Best friend's last car- dudes a wonderful actor in theater with a fantastic voice, but he's not much of a mechanic yet. He's owned this since high school nearly 12 years and was on his second engine- the first boiled itself to death when it's head gasket flew the coop while he was moving. His family mechanic swapped another 5-cylinder engine, but he says the head gasket is "burnt" and it's surging in power so he's willing to sel it to me for $500. 1999 model, 5-Cylinder (Whiteblock?) turbo engine, auto trans. 180K on the body.
What do I need to know before plopping his hearse in my front yard?
From personal experience, grab another engine. I'm in the middle of round 2 of this experience, this year.
The cylinder liners in the block get crushed down a bit (it's open deck, not separate liners) and the block will need to be milled. This is shockingly expensive because, unlike a lot of engines, the head and main and rod bolts really ARE one time use only. I have about $600-ish in parts just to close up the bottom end, including new main bearings because a couple were fugly.
The non reusable main bolts were $10 each, there are twelve. (It does not have "mains", it has two block halves)
Rod bolts and head bolts are not too bad at about $3 each, but ten times three plus twelve times three adds up.
Bottom end gasket set is like $100-300 depending on manufacturer, same for head gasket set
I could go on, and provide the whole gory story, but suffice to say, I should have just bought a warrantied engine from a reputable source.
I have a t5 engine in an s70 and 5 speed manual for sale in central Alabama
I have a good engine in Ohio...
