It has some small scratches and dents but is still pretty clean overall.
On Thursday I put $500 down on a $2250 1007 5.7 at a wrecking yard. I got to see and hear it run. The truck was hit hard in the rear, hence the reason for it being totaled. It looked a little rough, as if it were owned by a guy on a dirt road. The miles were supposed to be 83,000 but the odometer wasn't showing when we looked.
No ticks once it ran for a few minutes....it was smooth and quiet. No smoke but the MIL/Check Engine light was on. I didn't try to read the code.
My plan is to pick it up on Wednesday. I'll pull the heads and send them to my guy for a rebuild and to have the intake seats staked. If there isn't any ridge in the cylinders, I'll just replace the gaskets, oil pump, timing set and screw it all back together. If all goes well, I'll at least have rolled back the clock a bit. If I can get another 200,000 out of this replacement engine, that would be fine. The 5.7 cores are abundant for now.
I'm curious about any performance difference that I might see. As an engine wears, you lose a little performance over time. With an engine swap back to something like this, I just don't know what to expect. It isn't like the truck is a slug as it is but a power increase would be nice.