Fire damage on a motor....kinda long....need advice

[85_SS_302_Coupe]

Me and a buddy got ahold of a car a while back that has some fire damage to the engine....it seems pretty much just external, but we're wondering how serious it could be inside the motor?

Our guess is that at least the water pump can't be used, but other than that the engine itself is ok? The fire wasnt so bad (i dont think) that it could have warped the heads or anything because there are still wiring harness pieces that have the wire/sleeves still unburned, and the radiator hoses aren't completely destroyed. It surely wasnt hot enough to melt anything metal.

Anyways...we had a pretty crappy night working on it last night. The motor itself actually has some GT40 heads on it...which was our main objective. We were going to just swap the entire motor into his coupe and clean it up, but we were unsure about the possible problems it might have.....well we set out to pull the heads off and just swap'm into his car.......which is where the problem came into play.

His coupe is an '86. The guy he got it from swore that the motor was out of a '90.....so taking that into belief we set out into pulling of the heads....then i noticed the crappy little heart shaped combustion chambers on the heads...then looked down to see some nice crappy flat top pistons.....the motor is a bone stock '86 motor, which means of course we can't use the GT40 heads on it..


So right now we're puting the burned motor back together after cleaning it up some....replacing all the gaskets and the water pump. Could there be anything seriously wrong with the motor internally? When the car ran (before the fire) it was pretty damn healthy....the fire was a result of some stupid fuel line routing... The pistons looked ok and the block itself still has a very good looking cross hatch to the bores.....it seems to be a pretty sound motor aside from being really ugly and a bit crispy. Aside from a total rebuild...what should we look for before puting the motor in his car?

 

[Ourobos]

So the heads on the motor weren't gt40's? Are you saying you have a spare set of GT40s to put on it? Put valve reliefs on the pistons, and possibly use the heads. I had a fire, from a fuel rail coming lose. Had to replace o2 harness, injector harness, throttle cable, misc. other stuff that I all bought used for $150. Mine ran fine. You can see the engine after the fire at www.circlecfarm.com/ourobos.htm . I doubt if it even got hot enough to ruin the water pump, but it's probably a good idea to replace it anyway. I'de change the oil pump/shaft while I was in there also, and why not slap in a better cam? Good luck.

 

[85_SS_302_Coupe]

Ok let me clarify....that does sound kinda confusing....The motor in his car right now....the one that isnt fire damaged....is the motor we were going to put the heads on, but it ends up that it's got flat top pistons in it and we can't put the heads on. The motor that was burned has the GT40 heads on it, and as of right now we're planning on just putting it back together with fresh gaskets and swapping motors.

 

[88stangmangt]

the motor gets hotter than the fire if it didnt even burn the rad hoses just clean it up swap it out.

 

[Ourobos]

You can put the gt40's on the 86 block you had planned initially, you just need to cut valve reliefs into the pistons. If you don't want to pull the pistons and have them machined in, isky cams has a took that can do it with the pistons installed. Still check P/V clearance when through. Good luck.