2005 aveo ls with bad motor :(

Hello everyone. I am joining this forum because I have acquired a 2005 Aveo hatch this week. The bad news is that it has ether a cracked head or block or both. I live in central IL and this past weekend the temp got down to about -15 and did some damage to my girlfriends car and now it is my new toy it looks like. I have come looking for information on what swaps I can do to the car other then getting another stock 1.6L for it. I don't know what my end goole with the car is yet. I kinda just want to get it back running for cheep and sell it off or keep it as a back up car. Any input would be great. I have done a lot of honda and nissan swaps I have even put a nissan ka24de into a 1980 chevy monza 2+2 spider for a crazy drag car for the fun of it so i am not looking for any thing crazy like putting a cobalt engine into it, I have other toys and projects to wast time and money into.

If youre just looking to drive it for a bit and sell it you might as well go wih the stock 1.6l. Resale will be harder with an engine swaped car.

you could do a sonic 1.4t engine and trans swap engine is around 500 without turbo (need to source separately) and trans is around 200-400

You didn't say if there are visible leaks and if you found the source. The pre-mixed stuff protects to much lower than -15F, so do you know for certain the problems with these vehicles was from coolant freezing? The '05 Aveo came from the factory with a plastic thermostat housing that's a well-known piece of trash, and would be a very likely item to crack at low temp. And these hairline cracks can send a spray back onto the head from the underside of the housing (where you can't easily see it), making it look like the leak is coming from another location.

I have not looked it over other then a quick look when it first got home. It was still -5 out and did not want to spend much time out in the cold. What I found was dripping black stuff did not smell it to see what it was. I was thinking oil or dirty coolant dripping off of it. The entire motor looked to be covered in something i am thinking oil could have been coolant it was even down the front of the block behind the exhaust. I then pulled the dipstick out and I could see water in the oil and that is when i called it as being a crack of some type. the oil was changed about a month ago and was good then. it was more water then what could be from condensation so i don't think it is that. I plan on getting the car into the garage tonight or tomorrow to take a closer look at it and see what is all over the engine. One of the first things I will check is the thermostat housing if it is easy to get to. I am hoping it will be something simple but the water in the oil is never a good thing.

How is it running - any roughness or smoke from the tail pipe? Have you checked the coolant overflow tank? Wondering what the level is right now, what the stuff looks like, and if any of it looks frozen or slushy. If someone filled it with water, seems like it would have frozen before this current cold snap. But if it's not water in the tank, then one would think any coolant sold these days should protect to at least -35 or so. But I agree that lots of water in the oil doesn't sound good. Hope this turns out to be an easy, low cost fix for you!