Ok here is the story.

I picked up a 1989 GXL RX7. The way I understood it, the owner gave up trying to get it started after they swaped the original engine with a blown apex seal out for another one. I got the car with the blown motor, the one they swapped in (already in the engine bay) and all the necessary parts to finish it up, along with some extras. The engine they swapped in had 90,000, ran perfectly. The car and original engine have 133k on them.

Well after spending a day working on it, that I am 99% sure they didn't ever try to start it. There were hoses that werent on, some were cut, the radiator, alternator, and belts were also not on (though they could have been removed after it wouldn't run). After doing some more work, I realized the alternators (one for each engine) didn't match, the harnesses (again, for the blown motor and the one in the car) didn't match, the radiators didnt match. I'm pretty sure he grabbed a 13b out of an S4. Wonderful.

And, to top it all off, when we tried to put some coolant in the radiator after we got everything attached, coolant and oil came out of the oil feed tube. Perfect.

So now I have a dilema. I have a decent shell with 2 very small patches of rust, and the underside looks clean. I have an S5 engine with a blown apex seal. I have 2 alternators, and another wiring harness. I have another engine in the car, which is more than likely an S4 engine, with a bad o-ring.

Advice? I don't have much money right now, but I am not in a rush to do something about this. Should I sell the engines? Could I get anything from them?

I wanted to make this a track car, keep it n/a for now, maybe a bit of a daily, but I dunno what to do now.

 

Bump?

 

Without money it sounds like you're SOL for now. You could buy a rebuild kit and try rebuilding it yourself. There's tutorial videos available from some of the vendors. I'd rather have someone who really know their stuff do the rebuild, especially if it's for a track car that will be seeing lots of high rpm abuse. Think of it as an upgrade potential and get a really nice engine built with a street port, and so on. Time to start saving those pennies.

Also, bumping isn't allowed here, and you bumped very soon after making the post, which is a bit rude.

Good luck with the project.

 

I apologize for the bump I wasn't aware, I waited until it was on the second page. I'm used to vwvortex.

Anyway, thanks for the info, I'll be saving regardless, just not sure what I want to do with it yet.

 

So how much would an S4 with a bad coolant or oil seal, and an S5 engine which I believe has a blown apex seal go for?

 

Your best bet would be to dissasemble them and sell the good parts and throw out the broken ones. Noone's gonna want a dead engine.