cost for Butler 455 build?
 

I'm considering taking my '73 455 to Butler for a rebuild. It is stock bottom end with a roller cam and rockers, Edelbrock rpm, intake, Avenger 770 carb and larger valves in the 4X heads. I would like to rebuild it with a forged rods and pistons, keep the stock crank and likely use a set of aluminum heads. The is a street only build, so something in the 450-500hp range with the focus on good off idle torque and midrange is my goal. This is going into a '67 GTO, backed by a Turbo 400 and 12 bolt with 3.31 gears Any guys here have a feel for Butler's pricing structure and leadtimes? Suggestions?

Butler is a great place to take a Pontiac to, but they are busy and not cheap. Best ask them about cost and lead time.

I thought they only sold kits or you could buy an engine ready to go?

The above seems to be by correct.

Butler will not build your motor, they will only sell you a built one or kits to build one on one level or another.

sounds like I am barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps I should just look at them for an engine kit and find a competent Pontiac builder near me. I live in NC but would travel for the right guy.

Or find a good builder and see if he can supply the parts. It's possible you could end up with a better selection of components.

There are a few good Pontiac builders in NC. If you are anywhere near Raleigh, I just had Boyettes build one for me. Over the years he's built several engines for me and I've never had an issue.

About 23 years ago here, i tried to claim i could build decent 455s for about $600 or so. That was when TRW forged slugs were < $230 from PAW. Forgot what the gasket and bearing kit was! but cheap it was.

Nowadays, impossible to be under $1200 on a few parts. The cores are so bad that easily over several $k for the stupid parts.

The cost of building any old muscle car engine has skyrocketed in the last 5 years. Other professional builders can certainly chime in and post their experiences. Building 12-16 engines a year with my students each year, I have seen the cost of parts double across the board on average. Even the lowly SBC engines have gone up that much. In 2020, we made the blanket statement that we could build a 400 HP SBC for less than $1000.00. That was true and backed up by dyno results. Now that engine cost about $2000.00. (That's parts only, no labor). Pontiacs, Olds, Mopar, Ford BB cost about 50% more than SBC, SBF. The much loved LS engines cost about 50% more than a SBC, SBF as well. That is our current experience.
Butler knows how to build a quality Pontiac engine and have built hundreds of not a thousand of them. But if they are no longer doing customer engines, there are many other quality builders out there, some on this forum. As I have said many times, a Pontiac V-8 is a simple engine, with just a few different, specific little items that need specific attention. A shop with good equipment and people who have proper engine machining skills can certainly build a proper one. Allot comes down to attitude. If the shop starts out by bad mouthing your choice to build a Pontiac, only builds one every 5 years, looks down their nose at your project, acts like they are going to do you a favor, run like hell and find another shop.

A "GOOD" engine builder can pretty much build any brand engine.One of the best builder I had was Joe Sherman who was a famous SBC builder.My current builder did machine work for Joe and he builds virtually ANY engine at his shop.I will see 12 cyc exotic engines to DSL engines.He is doing quite a few Pontiacs these days.He only takes in one engine at a time!The engine in my 62 GP was done by a BBC boat racer.FWIW,Tom

Agree. Boyettes did my heads last year. They had a shop full of work with many different engines - GM, Ford, and Mopar. Reasonable prices (in my opinion), quick turnaround, and offer top shelf customer service. I’m sure they must have been approached to sell their location in downtown Raleigh but still a viable business in the same location for 80 years.

We do at least 6 engines a year. All muscle cars, various manufacturers. I am shocked at machine shop and parts pricing. Goes up every time.

Local shop says to figure about $450 to bore 030, finish hone to match pistons and deck the block.

I asked if the deck can just be a surface prep for headgaskets, to keep Compr ratio as is. Think price didn't go down.


Mind younz, i bought the 421 block from the shop(Hemi specialized), as the Crank Grinder the last Pontiac guy there been there since Jim Butler was there in the mid-late 50's. 86 years old and still grinding cranks!

If you are near Mooresville, NC I highly recommend Carolina Crank. Jack has since passed, but the business continues on.

I'm sure pricing has changed since 2018, but for +0.90 bore, clean, cam bearings, Forged Pistons, and freeze plugs we were under $800.

Gaskets, roller cam, main & rod bearings, etc were sourced from Butler.

Heads were sourced from KRE.

I can keep going... all in we were just over $10k for a very nice driver that has nearly 30k miles on it now.

I live in the suburbs of Raleigh and am familiar with Boyettes. Genuine old school machine shop/engine builder. Thanks

Just did my 455 last year. I'm across the country, but my all in costs were around 9500.00 just over 7K of that was machine shop and the rest was refreshing and porting my KRE d-ports back at kauffman.

I kept the factory crank and the valves/rockers didn't need any work. Almost everything else on the engine is new, or had some work done on it.

Machining included torque plate honing, decking, line hone touch-up on both the cam and main journals, crank grinding for 1 piece seal etc. Fairly extensive build. While still expensive, about 6K less than a crate from Kauffman and about 10K less than a crate from Butler. Engine made 580/600.

i used jeff kauffman to build my motor he did all work i went with holly snipper fuel injection KRE heads 85cc 310 cfm
comp cam 236/242 hr14
lunati 72334 hydro lifters and much more
560hp 600 trq very happy with his work he has a facebook page
check out some of his work .

Ever thinking about calling Butler and asking?

I'm sure they would provide you with an estimation/quote.

yes the best thing you can do is either call Butler or send a text as to what you want to do, the response time is good.
I also recommend and have had Spotts Performance do a couple of street/strip engines for me, his shop is in PA.

