[Quadrajet]

Hey guys, I have a '79 TA with the famous (infamous?) 403 and I think its just about time for a rebuild or swap. I'm leaning towards going with another olds (maybe a 350 this time) for simplicity's sake.

Anyhow, a company called Marshall engines is pretty big in the reman market and they'll even dyno your engine before they ship it to you. I was wondering if anyone here has ever dealt with their motors and if so, was it a good buy? Did you have any problems?

If not, can you recommend another source for a good remanufactured engine with some performance upgrades?

[Quadrajet]

Hey guys, I have a '79 TA with the famous (infamous?) 403 and I think its just about time for a rebuild or swap. I'm leaning towards going with another olds (maybe a 350 this time) for simplicity's sake.

Anyhow, a company called Marshall engines is pretty big in the reman market and they'll even dyno your engine before they ship it to you. I was wondering if anyone here has ever dealt with their motors and if so, was it a good buy? Did you have any problems?

If not, can you recommend another source for a good remanufactured engine with some performance upgrades?

[olds]

I have not heard of them. What are your goals for this new 403 ? Stock will be just that. If you are going to rebuild it, your might consider the 9:1 KB pistons from FCRperformance.com or run late 330 head/early 350 heads (67-72 heads) to boost compression.
I do not know where you are located but contact FCRperformance and J&S Machine. Both do excellent work on 403's. Also see dickmiller racing and the latest 650HP 403 that runs on pump gas. www.dickmillerracing.com

olds

[Quadrajet]

Thanks for the reply...
Marshall www.marshallengines.com is a large producer of reman engines, comparable to Jasper for instance. I work for an auto parts supplier, so I could get one of these at a pretty good price. I liked the fact that they pre run and dyno these engines before shipping them out, but I consider word of mouth to be the best reference so I thought someone on here may have run one and could offer their take.

As far as performance goes, I'd be very happy with a low 14 second car. My bone stock 403 equipped TA ran 15.40 with nothing more than a gear change (3.42), so I don't think it should be all that unrealistic with a a cam swap, adjustable valvetrain and headers.

[olds]

#1 problem with the 403 olds is the compression. Stock is 7:9:1...your bore it..it gets even worse. Can't do much w/o compression. Early heads or piston swap. Most people do not realize the 403 olds is a very low compression motor in stock form. Bolts ons are not going to do a thing for this motor. Cam...headers...ect. Waste of money. The money should be spent on heads ~60cc or pistons that are flat top and not dished.

A simple rebuilt 403 will make 200HP max. Cam swap....maybe 225max. A VTEC Honda 4cylinder makes more HP than a 403 stock these days.......

olds

[Quadrajet]

I know about the compression issues with the 403, which is part of the reason I haven't eliminated the idea of going with an earlier year 350 Olds instead.

The problem is I wonder if that popular 403 head swap is really as simple as it sounds. I know you have to have the head bolt holes enlarged, but I've also heard that the 350 heads lack cooling passages that are present on the 403 heads which I heard are necessary to make up for the lack of cooling passages between the HUGE cylinder bores. Also, I heard that the dowel pins on the block do not line up with the holes on some of these heads.

I could be wrong on these things, if I am please tell me, but is there any way around these issues other than expensive (and specialized) machine work? Also, wouldn't boring a block actually increase the CR since you'd be squeezing more volume into less space?

I was leaning towards going with another Olds due to price and ease of installation, but if I end up $500-$700 short of what swapping to a (dare I say it?) Chevy crate motor -- I'd honestly have to go with the Bowtie I guess.

[olds]

I have 1967 olds 330 heads on my 403.
If you do not want to run the early heads then you need to use the KB flat top piston. It is a new piston and it has about 9:1 with stock heads. Fcrperformance has the pistons. www.fcrperformance.com

By the way..FCR did the heads for my 403.
olds

[mike nixon]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Quadrajet:
Hey guys, I have a '79 TA with the famous (infamous?) 403 and I think its just about time for a rebuild or swap. I'm leaning towards going with another olds (maybe a 350 this time) for simplicity's sake.

Anyhow, a company called Marshall engines is pretty big in the reman market and they'll even dyno your engine before they ship it to you. I was wondering if anyone here has ever dealt with their motors and if so, was it a good buy? Did you have any problems?

If not, can you recommend another source for a good remanufactured engine with some performance upgrades? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

the problems i've seen with marshal is when there is a problem they're a pita to deal with. require you to pull the engine down and then don't reimburse the time.

one of two things happens here,either you eat the labor or charge [and piss off] the customer.
it's a lose lose situation for the shop.

due to the above situation i don't use them.

if i had a choice between a marshal and building one from scratch i'd build it.

i'd start looking at local machine shops. find one that does good work and go from there.

another thing to remember is once you throw out the oem block you've got a non numbers car.

this will affect value in the future if you ever decide to sell.

mike

[Quadrajet]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the advice and the more I think about it, I probably will just rebuild the engine I've got since it will be numbers matching and all. I know a machine shop that I would trust to do the block work, and PAW sells ready to go crank kits so it may work out for the best anyway.
I went to FCR's website and I can't seem to make heads or tails of it. You wouldn't happen to have a part number for those pistons you recommended would you? I'd like to get more info on them because you mentioned them being flat-tops and I don't want to make a mistake going the other way and raising compression too high, going over 9.5 to 1

[olds]

FCR's website is not very good. Though Terry (the owner) makes up for in customer service. Just call....its the best way..

[Jeff Walker]

I wouldn't use them. The make it sound like they have a good warranty but their follow up on it is real poor when it comes to getting money back on labor!

I have a small repair shop and installed one. Lasted less than 400 mile and cam back with scored pistons. Found out the endplay on the crank was way high...like close to 1/8 inch. They blamed it on a transmission problem like high pressure causing the converter to balloon. So I got to eat all the labor. Oh I checked the core engine and the crank endplay was just fine. So IMHO beware.