Mustang Sally Restoration: Engine disassembly begins

 Progress continues on the Sally engine tear down. The car and the engine, which is original, has 271k miles on it. Like was mentioned a couple blogs back, Poppi picked up the car in the spring of 1997 with about 30k+ miles. The car was a daily driver for about 6 years. While daily driving, it was continuously upgraded and modified for faster E.T's at the dragstrip.

With the engine on a stand, first up was to remove the front cover and inspect the original timing chain. 

The chain looked to be in really good condition considering the drag runs and mileage. 

Of course you have to have at least 1 broken bolt. With some PB Blaster, localized heat and vice grips, this timing cover bolt was able to be removed without too much drama.

Some assorted timing cover long bolts. The plan is to replace some of these with new hardware.

Here's a peek at the intake ports of the stock E7TE ported heads.

"Extreme close up!" 

The Crane Cams rocker arms still lookin' good! Nobody had the AFR165 heads with pedestal mount style so these could be re-used. The only ones we could find were the stud mount so we're gonna need to run a different rocker arm. Bummer!

Here's a peek at one of the cylinders. Overall Poppi is pleased with the condition of the engine. He will measure cylinders and see what he's working with as far as whether he can do a hone and get some new stock sized pistons and rings or if he'll need to do a .02 or .03 overbore. 

Here's the combustion chamber side of the removed head. The copper spray Poppi put on the head worked well. The heads came off and were ported back in about 2000 I think over Christmas break. 

A lot of progress just this week. Next up is the short block disassembly and inspection. Hoping to be able to polish the crank and do all new bearings. Stay tuned...