The wait time when I ordered my kit from Butler was 4-5 months because of the custom pistons. This was a couple years ago, so maybe it's better now. I was fortunate to catch them when they had the cam in stock and got that immediately. I had a local machine shop go through my block and give me a finished bore size to relay to them.

Butler website says they will build an engine for you your block or theirs. They also will use your heads I, pretty sure

been along time since i seen a paw catalog

I sent Butler my 455 a little over a year ago. They refused to use my factory crankshaft. 1200$ just to ship there and back. I just sent them the short block minus the crank. I bought just about everything else from them. I overbuilt on some items but don’t regret it. Since they in wanted to replace the factory crank I just upgraded to a forged and had 4 bolt billet caps fit. I bought the Edelbrock heads that Butler builds and went with a roller cam

1911 - did they say why they wouldn’t use your crankshaft?

Best catalog ever. Still have one I use for reference sometimes. I like they fact that much of it was just copied pages right from the manufacturers.

If they did that to me I would refuse to use them. 455 cranks are PLENTY strong for just about any build.
They just want to sell you a crank.
Did they sell you a Ohio, the worst of the forged ? Where they make the most money ?

A builder can’t guarantee a factory cast crank will hold up once it gets a certain level of usage on it unlike a factory block.

On a factory block it’s well known at what hp and stroke level it will start unwinding itself, a crank at least to me is a crap shoot!

Mag testing a block 99 % of the time if it’s cracked it will show up, where as a internal crack starting off deep down where two oil passages intersect will not show up until the crank flat out gives up.

A real Magnaflux test done like the ones that can be certified for a aircraft are a whole other ball game then what gets used on automotive engines.

Does anyone really trust that a cast crank does not have a crack starting out just because it rings nice when you tap it with a hammer on a counter weight?

any difference good or bad with a "N" nodular iron crank from 1968? or is that the cast crank mentioned?

27 or so years ago when I built my 421 SD engine I decided to use a 428 4 bolt block so I could use a block mounted starter.I also used a 421 arma steel crank.I was magged,knife edged and nitrited.It was raced some in the early years but then just driven .Im actually going to do a oil sample to see what’s going on inside.Tom

One of the nice benefits of building a 350 or 400 is you can use a 1965-66 Armasteel 389 crank..

If you supply the block and crank which is almost basically how I start every build, I typically spend no less than $10k from start to finish on any brand engine, including sbc's.

By the time I do rods, pistons, all the block work to square it up and bore it, a good set of aluminum heads, not the cheap chinesium stuff, I still spend a little on them checking valve job and springs regardless if they are new, and all the other little things that add up. I usually go hydraulic roller which isn't a cheap route either. Even flat tappets I have nitrided and use lube style lifters that adds to the cost It's just not a cheap adventure anymore.

Call around, any competent shop can do a Pontiac, there isn't anything special about them. It's finding a good shop that takes pride in their work that is the hard part.

No there really isn’t much difference in any of the OEM cast cranks. Most all good machinist that grind cranks will mag the crank before they grind them. If it passes the mag test i wouldn’t hesitate to put them back to service.

Pretty much all the common factory Pontiac cranks are Nodular cast iron cranks with very little difference in strength. Arma steel is Nodular cast Iron also. The Arma steel is thought to be marginally stronger, but it is still a Nodular Cast crank. Pontiac engineers used the Arma crank in the RA2 and RA4 engines because they thought it was slightly stronger. Overall though there is very little strength difference on any of the common Arma or N Pontiac cranks.

Bulter simply wants to sell new cranks and not mess with dealing with machining used cranks. When they are using the fear of breaking a factory crank, but don’t mind selling you a Chinese nodular cast crank it pretty much says it all. The metalergy of an off shore nodular cranks is very very poor compared to a OEM Pontiac nodular cast crank.


I agree with Formulajones, unless Bulters are local to you, there is really no reason to send an engine to Bulter’s and wait for them to do it. Plenty of competent shops around.

Who does the camshaft nitriding?

I ordered a custom cam from crower a few years ago and I believe they said they do it.

I have a cam that Crower did for Paul around Covid time, II bought it off of him last year but still haven’t even opened it up to look at it.

I have a 62 Armasteel 389 crank.

At that time the nitriding was an extra 100-150.00 … around there.

There's always Len Williams: http://www.lenwilliamsautomachine.co...ong_Block.html

My lead time from Butler for custom Ross pistons was six weeks from order to my door. This was in 2024

Years ago I went to a "Pontiac expert" who built a 505 IA2 for me. A flat cam, head gasket, broken rocker stud, rod through the pan and 3 engine r&r's later, i went with a local guy that mostly builds chevies and made fun of me for building a pontiac.

He can laugh at me all he wants because it hasn't had to come out since.

Yeah that sounds like it started out to be a mess until you found a good guy. He may be a Chevy guy but it sounds like he knows what he's doing.

I mentioned Zimmerman in another thread about engine machinists here in arizona. He builds all of Frank's engines (Frank of Indian adventures) so I see IA2 blocks and tiger heads in there all the time and usually a couple stock block Pontiacs. Funny thing is Zimmerman's whole family are racers. Mike races a thunderbird with a BBF, his wife races a 69 dart with a 340, and he has a rail that I think is Chevy powered so I don't even know if I'd consider him a brand specific guy lol. His own race cars are a mixed bag but he can and will build anything you bring him and I see race cars at the track all the time of all brands that have his name plastered all over the car. The fact that Frank trusts him to build his IA engines says a little something.

I also hear all kinds of horror stories about other shops around the valley. We have no lack of engine shops to choose from , it's finding a good one that's difficult.