The OP still hasn't posted if all his research has paid off. Lot's of detail on the first three experiences but nothing on the fourth.
How many miles on the new motor and how does it run? How did the project turn out?
The new motor has less than 50 miles on it. I sort of believe in old school philosophy of breaking a new engine in slow and easy and not running Synthetic Oil in it for at least Ten Thousand miles. I am a big believer however that synthetic, specifically Mobile One is the reason that some get 350,000 miles out of an engine with doing nothing more than changing spark plugs, oil and filter. An opposing view point on this is a friend of mine who just bought a new Hemi and off the show room floor took it up to over a 140 miles per hour on the Indio Desert. He said if you plan to drive em fast, break em in fast. I disagree, but let your conscience and the Highway Patrol decide who is correct.
In regards to the research, I would have to state that without it, I would have been a babe in the woods and certainly taken advantage of. I first started looking into local Machine Shops around the Phoenix area and complaints filed to the Better Business Bureau. It was eye opening to say the least. I could not believe how many shops were actually using "used" parts in their rebuild. If it passed a compression check or if the parts didn't look "broken", then in they would go. I started getting quotes from a number of shops in the area for labor install and of course, they shared with me some of the nightmare stories they had about "crate" engines and even some from the "Dealerships". Come to find out, most of the Dealerships buy from local machine shops.
This led me to look into National Companies like Jasper Engines. Jasper had more complaints against them than I could even read. Then again, Jasper probably sells a Thousand engines a month so they are huge. This also led me to Autozone and O'Reilly's. They were cheaper but not by much. I actually saw a posting on the Ford Expedition Forum and decided to look at Promar. When you stop and think about the high tech equipment really needed to rebuild one of these beast, you tend to take your hat off to a company with hundreds of thousands of Dollars invested in "making it right" the first time. Some of the Machine shops I looked at had a "hot tank" and that was about it. It was no brainer. Just take the time to read their web site.
I did have a moment or weakness when I read post by Habbibie and Stamp. Both seemed to be very knowledgeable on buying used engines. As I posted earlier, most of my Purchases were out of State and I was unable to test the motors and simply kept my fingers crossed. Needless to say, none of the used engines worked for me. So if you are considering replacing your engine, make sure you read up on post by either Habbibie or Stamp. Very good source of information and they know what they are talking about.
