Engine out the top - Easy Peasy

After reading numerous posts, the Porsche workshop manual and Clarks Garage step-by-step engine removal guide - I felt confident enough to tackle the job.

But I wanted to remove the engine from the top. 

As I discovered, it was pretty straight forward even for a novice! Result.

I wanted to avoid removing the cross member and disturb the front suspension to do something I was convinced could be done easier from the top. Posts such as this one convinced me to give it a go at least. And I'm glad I did.

In summary I was able to remove the engine from the top without needing to remove the bonnet/hood; torque tube; transaxle; bellhousing; clutch; clutch slave cylinder; cross member; front suspension; and radiator. Contrary to many so called internet experts opinions and many confusing threads this was painless and without dread.

All that was necessary to remove was the starter; power steering pump and alternator (I figured to make the bottom of the engine narrower); intake setup and airbox; fuel rail (to lower height of engine); radiator fan; coolant hoses; exhaust manifolds (not convinced it's necessary) and disconnect the wiring harness. (I removed the front anti roll bar as I needed to lift from the front.)

By removing the above ancillaries, detaching the bellhousing and removing the pressure plate bolts the engine easily separated from the driveshaft and once the mounts were unfastened the engine was simply raised out of the bay. Besides some fiddly, hard to reach bolts - and working by myself - it was a straight forward process to remove the engine from the top with a hoist.

This is how I went about it if you want to do the same:

1) Follow Clarks guide on removing the ancillaries mentioned above. That leaves the engine nice and compact - and lighter too.

All topside and bottom side ancillaries removed.

2) As my garage is narrow I needed to jack the car up from the front. I sourced a 2"x3" thick piece of tough wood from a friend to place between the trolley jack arm and the aluminium cross member. As the 944 is low at the best of times, I needed to remove the cup from the trolley jack arm to get in under the subframe with the piece of wood. Space is tight so it was necessary to use a short armed ratchet handle to raise the jack enough to be able to then fit the handle to lift it further.

Trolley jack raised the car from the cross member.

3) Once I'd raised the front of the car, I placed two jack stands under the body chassis rails directly behind the rear wishbone mounts. I kept the jack up all time for extra support too as there was no need to drop the cross member either. It was as safe as houses under there. I also removed the front wheels for better access.

Jack stand placed on the frame rail behind the rear wishbone mount.

4) Removing the Starter is straight forward and gives access to the nine 6mm Allen head bolts which attach the clutch pressure plate to the flywheel inside the bellhousing. Leave the slave cylinder in place. The nine bolts are grouped in threes and in order to reach them the flywheel needs to be rotated. By placing a long breaker bar with a 24mm socket on the front Crankshaft bolt it's possible to rotate the crank so that each 6mm bolt head appears in turn so it can be removed. A second person would save a great deal of time during this procedure as rotating the breaker bar means pushing it with your leg and also climbing out and repositioning the socket on the crank to give it a turn. Not difficult, just annoying and slow going.

The nine 6mm allen pressure plate to flywheel bolts are accessed through the starter mount hole.

5) Three of the four bellhousing bolts are easily accessible from the top of the engine with a long breaker bar and 19mm socket. The fourth is best reached from underneath the car and poses no problem removing it along with the others. With the four bell bolts removed the engine is almost free to remove at this point. In fact it tilts forward easily as it did when I started removing the first nut from the exhaust header - separating from the drive shaft and flywheel pilot bearing without any effort. Had I already detached the exhaust manifold lower bolts I think the engine would have been free to be removed with the exhaust manifolds still attached to the engine if I'd been able to reach the right hand side engine mount bolts...

Three of the four Bellhousing bolts are accessed from the top.

6) I'd recommend doing this step before 5 above. Detaching and removing the exhaust manifolds is a fiddly affair - especially the lower bolts which attach to the middle exhaust. It took more time than I would have liked and required a trip to the store to buy a set of wobble extensions to reach the various 12 and 13mm nuts. I pulled out the centre 2+3 manifold to be able to get to the four engine mount bolts and remove them. Try as I might I couldn't manoeuvre the wider 1+4 manifold out from between the engine and the bay wall.

7) Attach the hoist with the arm as close to the engine as possible. I did this to minimise the overall height of the engine and hoist arm - it was enough to raise the engine and remove it from the bay without removing the bonnet/hood. There was no need to remove the radiator just the fan.

Engine hoist take the weight and it comes free

8) As soon as the hoist took up the slack the engine was free to be raised once the engine mounts had been unfastened. The left hand side mount was detached from the subframe cross member. FYI there are 13mm nuts on the underside of the engine mount which are tricky to hold a spanner onto while torquing the top bolts in order to remove them. A lot of time would be saved with another pair of hands...There is an inch or more forward of the sump and cross member for the engine to free itself from the driveshaft - so no need to lower the subframe cross member at all - you can see the clearance in the pic below.

More than enough space in front with radiator and between sump and cross member below

9) Raise the hoist arm and pull the engine out over the front of the car. I draped an old duvet cover over the nose to protect the paint, latch and radiator. Engine out. Stoked. Time for a cold one.

Engine slides out below the bonnet and clears the nose too

This is the now empty engine bay - the bellhousing is clearly visible and everything else I want to refurb is in easy reach:

Empty engine bay with clear view to bell housing

Radiator, light bar, cross member all untouched.

So with the engine out it was time to fit it to the engine stand.

Firstly I fitted the mounting bracket to the engine while it was still on the the hoist. Two of the four bellhousing bolts were long enough to work with the stand, thankfully I had a spare set of bolts from my other stripped down engine I'd bought previously - so I got it all mounted up:

Doing it this way makes it easy to slide the shaft into the stand ready for the rest of the tear down:

Overall a very satisfying experience. Hope this helps someone facing the same procedure.