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even with good compression the rod and main bearings may have alot of wear on them. you could always get a 97 or 98 junkyard engine with half the miles on it for only $400. you would be fine then
also early 96's had the old heads like the 94-95 which were prone to headgasket failure. they changed sometime in 96 but no one can exactly say when.
115K on the clock either rebuild it or drop a lower junkyard engine in it first before you add a poweradder. no sense doing all that work for the rod bearings to crap out 2,000 miles later