After five years I am back in an R53 and I jumped into the deep end. Had a 2004 which I traded in years back. After years of drooling over minis on the highway I decided to replace the one I lost .

Fast forward to a few months back. I picked up a 2006 R53 with 200K. Runs great, pulls hard but cylinder 2 is at 120 PSI (165 on 1, 3 and 4). I will be pulling the valve cover to inspect, my instincts tells me it may be a busted spring. Mods so far:

WMW exhaust
DDM intake with hose
WMW 17% SC pulley
WMW rear sway bar
R56 brake conversion with EBC Red Stuff front and rear
Stainless steel brake lines
Shocks and springs along with all new rubber
New rear and front end links
Sparco wheels

Besides the mods I have gone through all required (and not required) maintenance items and replaced weak points like the crank pulley with a WMW fluid balancer, PS fan, tensioner, low temp resistor, poly bushing ALL the way around, ball joints, plugs, wires etc. etc. Basically I have or am going through the whole car. As luck has it, I saw an R53 engine complete with SC and all parts with 98k on CL . I picked it up for $600 bucks and this leads me to my dilema, should I keep working with what I got (200k engine) or just rebuild the new engine and throw it in? I was thinking about getting the car back on the road and beating it to death while slowly rebuilding the new motor but a part of me wants to just rebuild the newer engine now as the subframe is out .

What would you do? This is a project car for me so I'm in no rush to get it done, gives me a good reason to wrench and drink beers in the garage . Thanks for the input!

 

Welcome back sounds like you stole that car at that price. And it must have been one of our customers with that mod list. You can likely just rebuild the head, but that is a bunch of miles. I actually have a brand new zero mile JCW R53 engine for $4000 if you come pick up that would be awesome to throw in it and drive it another 200k.