st165 to a st205 engine & tranny swap or rebuilt bottom end

drummerpestal

New member
Hey everybody, as i posted before i rebuilt the head on my st165 and i finally got everything back together. While the head was off we checked the pistons and found that they all sealed holding oil for about 3 weeks except for piston 3. With oil in piston 3 it drained in about 6-8 days. I didn't think anything of it because it still sealed pretty well. Also ill add that pistons 3 and 4 had quite a bit of peppering on them do to when i bought the car the original owner blew 2 exhaust valves. Anyway i had the head 'rebuilt' and re installed along with a couple other small general maintenance things by a mechanic recommended by a friend.(<-- I felt like being lazy :bangshead: ) Bad idea #1. The head was rebuilt with used valves and they didn't replace the valve steam seals. And the turbo had a big leak dripping from the turbine itself. After getting it back from the mechanic the car was smoking eating and leaking about 1.5 quarts a day(daily driven) The smoking was the worst though i didn't want a ticket so i started with the simplest fix first, replacing the turbo. I bought a rebuild kit and attempted to do it myself :bangshead: bad idea #2. I ended up buying a new one off ebay :bangshead: bad idea #3 haha. but its all i could afford at the time. I got it in had everything running fine and it was leaking substantially less but still smoking and eating like a pig. That's when i decided to pull the head. During a leak down test on piston 1 the blow by to piston 2 was horrific. We pulled the head and replaced all the valve steam seals, deleted the emissions system, and cleaned up the bay a little bit. Upon first start the car was still smoking(expected) but after a drive and about 40 min of constant idle still not stop of smoke. We disconnected the spark wire to piston 3 and what do you know the smoking greatly decreased, plug it in and again the room became ready for laser tag almost. I'm now at a point where its either rebuild what i have all the way with amazing forged internals or swap and get more reliability hopefully, new tranny and a lot more options for parts.

What do you guys recommend would be the best idea? Where should i buy from? And with either recommended idea what other items/parts should i include?
 

Anoo21

New member
My st165 has a newer 1st gen 3sgte but i am really thinking of going for a swap st205 engine tranny and everything lol. I will be subscribed to this thread for sure.
 

bmt

New member
drummerpestal":2jmltj89 said:
I made my decision, I bought a front clip of a st215 so I could have everything I could ask for when swapping. :D
FYI,
If you put it in stock it will be ok, but if you upgrade the turbo for more power make sure you upgrade the rods. Gen 4 3sgte have skinny rods and are known to fail with more boost. I am currently doing the same swap but put a Garrett on so have had to put forged internals in = DOLLARS....
 
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