Originally Posted by bricktron

great info guys, thank you. here are the extra details from this job. the job is to drop a 617 into my manual 240d, which has a thrown rod (i know about the machining and balancing required). the fellow that i hope will do the work, who has a reputable shop here in san francisco, offered me this 85 engine (with manifolds, injection, etc. but missing glow plug wiring harness, oil filter housing, and maybe other miscellany) for $1300. i haven't had him run a leakdown test on it with compressed air yet but he describes it as having about 110k miles.

sourcing that test pipe and keeping the EGR elex just to have a tach sound pretty awful. i don't think we have the down pipe either (this is downstream of the exhaust manifold right?). i'm having second thoughts about this engine because of the additional complexities. if we had a whole donor car i guess it would be fine, but finding more than a part or two from 85s sounds challenging. i won't get the benefit of the 2.88 diff. charmalu, maybe you can reflect on how often the 85s pop up in the san jose / moss landing yards? (i am from santa cruz btw.)