Everything To Know About BluePrint Crate Engines

Auto repairs can be hard to estimate, but one component that always costs a lot to fix or replace is your car or truck's engine. When your engine fails, you have a few options. A salvage yard engine may only cost a few hundred dollars and you can probably install it in a weekend if you bribe a couple of friends with some pizza, but you could be installing an engine that has a slew of unknown issues. You could have it rebuilt at a local shop, but you run the risk of being overcharged by a shady mechanic. There are several companies out there, such as Indiana's Jasper Engines and Transmissions, that remanufacture engines to manufacturer's specs and back them with warranties.

If you've been unlucky enough to have to search for engine remanufacturers, you might have come across BluePrint Engines and wondered about the company behind these crate engines. Here is all you need to know about BluePrint Engines before ordering a several-hundred-pound engine on a pallet to be dropped at your garage door.

BluePrint Engines was founded in 1982 by Norris Marshall, who at the time was hand-building engines for his Nebraska neighbors and local racers. His company now employs dozens of people and carries 270 engines and engine-transmission pairings for Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler corporation vehicles. BluePrint's website does not list any engines for use in vehicles made outside the United States, although it has plenty of LS series engines, which can be swapped into vehicles of all types with the proper preparation. BluePrint is headquartered in Kearney, Nebraska, where it maintains a 210,000-square-foot manufacturing and distribution facility.

Its most affordable engine at $4,649 is a complete long block 341-horsepower, 350-cubic-inch V8 for use in Chevy vehicles, and its most expensive catalog entry is an 872-horsepower supercharged 426-cubic-inch Hemi V8 for Chrysler vehicles paired with a General Motors 4L80E four-speed automatic transmission. That setup sells for $38,399. Shipping costs vary according to size and weight, but factor in at least a few hundred dollars for complete assemblies.

BluePrint balances and dyno tests every engine before shipping, and its 30-month, 50,000-mile warranty on long block engines applies whether you install your engine yourself or have a professional shop do it. Short and bare blocks are covered by the same 12-month parts warranty as manual transmissions, and automatic gearboxes get 30-month coverage. Cylinder heads and marine engines have a one-year warranty.

In 2020, Marshall sold 10% of the company's stock to a group of 13 employees, with the hope that the group would grow in size and acquire a larger share of the company. He told Nebraska TV that some of the 13 were chosen for their long tenure with BluePrint, while others had made important contributions in a short time. "There's no one formula on how I picked the stockholders," he said. "Everybody got there for different reasons."

Plant Manager Josh Saldivar expressed gratitude for being included in the new ownership group. "This gives us the opportunity to be part of the Kearney community and an opportunity to grow the brand," he said.

Chief Operating Officer Doug Fargo said he thought the stock sale was a good sign for the company's future. "I think it's been proven that companies that do employee ownership programs probably have a better success track record, so I think we're really looking forward to that," he said.