Balance shaft bearing wiped engine...time for an upgrade

[DSMmechanic]

I have a 98 GS-T that i bought a few weeks back. Long story short it started making a loud clang at idle. Took it all apart and found the front balance shaft bearing laying in the oil pan. There were a few more pieces in the pan all from the bearing mostly just large chunks, but any time metal goes to the pan I'm immediately thinking at least a short block. I am assuming that the guy who sold it to me knew of this problem and band-aided it to sell it to me. So I'm suck with wiped balance shaft journal, and out about 5gs right now. I'm pretty sure with the way the balance shaft was moving around in the block that the journal is now a nice oval shape so pretty much thinking the bottom end is good for a boat anchor. With all that said I want to at least put a short block in the car and at least clean the turbo, possibly replace, and clean the head also. My question is, what would be my best options for a reliable daily driver that can make up to 350 HP? I was thinking about the Jackson Auto Machine shortblock, and getting a 16g turbo kit off of Ebay. The car came with a Greddy RS BOV, 1G cam sensor,fire wall mounted fuel filter, and the guy gave me a receipt for a 190 fuel pump. Like I said I don't want this to be a race car just a nice street car, some injectors and a safc2 eventually but nothing too crazy. Any thoughts or suggestions would be more then helpful. I own my own shop so no problem doing anything to the car, just would like some feedback with some experience behind it.

Thanks
-Joe

 

[TjPhillips36]

Couldn't you just eliminate the balance shafts and re-use the shortblock?

 

[DSMmechanic]

I'm not even sure if a machine shop could fix the balance shaft journal. I'm pretty sure you have to install some sort of bearing to cover the oil feed hole or else I would be loosing oil pressure. I tried to put a new bearing in and it literally just fell out, not a tight fit at all. Can someone tell me different, maybe just weld up the oil feed hole for that bearing?

 

[99gst_racer]

Anyone?

No bumping on this site, please.