New Guy with some powerplant ?'s

[travis]

Hi there all,

I just lucked into a 337E that has a bad front engine (Continental IO 360 that threw a rod) and am in the process of trying to find a new one!

Well there is no winning lotto ticket in my hand so Im looking in places such as alleys and behind dumpsters for bargain parts! LOL Last Friday I found several TSIO 360’s that were in a couple of Piper Seneca III's donated to the government by some very lovely drug dealers! They have the heavy cases the VAR cranks, large journals and mains... anyway they're ready to go to Reno! They are suspected to be low time, but there are no logs!

That however is the least of my concerns. In talking with the folks at Continental I found that the mounting hardware should be the same, but the length of the TSIO is about 20" longer due to the aft location of the turbo!

There is a good engine on the back of the plane. And most of the parts on the front of the plane are in good shape also (manifolds, accessory cases...). But for 10k I can get 2 TSIO's that will have many serviceable parts that I can build with, keep as spares or sell!

Can I install these engines (with turbos)? Can I install my old manifolds on the turbo Piper engine? Or should I just have the hard ware inspected (case and crank) and build off of them?

I appreciate any info or opinions that yall can provide! I will be spending tomorrow (my birthday) investigating the matter further and I will be glad to share any info that I come across.

Thanks

_travis