Getting an engine from the right vehicle at the wrecking yard matters! There are lots of things that can result in a vehicle finding the end of its usable life and moving onto a wrecking yard to be used for saving other rides, but there are some key things you can look at to make sure the engines you are looking at are really worth getting. Of course it depends on what you plan to do with one, but if you are like Richard Holdener and I, and enjoy making big power with junkyard stuff, then you need to be picky. One pro tip is to look for stuff that has serious crash damage. As long as it isn’t bad enough to have hurt the engine or trans, you are usually good because you know that vehicle drove to the scene of the crash. If you find something that has a mint body in the wrecking yard, lots of times it has a junk trans or engine in it that caused it to get pulled out of service. Those vehicles take more serious inspection to make sure you aren’t dealing with something that is hurt bad.

But watch the video and Richard will get into some of the specifics that he looks for before choosing an engine to pull and save for a day of big power on the dyno. There are some real lessons here that will help you pick the right engine for your project, whether it is just a replacement for your daily driver, something you are going to play with, or something you are going to use as a core to build the ultimate power plant.

Watch.