Engine is out! This thing is a hell of a tight fit to try to remove with the bellhousing on it. Found some good things and bad things, but unfortunately most were bad.
The removal issue is caused almost entirely by the hood latch where it sticks out from the header panel. Being a 1984, my 944 has a welded-in panel, unlike all of the post-'84 cars. Oddly enough, 924s also had a bolt in panel, so this design was only used for 2 years. I will be drilling the spot welds and turning mine into a removable panel, as I intend to hide an air filter underneat it. This will necessitate some kind of vent in the header panel, however I haven't decided how I'm going to do that yet. I'd love to do the 924 GTS vents, however that panel has been NLA for a bit apparently. I will also probably switch to Aerocatches for the hood release, as there aren't a whole lot of other elegant ways to run a good intake on these with the factory latch being directly in front of the throttle body. There are dyno charts out there for LSs showing something like a 10 horsepower improvement at the top end even on a 375hp engine just by having a straight intake runner, and that's pretty low hanging fruit in my eyes with the benefit of making engine removal vastly easier.
Bellhousing against firewall (it's using the Quicktime SFI-rated housing):
The engine is turned sideways for maximum clearance to the pulleys. In order to tilt it like this, I had to drop the subframe to get the oil pan to clear. It looks like there's a lot of space in there until you try to get it all out. I had to remove the alternator to get enough clearance to go around the hood latch.
One very dirty engine bay. This will probably all be painted white once I've de-tabbed it and fixed all of the sheetmetal issues. Current count there is replacing the battery tray, cutting out and re-repairing a fenderwell, and cutting out the driver's side firewall to replace with thicker metal. Some of this will have to wait until the bead roller and dies show up, as I want to add some ribs and things to make it a bit stronger.
With the engine out, I discovered that it does have a nice new clutch and pressure plate on it from Spec, along with a lightweight SFI-rated aluminum flywheel of some sort. However, downsides have been numerous:
- One of the engine mount bolts was crossthreaded
- Various metric holes had english fasteners in them, though I've been able to chase these and save the threads
- Bellhousing held on with ungraded exhaust manifold bolts
- Some of the crappiest engine mounts I think I've ever seen
- Related to above, the engine is mounted somewhat too far forward, with the torque tube somewhat under tension when installed. I need to figure out where everything *should* be before making new mounts. I'm not thrilled with the other off the shelf options out there either from what I've found online.
- Tons of random hardware missing from the engine
Craptacular engine mounts:
Look at all the room for play in these things. Pretty astonishing. Supported on the hoist but before removing the through bolts, I could move the engine over a half inch in any direction. Sloppy.
Someone also went to town in a bad way on the crossmember, which will be replaced with the spare that came with the car. This one is trash. Sliced aluminum subframes have no place on a car that will see pretty serious side loading on the track.
I think I've about reached the end of disassembly (the easy part). The car is almost a bare shell right now, though the rear still has suspension in it. Next steps, roughly in order, are to remove what's left of the body harness in the engine bay, cut out all the crappy repairs, make the header (nose) panel removable along with the hood latch, weld in patch panels, and mock up new engine mounts. With all that done, I should be able to paint the engine bay and do final assembly of the engine. I know there are a lot of steps in the middle there, but that's the rough plan.
By the way, as far as exterior paint goes - I cleaned more of the dirt off, and it would appear that most of the front of the car was poorly repainted, so I'm feeling more and more like I'll probably be painting the car one way or another. Lots of chips, dents, spray paint overspray, etc.