Im helping my buddy put a new engine in his 88 burban... he is thinkin about getting a kragens engine.. i beleive the long block goes for around 1200.. looking up the Gm factory replacement long block for that truck they run around 1900.. does anyone know the difference's in the engines.. i know the gm crate has decent heads.. are the heads on the kragens just plain crap hence the $1200 price.. i couldn't find any specs on the kragens.. it says the Gm engine has 1.94/1.50 valves with 9.25:1.. any help would be great.. hes trying to save money bu8t if i can prove the GM motor is better i will talk him into that.. Thanks

 

Kragen as in the auto parts store? I wouldn't buy spark plugs from them....

 

yea i may buy some spark plugs from them, but i know i would not buy an engine from them.. just got to talk my buddy into it.. you know, everyone wants to save a buck...

 

i have bought a longblock 350 (4 bolt mains)from kragen before,i cant remember but i think it might have been remanned by spartan engines, i changed the timing chain from the stocker to a nice double roller and added an edelbrock manifold. that engine ran pretty good it was like you say about 1200 bucks (core charge was like 320 bucks so it was only about 880 after my core return) and completely bone stock, nothing special at all but i had no probs with it, maybe it was luck. oh and the engine went into a 79 gmc truck, it had a new cam not a reground one, and i used a light to look through the spark plug hole and saw it was bored .040 over. i never removed the heads so i couldnt tell you what valves it had, but it seemed to run pretty strong, the only thing i remember that threw me off was that it took a different starter than the one i had, i had a straight bolt pattern one and it took the offset pattern one so i had to buy one of those. overall it wasnt bad

now on the other hand my dad bought a new crate engine from gm (also 4 bolt mains) for his 90 chevy pickup for right around 1700 bucks, and it had all of the covers on it so i didnt change anything. all i did was put the manifold on it and drop it in it ran very good as well, seeing as his truck is throttle body there was no carb tuning. the engine ran great and install was smooth, everything fit but the engine immediately began leaving puddles of oil behind and still does, now gm does have a warranty and he took it to the dealership and they told him it was the rear seal and that they would change it.

both were good engines, both had slight probs both were easily fixed it is really just luck of the draw with some stuff, but i had a decent experience with those engines

 

Sweet.. thanks for the info.. yea sounds like the kragens special my not be so bad after all. if ur not striving for performance i think it could be an ok route to go...