OK. So I have been giving the current situation some thought overnight and these are things how I see them:
I have 3 options on ways forward (4 if you include burning).
Option 1) Buy a new lump. OK, it's expensive and a pain in the **** really if we're being honest, but it's a quick, relatively easy fix. The main issue with this is the cost of an engine. OK I can strip the APY I have at the moment for good bits, bolt my new head on to it, and sell the BAM/APY head to recover some cost, but it's still a wack of dosh.
Option 2) Look into whether the engine will run in it's current state. Chunk out of the bore looks bad, but I have my suspicions that it will still seal.
not sure I would want to run a block with the bottom missing out of a section.
Bill has echoed my thoughts exactly here. Do I really want to run an engine with which I will never ever really be happy. It's obviously spiking some torque, and I feel it's a big risk, and for the expense I may well end up sitting back here moaning about my broken car! lol.
Option 3) New block. Strip APY. Forged rods. Clean pistons up. Rebuild bottom end completely into new block. Reinstall, bolt new head on... and we're back in business.... The main question with this is whether I can use any 1.8T block for the rebuild, or if it has to be S3 specific. If any block is useable, then it could make it whole lot easier. Buy a written off engine (cammy snappage...) chuck/sell whats not needed, job done.
Option 4) Burn.
What are people's thoughts? I'm leaning for option 3. All options involve cost and ballache to be honest...