A friend of mine is looking for rebuild help on his 396, 68 block. He is on a pretty tight budget and is asking me to help him do the rebuild. Engine did not smoke, use much oil and generally ran pretty good but he thinks there's more power to be had with a rebuild. Mostly wants to pull the engine to reseal the oil pan however.

We did a compression check and all cylinders were 180 psi +- a few pounds but one was at 165 PSI. These seem like good pressure readings. I am wondering if we should just reseal the thing after verifying what we can visually check on the bottom end and call it good. The car is not exactly a show car, he doesn't really want to spend the money to make any big gains in HP and the thing ran ok when it was in the car.

What do you guys think? Are those pressure readings an indication of a healthy engine?

If you can find out, what exactly is your friend's budget? That can help us answer his query by pointing him towards items that will get him the most value for his dollar.

Sounds like you have answered your own question. Generally the things that leak are the rear main seal which you could do while the oil pan is off and you might as well do the timing chain cover. If the timing chain has more then a 1/2 inch play you should replace it while you are at it. The intake might also be leaking . I had some oil leak problems with my motor that had only about 15,000 miles on a rebuild and pulled the motor to take care of these issues. I spent only about $100.00 to reseal the engine and replaced the timing chain.

If you can find out, what exactly is your friend's budget? That can help us answer his query by pointing him towards items that will get him the most value for his dollar.

Budget is about $750, I am sure we could reseal it for $100 or so. Just wondering if the cylinder pressure readings mean the thing is still pretty healthy at 180 psi..

What we used to do to check on cylinder that was lower on compression was to squirt some oil into the cylinder and if the compressoin came up then it was a ring problem and if it didn't the most likely was a burnt valve. We usally did not worry about a differance of 15 lbs. With $750 budget you could add some performance parts if you think the motor is ok.

reseal or rebuild?the rebuild will run more than $750 if done correctly.Stick with the reseal and forget the HP add ons at this time until the budget allows you to go through the motor.That one weaker cyl @ 165 psi still falls into the acceptable 10% of across the board cranking compression for a non competition motor.