I have a LIM and UIM that I took off a 3.8 engine that had fire damage to the wiring, coil packs, injectors, etc. The engine fire was hot enough to burn the hood and interior dash of the car. We used the rest of the engine in the first camaro we bought. My question is, do you think the LIM and UIM are still usable or could they have warped from the heat. I cleaned up the UIM best I could and painted it just playing around with some paint to see how aluminum paint would look. The LIM doesn look like it has even been in a fire. I hate to scrap them but I don't want to keep them around if they could be messed up. What do you think?

 

Place a straight edge along where the gasket would be located and see if there are any spots where a 0.002" feeler gage fits betwen the surface and the straight edge.

 

Even the feeler gage is not 100%. That check should be the first one done but that is one surface it would not test if the two surfaces are "inline" with eachother. To be 100% sure you would need to setup the LIM on a milling machine after you verifed they it was flat and run an indicator down both side to verify they are paralle. In short scrap them. They can be found cheap and not worth the risk or the cost to inspect them.

At the dealership we scraped intakes and heads on any "fire" car. You figure if 300 degs can warps a head in a over heat situation whats a fire that can hit 1200 degs going to do?