Show season is well under way, and I’ve already attended one so far: the Porsche Concours held at Larz Anderson. I’ll be posting photos of that soon enough.

Here’s a bonus set of photos from the end of last year’s show season that I sort of forgot to publish to my blog. I actually participated in the drag races, using my friend Eric’s Rupp. I didn’t win; I kept hesitating at the start. But it was fun, and I’d really love to have a minibike of my own. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of myself racing, but that’s kind of how it goes when you’re the one taking all the pictures. Many more photos after the break.

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Last night I finally liberated Sunshine’s wiring harness. In order to get it out, I had to take out a lot of the dash and pretty much all of the heating system. It was definitely more work than I had anticipated, but at least now I can properly clean and repair it. While I’m doing that, I will also clean out the engine compartment, make a few minor repairs in there, get rid of some small areas of surface rust and finally repaint it before the new motor gets put in.

*Gratuitous picture of yourself in an engine compartment

The old motor is out of Sushine! With my dad’s help, last night we got it out. It was a bit tricky with the crank pulley and the water pump still on (I knew I should have pulled those), but we managed.

The easy part of the project is over. The priorities now are to get the wiring harness out of the car, clean, repair it and reinstall it, clean, repair and paint the engine compartment, and get the car ready to receive the new motor.

Ok, yeah…let’s just say that this would be the absolute perfect car for me. Yes, I know I still have two project cars I’m working on…shh!

More info, and it’s for sale: http://bringatrailer.com/2012/02/21/bat-exclusive-awd-1971-mini-vtec-rocketship/

Last night I pulled the fan, radiator and intercooler, alternator and power steering pump, then stopped for the night because my back was killing me from being hunched over for so long. Anyway, there’s not much left that I need to do in order to get the motor out:

It looks like more of a mess than it really is, trust me. Although, speaking of messes, I did drench myself in antifreeze after accidentally bumping into the bin full of it with my creeper. That was fun.

Also, out of curiosity I checked the S/N on the block. Unsurprisingly, it’s not even close to the car’s VIN:

It’s also been painted heavily with brush, like some other things on this car.

Last night I cleaned the carbon from the tops of the pistons, using aerosol Sea Foam, a scotchbrite pad and a rag, so I could examine the pistons. They came out pretty clean, but piston #1 has a small ding on it (hard to see in this photo…sorry I forgot to take a picture of it after I cleaned it):

…and piston #3 is damaged as well:

Piston #3 also had the heaviest coating of carbon on it. I wouldn’t have seen the damage (except for the obvious part by the “C”) if I hadn’t removed the carbon. So, what started out as a simple turbo rebuild has turned into something much bigger (and much more expensive). =(

I finally had time to disassemble the head-intake-exhaust manifold-turbo assembly last night after having it on the bench for a few days. Everything came apart without much fuss, though I couldn’t imagine doing any of it with the whole assembly still on the car. It was definitely easier to pull the head with everything still attached.

The good: The turbo assembly seems to be in good shape. There is a fairly large amount of radial play in the compressor-turbine shaft, but no noticeable axial play, and no oil in the compressor housing. I also didn’t see any cracks or damage of any sort on the whole assembly. So, it should be fine with a rebuild.

The bad: There’s more cracks in the head. There’s cracks in the small water passages and more alarmingly, cracks leading from one of the valves to the outside of the combustion chamber, on all cylinders. See below:

Also, the intake manifold has been sloppily ported between the mating halves. Luckily, the rest of the intake manifold has not been ported, nor has anything else. Also note the lovely homemade gasket. I should be able to smooth these out:

So, the long and short of it is that I’m looking at replacing the head now as well as having the turbo rebuilt. I kind of had a feeling this was going to happen. Stay tuned, things should start to get interesting from here on out!

You guys will be pleased to know that I pulled Sunshine’s head off the other day. Unfortunately, it’s too heavy/awkward for me to lift out of the engine compartment myself with the intake manifold, exhaust manifold, and turbo still attached. So, a friend is going to give me a hand with it tomorrow. I can’t wait to get it out and on the bench so I can see what I have to work with. Will the manifolds and head already be ported? Does the head have a valve job? I’ll see soon enough.

So far the Shelby has been much easier to work on than my Focus. I don’t know if it’s because it has such low miles on it and has spent so much time indoors or if it’s just because I have more room to work with in the engine compartment…or both. No fasteners have been frozen (knock on wood) or stripped. The only difficulty I had so far was figuring out what to use as a jacking point to raise the car high enough to put on stands, and getting the valve cover off. It was nearly glued in place with form-a-gasket (instead of silicone) so it was really difficult to remove. The throttle body is also stuck in place on the intake manifold. I have to figure out how to get it to separate without damaging anything.

I’m only several months late with these photos…

See them all under the cut. Enjoy!

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