The video is old. About two years old.
This is what I remember from the explenation I saw:
They had a newer updated moter, complete with turbo, that they were going to install. The motor you see in the vid is old with alot of miles on it. The cost to ship the motor compared to the cost of buying it makes it essentialy worthless. They could have made maybe $100 selling it. They figurerd that the fun of blowing it up was worth $100.
I would have done the same thing..oh wait...I have done the same thing. 2.7L BMW M20 motor with 250,000 miles on it. The car was getting an M50. Would have cost about $100 to ship the motor. I doubt I could have sold the motor for more than $200...if that. Blowing it up was lots of fun, easily worth the money lost.
I'm really surprised that some of you find this shocking. Isn't it worth $100 to do something fun like this?