Shoot me straight - is this worth the money?, Cracked 3SGTE that I can have for a low price Options

[Unicorn]

Hey all. At the moment I'm dying to get started with my ST205 build, but I know that I'm going to have to take my time with it for commitment/time and money reasons, so I started looking around for an engine to buy so I can work on that for a while and not have a car sitting rusting away in the yard for as long whilst I work on the engine.

I found a UK breaker selling a damaged 3rd gen 3SGTE engine from an ST205. It is described as having a vertical crack in one cylinder, running down from the top of the block about an inch or slightly more. This would obviously need to be bored and sleeved, preferably with good quality cast sleeves, but is it worth the expense of having this done? I could have the entire motor for less than £300 delivered to my door, and the head is in good condition, the only thing wrong is that one cracked cylinder.

Is it worth my time, money and the hassle of getting this repaired or should I avoid it completely and look for a different engine? I don't want to run into problems down the road but I have heard mixed reports from people about the effectiveness of sleeving a block, right from "It'll allow you to run more boost" all the way down to "That will undoubtedly cause reliability issues in the future". So what are your opinions on it? If it makes any difference, I was told that the engine only has 60K miles on it when this damage happened.

Thanks in advance.

[Smaay]

nope stay away from it

[stephen_lee]

can i just TIG it back together?


stay away

[Unicorn]

LOL

Fair enough guys, thank you for the advice! I'll keep searching

[Rav4Race]

unless u find another cylinder block...heard the st215 block was excellent...or get another 205 block. import it from malaysia koz they got plenty of (half cuts) with jdm engines. thats where i bought my 205, n there are plenty! or simply import an engine from there:p