What happened is that it seems like there had been a slow coolant leak over a few months, perhaps a small leak in the HG, on the last drive after about a 35 minute drive on the freeway at 110kmh ( temp gauge was showing normal), turned off the freeway onto side streets so driving around at 50kmh about 5 minutes later blew a hole in the plastic top tank of the radiator, water and steam all over the place and a massive crack/hole in the radiator top tank and temperature gauge went through the roof immediately. Shutdown the car straight away and organised a mechanic. radiator was original from 2003 and the mechanic said it was common for them to fail once they get around 10 years old. So he replaced the radiator with a new koyo one but could not bleed all the air out of the system. running the engine now just blows massive bubbles into the over flow tank and you can see some puffs of white smoke/steam coming out the exhaust.
Unfortunately, living in tiny apartment in sydney means I don't have the room or access to a workshop to do the work myself and I haven't replaced an engine in about 15 years so i have to pay for labor.
The 6k figure was for a drive in errr tow in, drive out rebuild of the existing EJ205 short block, ie pistons, rods, bearings etc etc using ARP studs plus machining the heads, timing belt, water pump, thermostat, basically all the 200k service items and a retune. same for the 8k figure, but using the 207 short block to start with.
Reason given for rebuilding the whole thing rather than just doing the HG was that its done 177,000k's and the "bottom ends a bit noisy" but that was what All Drive Subaroo said, and I know they're a bit eager to "replace all the things!!" and if you're pulling the motor anyway you might as well rebuild the bottom
Dan at carmods has a EJ207 going for 2450 including shipping, i'm not running crazy power. just intake, turbo back exhaust and a tune so about 150-160kw so the EJ207 is probably over kill?
Not sure how you guys get these crazy cheap prices, I guess if you're doing all the work yourself.
but when you add it all up.. it gets expensive pretty quick for example using some ball park figures
2450 EJ207
600 Reco/machine EJ205 heads
700 ARP head studs
500 master gasket kit
150 rocker cover kit
500 timing belt kit
150 water pump & thermostat
200 fluids oil/coolant/brake/clutch/psteer
150 filters air/fuel/oil
1800 labour
800 dyno and road tune
