Engine help, blew the headgasket on my GA16S

Hi everyone,

It finally happened, the head gasket went yesterday on my way back home from a fairly long drive, stupidly I carried on as long as I could before it finally stopped (still turns over). Still, I've driven 33k miles in a year and a half, not bad going!
Luckily oil hasn't mixed with coolant but it did start to burn oil just before I stopped the car.
When I try and turn it over now it splutters and tries to start but sounds like air being pushed out which I guess is the warped head.

I'm going to take the head off during the week and check for damage, hopefully I haven't fried the piston rings so I only need to change the gasket and get the head skimmed. If the engine is a write off what are my best options?

1 - Find another GA16S engine which I have found but don't know a price yet

2 - SR20DE swap, what work needs doing and how complex is it? if its easy and going to cost not much more I might as well do that.

3 - Any engines that'll fit that you guys know of or have laying around GA16DE etc

Any help would be great, I want to fix it I don't want to get rid of this car its been too good! I don't have however a massive budget, being an apprentice and renting a house money is a bit tight

Thanks in advance!
Rob

I've been having a look, would a GA16DE fit straight to my gearbox? I've read that it shares the same block and crank as the other GA16's and I've found a few 1.6 Primera's and Almera's I could use to strip the necessary wiring so would be a fairly easy swap?

Also I'm trying to find head bolts for mine, the only ones I can find are for the GA16DE, is there any difference?

Cheers,
Rob

I wouldn't know I guess a lot of members on here have only dealt with the sr20s so not much help ..

I tried to do some googling for you mate but I found every limited information. I used to have a GA16de, it was a great engine to drive.