My mechanic said it would be around $2,600 for what he called a partial rebuild on my 96 integra.

It's using up about 1 Qt of oil per 1,100 miles and I'm wondering if I should ditch it now or wait and see how long it lasts and rebuild... It also has compression ranging from 155(cyl #1) to 180(cyl #4).

As far as I can tell, most of the JDM B18Bs for sale are OBD1 and I wouldn't be able to smog that in my 96.

So what have other people paid for a rebuild? And any ideas when I should expect her to blow?

 

That's pretty high, in my opinion, for a stock rebuilt on your LS motor. You should ask for a list of things he is going to do.

Honestly, for that amount of money, you can get a fully functional LS motor (full swap), or if you look around, you can probably even get a GSR (full swap). I'd look into other options (or at least another mechanic ) before settling on that price.

As for your motor's life, once it gets that bad, it just gets worse and worse. You'll slowly lose more and more compression until you'll be flooring your gas just to move it a few feet. However, before you even get there, you'll likely run out of oil and probably **** up a rod bearing.

 

Hmmm. Where would you look for an OBDII engine? Most of what I see on ebay is OBD1 and I can't pass smog with that.

 

For around 2600 you can find an OBD2 Longblock LS and still have money to mess around with if you choose to build it and such. Like shamoo said, you could also find a GSR Swap for that price

 

Well, I'm lookin but I don't see anything yet...

What I see as the upside to the rebuild is I could just use forged parts if I'm already paying for the labor and then add some boost...

 

Yes, you could just use forged internals, but you have to add that in to the rediculous price of $2600 that you got. Engine rebuilds should be like $1000-1500 or so. Honestly, I haven't heard of one that high before. What kind of shop is it? Do they specialize in rebuilds? Usually small shops that don't usually do large projects will charge a lot.

As a few of us said, try looking around the classifieds too. When I used to be big into this whole scene, I'd get OBD2 LS motors for like $500, and GSR's for lower than $2K. These are legit too. You just have to look around.

Search this forum for engine suppliers. I remember most of them having prices lower than that.

 

u should just do like me... trade your LS motor for the labor and dealer discount on a complete rebuild on an h22 (well i already had an H to begin with).. hehe.. guess i got that advantage..

 

Yeah $2600 is way too high for rebuilding an LS longblock.
It probably just needs new rings/seals/gaskets
you're mostly paying for labor.

That said, back in 1999, I paid a local shop $900 for a stock rebuild of my b18a in my 1990 Integra.
Could've bought a long block for less, but who is to say I wouldn't have had to rebuild that (you never quite know what you're getting with used motors even with compression and leak down tests)...so it was worth doing the rebuild, since the motor was real strong after that, and is still running strong today (someone else owns the teg now).

 

look for a b20b or b20z at a local junkyards. Usually those are driven by grandmas and tend to be in very good condition if it came out of a stock CRV. theya re relatively cheap too, roughly $600-800 for a longblock. add $500 to install it in. adds up to about $1300 max which gives you $1300 that you saved.

 

I've heard you can't SMOG a truck/SUV motor in a car...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by shamoo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Usually small shops that don't usually do large projects will charge a lot.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think that's the problem. They do good prices on maintenance but it's run by a guy and his wife...

I have no idea where to look for a good price on a rebuild... I guess I'll keep looking for swaps. If I could get a rebuild for $900, that would be no problem!

I put in some Castrol GTX yesterday so we'll see if that lasts any longer. When I rev it up to 4.5K 1/2 throttle(in 1st) and then let off quickly, it jerks really hard... It's annoying since I'm in stop and go traffic every day...

I forgot to mention the car needs a new door, front bumper, probably radiator support and then a paint job so that's why I was considering parting it out...

 

in the bay area i see?

try redstone motors in mountain view... http://www.redstonemotors.com
ask for ghram tell him you know the two brothers who always come in...


also, attarco in berkeley... search on google or 411 it..

in the end, 2600 is way too much. just pick up a stock longblock for $500-$700 and call it a day

 

Sweet! I'll give those guys a call tomorrow. They don't have any b18bs on their website but who knows? Hopefully they have some OBD2 stock.

 

i'm in the same boat as you, except my compression is nominal (195 psi across).

i'm still debating if i should just keep it and bare with it until i can afford a legitimate gsr swap, or just go B20 and find a smog tester that will pass my car based on the sniffer, not the visual.

I've been quoted 1100-1500 for a stock rebuild with new seals bearings rings and machine work.

 

A couple years ago I had a shop replace the shortblock on my brothers LS...rebuild/parts/labor all for about 1500...2600 seems kinda steep.

 

Yeah dude Attarco is always a good choice!

 

In fact, I just called attarco and they quoted $1025 for an OBD2 JDM B18B with a $200 core charge and w/o tranny+emmissions sensors.

Not too bad, and cheaper than the rebuild, but I'll keep checking around for options. If someone can rebuild for under $1,500, I'd probably prefer that and just supply some forged rods, pistons + block guard at the same time...

 

I was in the same boat as you recently. Although my engine was a b18a (OBDI, which makes life much easier). I was quoted about 3000 to rebuild my motor with high quality internals, and 3500 for ls/vtec. Ultimately those prices were too high. A shop will charge you around 100 dollars an hour to remove and install your engine, take it out yourself. It really isnt hard. I ended up buyying a JDM b20, and it is supposedly showing up on thursday.

 

Try this:

http://car-part.com/

I just did a search for 1996 LS engines in California and found about 25 matches ranging from $650 (for a 1998) to $1000 (for a 2001). That's pretty reasonable. Too bad, the cheapest VTEC I saw was $2300.

Do you have another means of transportation? I had an engine swap done years ago and the car was out for 3.5 weeks at a cost of about $2600. The brand new factory rebuilt motor lasted 110 miles before it fried and spent another 3.5 weeks in the shop. Both swaps were performed by the dealer, however the first place never fixed the coolant problem that blew my original motor, so Nissan picked up the tab for motor #2 & #3.

 

I am buying a OBDII B18C1 from RisingSun in california for $2345, full swap no core exchange to switch out my water-locked motor. That price includes shipping to a local dock here in Texas, a new timing belt and a six month warranty. Its not the best price but its good and still better than paying enough to buy your engine three times over. Either way used B18b's are cheap cheap, check out, Risingsun, engineplace.com; ebay sellers, enginsus and anarchy. They all have pretty good prices.

 

http://www.hmotorsonline.com

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jasonw &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've heard you can't SMOG a truck/SUV motor in a car...</TD></TR></TABLE>

huh?


btw that is waaay too much for a rebuild. For that money I'd spend alittle more and get the B18c1 swap.

 

Yeah. At least in CA, light-truck motors are for light-trucks and a b18b/c of the same age or newer is the only thing that will pass a visual for sure...

Well I'm finding used B18Bs for as low as $800... I guess I could get one and dedicate a weekend to the swap if I can't find a good price on a rebuild.

Redstone said it's:
$ 800 to pull old motor/install new/rebuilt motor.
$1,000 for rebuild labor
$ xxx for parts.

I have access to a picker/stand and have a socket set but, I'm wondering how much crap I'll have to buy to do the swap...