Update on project Chicago (Patreon)

First of all, we recently went over 1.000 Patreons which is just amazing! Thank you so much! It means a lot to me. 

After bad news with Alpina, time for good news. I've decided we are going to fix this thing and rebuild the engine.

Thank you for the recommendations in the previous post, I reached out to all of them and here are the narrowed down options:

1. Buy a new block from Alpina for around 4.250€. I asked if they wanted to participate in the project in some way and they said no which was expected, but that is a good price for a new block.

2. Company in Poland - http://pietka1.pl/
They can sleeve and resurface the block for 3.000€. Sleeves would also be Alusil so I can use stock Alpina piston rings and he'll measure pistons and make sleeves for them so I can reuse old pistons.
He can also polish the crank that has some light scratches and refurb the heads for 250€ each.

Sleeves are the best way, if not the only way to repair Alusil.

What I don't like is that I don't know this company and whether I can trust them.
Their google reviews are pretty bad - https://www.google.com/search?q=PIETKA+1+SC&rlz=1C1CHBD_enDE894DE894&oq=pie&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j46i512j69i59j35i39j69i60l4.1503j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#lrd=0x470fc1bc7bbcfa03:0x1afc5dc916d9217a,1,,,

That has me worried, but the guy sounds incredibly nice over the phone and explained everything to me in detail. The work would take around 2 weeks.

------- And just as I wrote this, a subscriber on Instagram told me not to use these guys as he lived in that city, knows them and they messed up work for him several times. So it's a no-go here.

3. BP-Motorentechnik. A very nice guy from Dortmund. To sleeve the block with him, it would cost 6.000€ so that's not an option.

He has a different cost-effective option, he would need to put the block on the machine and hone the cylinders slightly to remove the scratches and then the piston would get coated to match up. I didn't understand everything correctly since his English isn't great, but that would cost 2.000€.
In the end, it's not all about the money as it is fixing this engine properly and everything I read and heard is that you can't hone Alusil and it wouldn't be long lasting. So I'm not leaning towards this option.

With all of that in mind, I think we are going with the 1st option. I can also sell my old block, and get some money back there and with a brand new block, I know what I have.
In that case, I would still need to find a machine shop to polish the crank, resurface the heads, measure and check the pistons and make sure everything is within spec and ready for reassembly.

That's the update for now and once I pull the trigger on the new block, I'll let you know.
The teardown of the engine video is coming tonight, I'm doing the final edit now!

Cheers and thank you again for your support!