I'm with Ironhead on this one.
If it's an honest 300 HP, there's no way to do it for that price. If it's a lean back in the chair and look up at the ceiling 300 HP, then anything goes.
The problem is the way things get worded. And people let themselves be lured into the verbal traps, because they're trying to save a buck. Case in point would be the moly rings.
You can buy a Federal Mogul/Sealed Power moly ring set for $37.99, all day long. So, riddle me this. Why in the world would anyone ever choose to spend $102.99 on a Speed Pro moly ring set? Hey, a moly ring set is a moly ring set, aye? Not even close! Put the cheap rings on a piston and stick it in the bore upside-down. Hook a simple fish scale up to the wrist pin and see what kind of drag you get, pulling those rings through the cylinder. Repeat with the high-dollar ring set. Amazing, isn't it?
A double row timing set is not the same thing as a double-roller timing set, either.
If this company is getting $300 for a core, then we're talking about an $1100 engine. You just can't do one, at least not doing it right, for that kind of money. By the time you hot tank a block, bore it, hone it and replace the cam bearings and freeze plugs, you're going to have about $250 in it. Does it need align-honed? Does it need to be decked? Turn the crank and you've got another $100 or so wrapped up. Resize a set of rods and put a decent bolt set in them and your edging up close to another $150. We've eaten up 1/2 that price and we're not finished with machine work yet. Hot tank the heads, check them for cracks, do a valve job, install a set of screw-in studs (you're not going to run a set of springs that big without them) and you're in for another $250. You've not milled the heads yet, nor have you installed any bronze guide liners. You've got what, $300 - $350 left to play with? It's going to be tough to get anyone to assemble an engine for anything less than $150 and that's a give-away price. So you're down to $150 - $200 and you've not bought a single part. A set of hypereutectic pistons and a cheap ring set are going to get you another $120. A set of regular mains and rods are going to ding you another $50. Oil pump will get you the best part of $30. You just ran out of money and you still need cam, lifters, timing set, gaskets, etc. And you're changing pistons without balancing the bottom end?
Now, if you're dealing with someone that grinds the two crank journals that need it, resizes the one rod that needs it and bores the two cylinders that are the worst, you ~might~ be able to build something for a grand. You get what you pay for.
Ted, several years back, we did a standard 350 rebuild that we sold on an exchange basis. We used to sell a lot of them and some of our best customers were the Chevy dealers in the area. One of those dealers owned an NHRA Pro Stock car his service manager drove, so I knew them well enough to ask why they would pick us over the old Target engines GM made available. I got a chance to see one of those motors and you could have knocked me down with a feather. If they had a crank that got trashed on one journal, they would turn it as far as they needed and would install a bearing to fit it. That stuff was all built out of parts that were not going to cut it on quality control, so they would sweep them into a big pile and do whatever they had to do to assemble them. Problem was, the dealers were smart enough to see you just couldn't build engines that cheap and they started looking into them. It sure provided a lot of business for us.
