Assume you have a good bottom end from a 1.7 and then, just to make something crazy up, you do a 1911 build using good parts from the go-to vendors at a 914 tech day(s).

What is the resulting 1911 worth as a long block?

Try a search. Been discussed half dozen times in the last month.

Good afternoon, thank you for the note back. Most of what I Saul related to 1911 engines was technical info, I'll take a look again to see if market value was discussed and I just missed it. Have a good rest of your Sunday.

If it has 1.7 heads say $1000.

Thanks.

Won't the heads be replaced with bigger ones? What if all of the top is new / bigger tobgwt tothe 1911 size?

Are you building it up just to build and flip it or do you plan installing and sell in the future?

Depends on what you value your labor at, it is easy to add up the cost of all the parts. You can do a bare bones rebuild or sink some serious cash into pretty quickly.

People want to see receipts when talking rebuilt motor. I'd go though the classifieds and search for engine sales. Figure that the 1.7/1.8 engines alone can be found free to a few hundred dollars.


You might get lucky and find a buyer right away or you could be sitting on for months. McMark gets $5k+ for a fully documented 2056 build, I don't think he would charge that much less for a 1911 build. All the replacement parts cost more or less the same.

The heads can be machined so you could go 1.7, but the devil is in the details on the price. Without a build sheet, very difficult to say. I'm currently trying to figure out what is in my 1.7, as it has more power than a stock 1.7, but still has the heads.
Hate to say it but it's worth what someone will pay. If you have a running engine with all components, decent compression and leak down numbers $1000-$1500 range????

Bottom line is that you are adding $300 worth of pistons and cylinders to a $500 to $1000 engine.

On another note. When I rebuilt a 912 engine we did the top end. The additional stress on the bottom finally cracked the crankshaft. So, the bottom end being "assumed good" can bite you.

Crazy thing was it still ran. Just wasn't quite right and you could see the end pulley move in and out slightly while idling.

Thanks guys, appreciate the discussion.

Mainly looking to get an education and make sure I'm not being quite as dumb as usual. I have a roller that I need to get an engine into and am seriously looking at this as an option.

I don't expect to make any money if I go down this path, cost recovery would be a great result and I'm realistic that losing some money is the most likely result.

That said this would happen as part of the SoCal top end engine tech day (event) so it would be time spent with good people and I'd learn a ton in the process.

I also thought I'd ask since we have 5+ other people that look to be taking part in the day so I'm sure others are wondering too.

Point taken on what happens when you make assumptions!

Thanks again for the discussion and input.