have over 200,000 on my 4.9 and just wondered about the typical cost of having a engine rebuild in a shop cost.

 

Short answer. $500-$5000

As long as you keep the right fluids in the right places 300s run for a very long time. Most people get running used engines to swap. Most other people get a reman engine from Jasper, Eagle, etc. There's really not a big number of these getting rebuild individually and that makes it hard to say "a typical cost is X" with any reasonable accuracy. The people who do actually rebuild them usually aren't doing just a stock rebuild so there's wildly varying parts costs. Whether or not you're providing your own parts or having the shop order them will change things. Depending on how much machine work is getting done the cost can vary a lot. You might just bore it out .010 or you might have it bored, decked, the head resurfaces, new valve guides, a 3-angle, some porting etc etc. The cost of those things individually will vary a lot from region to region and shop to shop.

 

Location and whom is doing the rebuild, will play a big part in cost.
Gonna have to visit some shops and get quotes.
Shop with a good reputation is ideal.


If your 4.9 is efi, don't be shocked if the builder says the head is cracked, it's common with the 4.9 efi head.

 

I disagree. It's not any more likely to crack a head than any other engine. You need to overheat the crap out of it to even think about cracking a head. If it was it wouldn't have the reputation it does.

If you're gonna crack a head (which requires a lot of overheating and likely more than once since you're not guaranteed to crack a head by overheating so you'd need to do it more than once) it's probably going to be at the air injection ports (not all 300s have air in the head). I'm not 100% sure as to whether or not there were carb'd 300s with air in the head but I'm pretty sure there were. After the air injection ports the exhaust valve guide area is next most likely to crack (still not likely). This is what the consensus on the Fordsix forum is. I haven't personally overheated the crap out of a bunch of 300s just to study head cracks.

I will say that inline 6s in general are more likely to have a "cracked head" because people blow head gaskets and overheat them (in no particular order, one can be the cause/effect of the other), replace the head gasket and don't check to see if the head (which is 50% longer than a 4cyl head) is warped and then get all the symptoms of a blown head gasket (because the head gasket isn't sealing because the head is warped) and conclude that the head is cracked since they "just put a new head gasket on so that can't be the issue."