Ok so I bought a 1999 Z24 from my buddy for $250. It's in decent shape and I want to replace my decaying 1994 Sunbird. The kicker is it doesn't run, it dumped the oil on the guy i bought it from, and not to my surprise there's a big gaping hole in the front of the engine block.
I'm not experienced at all with major mechanical swaps or engine work like this but I have time to tinker away at it. If I can find an engine for the car, is it overly difficult to swap out the old one and put the new one in? Will there be any common problems that I might run into? I'd like to think I should just be able to swap it and plug everything in and hopefully it will work. Maybe have to hook up a code reader or something and get that all straightened out before it will run.
I also turned the key on to read the odometer, but all that lights up is the Engine light and another one but I forget which one it is. I've never driven one of these cars before so does it have to be running for it to light up or should it tell me the odometer reading as soon as the key is on? I need to get the miles off it to put on the transfer of owner slip.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

You should not have any problems with just swapping engines. Go for it and if you have any /s just ask. there is someone on here who can answer anything you could ever need help with. The hard part will be finding a good 2.4 as it is very common for them to spin the number 3 rod bearing causing it to eventually throw the conecting rod through the block. I do not know how much money you want to spend on it but you could always buy a brand new engine from the auto part store. It will cost you like 2500 but you don't have to worry about it going bad for quite some time. I fyou have any ? feel fre to pm me and I will try and help you.



FORGET GIRLS GONE WILD WE HAVE GOVERNMENT SPENDING GONE WILD!

as long as you swap in the same engine thats in it now, the 2.4 dohc, it will be a direct swap.

yea, should be basically plug and play

Ok, thanks for the input so far guys.

I've taken pretty much everything apart/out/ whatever i need to do, got the manifolds off, a/c, alt, starter, etc all removed/set aside. But I guess this might just be wishful thinking, is there any possible way of removing the engine without taking out the transmission? I'd like to leave it in there and not increase the chance of not remembering to hook something up again, but from looking at it it doesn't seem that there is and way of taking it out and leaving the tranny in there.