Car is a 87 WE4, with TA49 injectors and tune.
I am about 6 months away from getting back to working on my car, I need to buy a house first. This question is more thinking out loud and looking to hear the options from everyone who has been there before.
The car has been parked for over 2 years due to a bad trans, I have drove it a few times recently after swapping the trans but right now the car is in the garage with a cover over it. From sitting for so long the car has developed some leaks from the engine. Once I get a place to work on the car I am going to pull the engine so that way I can replace all the gaskets, cleanup under the hood, paint, etc. My wiring harness is falling apart so I will need to replace it also.
My engine has ~119,000 original miles all stock, still has the original head gaskets, but has had the timing chain and valve springs replaced, and has the wearplate deal installed in the oil pump. It runs strong but it gets significant gas dilution in the oil. This car has been ran hard taken to the track plenty of times, but it has always had the oil changed and been taken care of, careful with the tune etc. It consumes a little bit of oil, and also a tiny amount of coolant. The coolant and oil consumption is very slight after a month of driving the car 3 or 4 times a week I will notice the coolant level somewhat low and ~ 1/2 quart low on oil (this was before it developed the leaks the engine used to be done dry).
When I get the engine out and on a stand I will know more of its internal condition. I will inspect all the bottom end bearings. I know I will be able to see the bottom side of the cylinders, but since I have this small coolant consumption I think I might as well just break the factory head gasket seal and replace them (I am assuming they are letting a small amount of coolant by, nothing is showing on any plugs but the loss is so slow it wouldn't show).
Here is where the questions start:
Should I break the sacred factory head gasket seal?
How well do these engines wear, is there a good chance that when I open it up that I will be able install new rings on the stock pistons? Or am i more likely to find that I will need to bore the engine?
How about the bottom end with this many miles what should I be expecting? The car does not have an oil pressure gauge so I don't know how many pounds it holds currently.
I don't really care to go any faster with this car and don't have any plans for more mods(I have a stick shift car with a blue oval for that), I just want a solid street car that I could drive everyday if i wanted to. Before the car got parked it used to be dead reliable, I just plan to get it back to that condition and enjoy it.
Thanks ahead of time for any replies. I have some pictures of my trans cooler install from a question I asked a few months ago I need to dig them out and post them up to that thread.
Scott