well, i have yet to get the shortblock from howell (they say it will be shipped early next week) but i've already started taking things apart.



the motor mount was pretty easy to take apart, the vertical bolt in the center of the other two was REALLY torqued. i've got most of the wires unhooked, and i took off my exhaust manifold and turbo. the downpipe is still hanging around there somewhere though.

i had a few questions about taking out the stock shortblock... my plan is to leave the head assembled, take the whole longblock out, and then work on everything outside of the car where i actually have room to do things. i know there are a bunch of really large bolts around the transmission, and i've gotten a few of them already so far. i've disconnected most of the wiring, i think the only stuff that's left is the oil sender and the alternator.

i know i have to do something to the flywheel in order to have the engine actually completely disconnected from the rest of the car, how do i get at it?

i also decided to paint some of my rusty stuff under the hood :P



you guys think it'll stick? the best paint i could find was 1200 degree paint. i used the same paint for all the stuff in the picture, but i clear coated the intercooler pipe and the EGR pipe (going to do the EGR blockoff while i'm at it). i know that EGT's can easily get up to 1600 degrees, but i'm hoping that the exterior of the manifold/turbo doesn't get that hot.

Hmm, most people powdercoat manifolds. Did you at least bake it on? I dunno, it's worth a shot. Worst case scenario you have to take it back off and wire brush or strip what's left of the paint. Looks schweet tho!

Anyways, to get to the flywheel all you have to do is remove the little access hatch just above the center crossmember. There's like 3 beefy bolts and one little one holding it to the bottom of the tranny. You'll see one bolt of the flywheel. Remove it, and use a crowbar to turn the flywheel thru the starter hole. There's 4 bolts total holding the flywheel/torque convertor to the flexplate.

Oh, you can leave the oil tee+sensor and alternator attached when you pull it.

Access hatch is top left of this pic:
http://www.signal11.com/~thedawg/car/drop/fsimages/P4270041.JP G

Make sure you get all the pink tranny bolts, pic:
http://www.signal11.com/~thedawg/car/drop/fsimages/P4280073.JP G

the manifold paint will burn off garenteed, if u want something to stop rust use a copper coating, powder caoting at 400 degrees that ont work either,

u can ceramic coat or nickel coat a manifold or u can copper coat it...

you don't have to take the alternator off if done correctly. There are a total of 4 tranny bolts to the block then 2 starter bolts and then 4 bolts that hold on the lower access plate. are you leaving the tranny in the car while you pull hte engine(i heard its kinda tricky) if not then you have to pull the suspension and axels to get the tranny out. other than that you look set.

paint wont last on the manifold or turbo.

Ever seen the pic of the glowing red turbo? that isnt somehting limited to 800hp cars, lol. Ive had mine that color after a 0-140mph run and egts topped at at ~1600*

even beat on the car a bit at night and pull over where there arent any lights, youll get a cool red-glow too ;)

I baked VHT paint on my manifold....says it's resistant up to 1500 degrees. I'll see how it holds up when I get her back on the road in a couple months. If it burns off, it burns off.....no big deal.