There is no way a 3.8L short block should cost more than 6000$ and at most 2500$ to have the engine dropped, short block installed , having turbos installed and putting the motor back in
Parts on a short block are around 4k so labor don't be a fool
At $100/hr, which is less than most dealerships charge for an oil change, $2500 is only 25 hours of work to remove the engine, rear it down, clean everything, reassemble it, install the turbo kit, put it back in the car, and then break it in correctly.
I've posted realtime youtube videos of the entire above process, and if anything thinks they can get it done in 25 hours... send us your resume. Realistically it takes closer to 40-50 hours to do the above correctly without cutting corners, making mistakes, or literally hacking things up.
The people out there quoting $2500 in labor to build engines are the ones where the engines either blow up, don't make power, are delivered back to the customers without even being dyno'd, or straight up don't have the parts in them they're supposed to have. I've personally rebuilt 4 engines this past month alone from these types of situations, where the customer ends up paying at least double and sometimes 3-4x as much $$$ to correct the mistakes.
As far as the parts costing $4k... sure you can get a set of off the shelf pistons, rods, bearings, etc on the internet for 4k. Are those the highest quality components? Nope. If you want to make 800whp you'll be fine... but if you want your engine to survive half mile events every weekend and run 8 second passes, you'll need higher end components like coated pistons, upgraded pins, H11 hardware, better rods, etc, assembled by an expert who knows what works well together. A local Seattle customer blew his brand new engine from someone else this month in less than 1000 miles because they didn't even check or rebalance the rotating assembly after installing the new off the shelf components, supposedly because a Manley rep told them "they didn't have to."
There are also the other important supporting modifications to the shortblock that set a basic engine apart from one that will survive high HP, such as a real harmonic balancer, oiling improvements, and PCV improvements. We've seen engines wipe out their main bearings a month or two after assembly many times.
Let's not forget the gasketing, fluids, and various single use hardware that many times is foolishly re-used to save $$. We just repaired a built motor by others where they even went so far as to reuse the original head gaskets and couldn't figure out why the heads started spraying coolant out of them once they got up to temperature!
At least half of our typical customers get used to the 800whp level and want more... often growing to 1200whp+, so the heads (cams, springs/retainers, valves, and porting) and other factors such as crankshaft stability, the flywheel, and block strengthening should really be considered at the outset because it will cost more to re-do it than it will to do it the first time, not to mention that each time an aluminum engine is disassembled it will be less likely to reassemble correctly without things warping, stripping, requiring decking, etc. Can't figure out why your car keeps blowing cam seals, breaking camshafts in half, warping your flywheel, or even splitting the crank in half? We've seen all of the above.
Unfortunately a lot of times on the forum you hear people raving about the great deals they get ("PM sent!" ring a bell?) But then when their cars blow up costing them 10-20k more you won't hear a peep because either their lawyers told them to keep quiet, the offending shop pays them off to do so, or the shop is just someone local with no experience that no one has even heard of before and likely won't hear from again.
To be trite... with great power comes great responsibility... for both the customer and the shop who creates it. The intangible costs of building cars that make more than 1000hp and go fast are the costs of developing the combination of parts and knowledge required to do so, paying for your mistakes along the way... and we've learned that if you do it cheap and push it... you won't/don't have the $$$ to fix it when (not if) it breaks.
So ultimately... yes... absolutely do your research and choose wisely... but it's a truism that you often times get what you pay for in life.
