Spotting Core Shift

[Roley94]

Im on the hunt for an engine to eventually rebuild and found one from a 2005 BA, How good are the BA mkII engines regarding core shift, can you spot it just by looking at the block like the water jackets and core plug castings?

[matsfgxr6turbo]

fg non turbos are going cheap as chips 300-$550 on fleabay if your going to rebuild any way they are cheap and much newer less chance of core shift

[skidxr6t]

what's core shift

[Roley94]

Engine blocks are cast from sand molds, the early ba blocks had problems with the inner molds shifting causing the cylinder walls to be thin on one side and thick on the other, not good for a high power engine

[BRK]

Perhaps you should use an ultra sonic inspection process if you are going to do a big time build up and IMO rebores of these blocks should be done only if really necessary and the least amount of metal taken the better. An eyeball inspection for thisd sort of fundamental fault like this is unreliable. If you can spot shift by observation in water jackets or bore spacings etc then the block really is absolute sh1t.

Have a look at the atomic website - I think there is a bit on this topic.