go to harbor freight and buy a 90* drill. ill be pinning the 3.8 motor this weekend as well. had a fitting fall out in my hand

 

Is this on your car krazy or Randy's car that you recently bought?

 

It's Randy's motor. Issue never addressed. Mine were welded I'll pin these

 

I thought yours were welded thanks for the info.

 

Thanks for posting this, it is sorely needed. DIY R&R procedures for this motor seem to be scarce compared to most other p-car engines.

 

Great post! How long did it take you to pull it out?

 

Great info!

I'll be dropping my engine soon too. I'm about due for a coolant hose welding after 25k miles and 5 track days at 700+ hp...

Doesn't sound as bad as I'd imagined. I have also seen the AC layed on the bumper attached, as opposed to being removed.

Cheers!

 

a/c and p/s do not need to be removed. order new axle bolts they are one time use. same for the check valves and lines for the turbos good chance they will get damaged and it sucks to be waiting weeks for a single line

 

Time to update this with better walk through....


I looked around for a good write up on pulling the turbo engine, and perhaps my search skills just suck, but I couldn't find one. So, hopefully this helps someone at some point in the future. For reference, I did find the 996 engine pull from pelican parts, but realized it was for a non-turbo which is a bit different.

Estimated time to remove the engine: 8-16 hours (depending on tools, skill level, etc)
Difficultly level 1-10: 8, it’s no more difficult than pulling other engines, but I wouldn’t make this the first engine you ever pull from a car. The only things more difficult are engine disassembly / build, and transmission assembly / build.

1. Row your windows down *slightly*. You are getting ready to unhook the battery and will inevitably get in/out of the car. You don’t want to whap your glass at the top each time since the power won’t be there to automatically row your windows down slightly when you open/close the door.


2. Reach in the car and pop the front and back "hoods"


3. It’s time to go and unhook the battery so you don’t kill yourself later. I unhook the positive only. The battery is located in the front center “trunk” behind the small area that would fit a golf bag, under all that black plastic. Get the center black plastic off and you’ll see it. A wrench on the positive to loosen it and pull it off by hand. As long as your wrench doesn’t touch metal while touching the positive you’ll be fine.


4. Next we’ll raise the car up. If you are one of those fortunate guys that have a lift, we are all ragingly jealous and hate you. You may substitute this step with “I used my lift like a boss” and move to the next one. If you don’t have a lift in your garage, like the rest of us, you’ll be jacking the car up onto 4 jack stands in an agonizingly slow and controlled manner. You are supposed to have jack pads like what a lift would have. (See something like this Amazon.com: ESCO Jack Stand - 3-Ton Capacity, Model# 10498: Industrial & Scientific ) but I didn’t have that. Seeing as how I already have 8 jack stands, I decided to use the 4 extra-large jack stands I do have. So far they are working just fine, and didn’t hurt the factory lift points. Whatever jack stands you go with, make sure they aren’t your normal run of the mill small ones. You are going to be lifting the car up very high and need the stability that the extra-large ones provide. If you use small ones you are asking to die an ironic and agonizing death having been crushed by your childhood dream car later when the engine comes out. Don’t attempt to get your car as high as we’ll need with small stands. When jacking the car up I found the easiest thing to do is to use a thin piece of wood and jack from the front frame rail on one side. This will lift the entire front, driver and passenger. Get it high enough to put jack stands on the front, then go to the back and jack from the rear sub-frame behind the rear wheel. That'll get the back up. Then go back and forth slowly raising the car higher and higher front to back. You’ll want to get the bottom of the body 19-22 inches in the air. The higher the better. Mine sat at 19.5. It took me more than an hour being careful. You don’t want to go out but a click or two on the stands each time else you risk the car falling to the side being leaned on. If you’re car falls it’s going to be some expensive damage, so take this warning seriously. Once it’s to the desired height, push on the side of the car a bit and ENSURE it’s up there stable. The last thing you want is this thing falling on you, or teeter tottering later due to shifting weight. If it’s all good, it’s time to celebrate! If not, the jacks aren’t on the same stop, or your floor isn’t level. Figure it out, but make sure it’s safe and the car won’t fall else you are risking death. Getting the car this high in the air is one of the more agonizing moments. Time to start getting it ready to come out.

 

5. Remove the rear deck lid. It can be easily removed by unplugging the electrical connector on the passenger side, and unbolting the 4 bolts holding the hinge. You’ll want a helper for this so that when you unbolt one side you can easily control the deck lid without damaging it or your paint.

 

6. Remove the rear wheels.

7. Remove the “rear” rear fender liner. You’ll need to remove it for access, and also to get the rear bumper off. It’s held on by a lot of screws.

 

8. Remove the tail lights. This step is kind of optional I believe, but it was stupid simple to do, and made for a good place to sit tools for me. The tail lights are held in by two screws around the bottom right and left of the engine opening. The tail lights should just come out with ease after they are removed. Make sure you sit them some place that won’t get them broken.

 

9. Remove the rear bumper. Remove the license plate frame, and any rear bumperettes you have. I had the two near the rear license plate frame. They were held in by one bolt each.


Once that’s out of the way, the rear bumper is held on by 4 bolts in the top middle of it, and on each side, one in the top at the edge (near the rear wheel) and two on the bottom edge (also near the rear wheel)


Vertical view of the side of the bumper. The far is the bottom, the close is the top

 

10. Remove the exhaust. This is held in by being bolted to the turbos and some weird strap mechanism that seems kind of overly complicated considering it results in a solid mount. (Why not just use some bolts to solid mount it Porsche, come on) You'll want to unbolt the exhaust from the turbos first. There are 4 nuts on each turbo. The exhaust won’t fall don’t worry. After that, onto the straps. To get to the straps you'll need to remove the heat shields. Take care to break as few heat shield bolts as you can. If you are in no rush, some PB blaster on them and take a break here is a good plan. If not… be really careful, they break easy and are probably corroded on there. Once the heat shield is off you'll see the straps on each side. Unbolt these and slide the straps to the outside of the car. Eventually it'll come off the big metal tabs and the exhaust will fall into your lap. Take care, it’s rather bulky and heavy for what it is.
The heat shields you’ll be taking off

 

11. Time to remove the hoses connecting the turbos to the intake plumbing. Since you’ve removed the rear “rear fender” cover, you have access via the wheel well. You have the turbo compressor outlet going into the intercooler, and you have the intake piping to remove. All in all, only 3 clamps on each side then pull the pipe off.