Hi folks - occasional lurker here but first post.
My 95 P38 4.0 developed a problem yesterday. The problem is that the bits of the engine that live in the block exploded out of the oil pan.
There weren't really any warning signs - I thought it sounded a bit rough at idle a couple of minutes before it failed, but that's it. After about a minute on the highway at 50mph there was a bang, I lost power and a load of smoke came out of both ends. After pulling over and seeing oil spewed out the side of the engine I knew it was done for.
I'm not sure what the underlying cause was. It was driving well but had started leaking quite a bit of oil recently and I had been topping it up. I don't think that the oil was low when it broke down as there's still a fair amount left in the sump (see photo - that's after a lot of oil came out the side of the block...).
The car drives ok but is pretty beaten up (broken plastic, permanent SRS fault, etc) and it doesn't make sense to throw money at it. Still... P38s are getting rarer and I'm attached to it. Is it realistic to try an engine swap at home?
Otherwise I guess I can scrap it and find another one in nice condition. That's the rational thing to do, right?
