The engine I put in my '86 was from a guy who bought a JSPEC engine for $1200 to put in his '88 turbo. It worked very well for him (good compression, not dirty, no vacuum leaks, ran great right out of the crate).

I rebuilt his old engine for $750.00 (Including purchasing the engine) and have had very good success with it.

At the same time. Every one has their own limits and acceptable practices. I highly doubt that any reputable rebuilder would have re-used the parts that I did in my engine. I would never have re-used them in someone else's engine.

That was the exception JSPEC from my experience.

Generally speaking, the only thing a JSPEC is *any* good for is getting a rebuildable core.

Or at least, will have a few parts you can use combined with whatever can be used from your existing engine if you're after a floor sweeper that will run for a while.

I have had some decent JSPEC's that I've rebuilt though. Never ever bought one and installed it straight from the importer. And also NEVER EVER EVER. EVER. Buy a used engine (especially rotary,....) online. For the love of god if you want ANY chance of not wasting your money on it, pull the plugs, spin it over, go around it with a fine tooth comb and pick the best one that the importers in your area have (yes, go to more then one)

Rule number one about these things is never buy sight unseen.

I agree with ClassicAuto. This guy I was talking about took a road trip to a import engine warehouse and picked his engine out. He did have it shipped to him (because he doesn't have a pickup truck to haul the engine with), but he hand-picked it.

He did tell me that it was the first S4 turbo in the entire place that he found (there were not many S4s, most were S5s) and he compression tested it and all was good (so it's not like he rooted through 15 engines to find a good one).

eBay is not a good option for engines, they take a "representative" picture of a nice one and then send you one that looks like it was dragged behind a train (I'm talking broken mounts, oil filter pedestals, spark plugs, shifters on the transmission, etc.)

I have not personally purchased one, but I have heard horror stories from several who have.

When you said JSPEC engine, I didn't realize that you meant eBay JSPEC engine.

EDIT: I did actually buy an eBay JSPEC Transmission once. That was the worst Idea I ever had. It had bad synchros in every gear and bad counter shaft bearings.