Hi there,
Interested to hear your thoughts on dropping the engine.
It appears that removing the heat exchangers can be quite challenging. So, if that happens to be the situation, what's your procedure for dropping the engine with the heat exchangers still attached to the motor?
Any recommendations, tips, suggestions, or workarounds would be appreciated
I understand that handling the heat exchangers can get tricky when the muffler is detached…
Thanks in advance!

More likely to damage the heads and f you don’t remove them
I’ve dropped over 100 motors
And always with the exchangers removed

If you leave the muffler and bracing attached, you should be ok. If you take the muffler off, then you really start to torque on the head studs. As a structure, I have done it many times. Muffler off equals HE's off too. You also want to ultimately block it up on some wood or stands so you are not resting on them forever. Such as leave the engine mount bar on and put that bar on top of a 4x4 and the trans on a 4x4 and it is all suspended off the ground.

I took the muffler off, rested the engine mount on jack stands. Pulled the exchanges off there. Then waited till the engine was in the car for the reinstall. I think I would pull them in the car next time. As they said. Not worth the chance of damage, and I really gained nothing by doing it after the engine was out. Although it does look cool with the on there.

Why are you dropping your engine?

It can be done, with some increased bulk to deal with and risk. But whether it will be easier to unbolt the exchangers in the car or out depends on where the engine will be when out. If on jack stands under the cross bar, you may have more room to work with the engine in the car.

Taking the HE off isnt the hard part, getting them to seal up against the heads again without overtorquing the nuts and pulling out a HE stud is the tricky bit.