will just swap to a KB167 or similar. The 167's are a little lighter, but not so much to be a deal breaker. We *could* swap to some 360LA heads, but that is more of a science project than I want to get into for a daily driver. It involves drilling oil passages and intake bolt holes in the heads and running external oil lines to feed the rocker shafts.
Cam: The 268 is a little bigger than we planned, but I think it will be fine as long as we keep our static CR at 9+ and we have HP Tuners at our disposal to tweak the efi a bit if necessary.
We basically got the shortblock and extra parts for less than the cost of the camshaft. Whoo hoo!
Comment