Time for an engine rebuild. Why? Just based on time. This is a used engine with 50K miles on the short block when I installed it. And then I raced it for 3 seasons. Time to freshen it up, new rings, new valve springs, etc.
When I was racing the Cobra, I did this every 2 years. But that car got a lot of street time, to.
I’m also going to add a little more power. Nothing dramatic, just a little more. A hotter cam, and a better intake. Heads are the same, and compression will be the same.
Engine Removal
This was more of a pain in the ass than I thought it would be. Just unbolt everything, and drop it out the bottom. Yeah, right. So, I unbolted everything underneath the car- driveshaft, exhaust, trans mount. Nothing overly difficult or complicated.
The wiring harness was easy. When I built the harness, I put plugs in places specifically to make this job easy. Unplug component harnesses instead of each individual component.
Only unplug 3 oil hoses, and 1 fuel hose.
I also shoes to remove all the suspension components. They are all bolted to the crossmember. You could leave them connected and remove it all at once. But smaller size and less mass made it easier for me. I had just rebuilt everything after the recent track trauma, so it needed an alignment anyway. I still need to make new fender mounts.
Then I lowered my 4 post lift almost to the roof. I attached the car at 4 corners with 3,000 pound cargo straps.
Then I carefully lifted the whole car off of the drive train. I was very nervous about this, and made sure I was never under the car when it was suspended by straps. It’s hard to imagine that 2 straps would break, and the car would fall on me. But……. 😉
And now we’re ready for engine disassembly. For the rest of the story, look in the Engine section of the main menu.