No.

Good man.

Thanks for the post, I'm actually kinda looking forward to my own rebuild in what I hope is 100k miles from now.

Mihnea,
Thank you for the link to your Cayman engine drop and the tip on rotating the engine 90 degrees. The Sears ATV lift is on my Christmas list. Good luck with your engine refresh. Looking forward to your progress.

Rob

Tonight Ion and I removed all the pistons, rods, and separated the crankshaft carrier.

Pistons and rods:

http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...psdqtkqwac.jpg

Here is the #6 rod:

http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...pswim9vhn0.jpg

There is some wear on the thrust faces, so new bearing caps are in order.

http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...psic5oqtxz.jpg

Crankshaft carrier:

http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...psbrafenw8.jpg

Bolts backed out:

http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...psunhptwl8.jpg

And separated:

http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...pshk7cxmnz.jpg
http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...psphnslbxc.jpg
http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps8ep60lin.jpg
http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...psb1sqh0lb.jpg
http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...psfimssewg.jpg
http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/a...pshug915bu.jpg

Again, I was surprised by the great condition of all the parts. I will also order new crankshaft bearing caps and shims. I'm already very excited to start the assembly. Hopefully, I can finalize the parts list tomorrow and make the order.

Thanks for all the interest and encouragement everyone!

My pleasure! I just remembered that I had to remove the pressure plate and clutch disc in order to get the engine to squeeze in between the subframe members. With it off, you have the perfect amount of room for the engine to come out. It's not a big deal to undo the pressure plate under the car. Likewise when you reinstall everything.

Please let me know if any questions pop up when you tackle this job. I would love to help with whatever advice I can provide, although based on your work I've followed on P9, you are light years ahead of me. I actually drew a lot of inspiration from you projects for my own track car.

Wow, by and large everything looks really good. Right on!

Good call on the rebuild given the bearing surfaces (looks like some clutch riding was going on). This was the 'full tear down' I was asking about :) The circlip insertion on #6 will be the fun part. I have the tool set (it looks like you may as well) and the bore scope needed to avoid any awkward moments on first spin up :)

Hahahahaha. "Awkward moments." Love it. I sure hope not!

I have a rebuild tool set that should have the circlip tool. I was planning on practicing a lot before doing the 4-6 bank piston circlips. Ion keeps bragging that he has a USB bore scope, but he hasn't substantiated his claim yet. I have a set of mirrors that I've seen people use sometimes as a low tech solution.

What do you mean about clutch riding and how does that affect the bearing surfaces?

What's the 4-1-1 on the #6 circlip? I'm not familiar with this but would like to understand why it's special.

So for the 1-3 pistons crankcase half, you install the pistons the way you would on any engine - by slipping the piston and rod (with wrist pin and circlip installed) into the bore and bolting the rod bearing cap onto the crankshaft. For the 4-6 crankcase half you can no longer do this as you already bolted the case halves together, so you don't have access to the crankshaft anymore.

What happens instead is that you bolt the 4-6 rods to the crankshaft first and now you have to push the pistons into the bores and slip the wrist pins and circlips through an access hole in the case wall.

Have a look here:http://www.flat6innovations.com/inde...owall=&start=3 starting with the 6th pic down and continuing onto the next page. This is generally why folks regard an M96 rebuild as difficult, in addition to the somewhat complex timing. I'm sure this is all a little more straightforward once you do it once or twice.