I'm in competitive intelligence in my company so we get engines in regularly. This engine we got was from that area, but the broker hadn't disclosed it. By the time we got it was too late and engineers needed parts. It only had 16miles on it, but looked like it was 30 years old because of the corrosion. We took off the exhaust manifolds, water gushed out. Both turbos completely corroded with salt deposits inside. Oil pan and crank pulley bolts seized. The crank itself was seized so we could only get to the main cap bolts and some rod bolts. It was pretty nasty when we got the heads off. There was this sandy, salt watery deposits, that kinda looked like mud in cylinders and the pistons were seized. To get the pistons out we had to generously use liquid wrench on pistons and let it soak through the rings. Then rotated crank, to that out, and even after that we had to stick pieced of wood on the roads and hammer out the pistons.

It probably wasn't run because either the electronics were contaminated or by that time the engine had already been in a seized condition.

Cliff notes: hurricanes and salt water are bad for engines.

To be honest with new pistons and a new turbo and new ecu plus honing the cylinder walls and maybe machining the crank and rod journals journals, that engine would have run fine subsquently. The turbo is the really expensive part of that; machining isn't expensive at all. With a naturally aspirated engine, its not a bad option at all if you can get a good price to begin with.