Sounds like you are doing a great job troubleshooting.
If you decide to go the route of a replacement engine, I would highly recommend using one of the vendors affiliated with this website. Beware of Ebay reman 6.5 vendors, especially one mentioned on the forums here from the east coast.
Depending on your budget, this would be a great time to invest in some upgrades common to modified 6.5's including splayed main caps, gear driven timing, 18:1 pistons, etc...
A good estimate for replacing the engine is 5K (used engine, installed yourself) to 12K (rebuilt with all new goodies, installed.)
Keep reading the forums, there are many that have gone before you to make your journey more trouble free.
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