Overheated to 250, died on side of highway, left stranded

[Overdrive]

Ok, seriously, now this guy's just being evasive and not very caring about the matter. If he's not going to tear through there and find out what's wrong without charging you because he messed up, and is going to deny what he advised you, then it's time to have it towed elsewhere and looked at by an unbiased 3rd party that knows about these cars.

BTW, if you car is a '97, don't bother with a non-2.5 swap. Just about every 97 has a DME that cannot be reprogrammed, so you'd have to get a younger car's DME and immobilizer in order to be able to reprogram it to accept code for a different engine. That's not an easy nor cheap task to undertake.

You may looks into seeing if there is a 2.5 out there that you can replace yours with if you do have a 97, or don't want to pursue a larger engine due to cost. I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to part with a 2.5, and you could have the full IMS upgrade done on it prior to install since it would already be out of the car.