Remove the other mount bracket, drained the coolant from the block, and got the TQ converter and flex plate off. Removed the flex plate spacer and cleaned off the backside of the motor. Fairly clean. A little white sealant squeezed out between the block and upper oil pan. I wonder if they had been separated or just from the factory like this. Rear main doesn't appear to be leaking, no oil, just dusty/salt remnants. Spray it down with some brake clean and blew off all the crude. Remove both the exhaust manifolds. Two nuts stripped and had to use a 3/8" turbo socket. 5 studs came out in the process. I saved 4 of them and reinstalled them into the head. One snapped in the exhaust manifold tube nut, but I had a spare around from a 20v head.

Test fitted a core 01E with spacer plate. Then lined up one exhaust manifold. Had to remove the oil pressure sensor and coolant tube from the oil housing. They both need to be removed in the future anyways. Not sure how the coolant tube from the oil housing to the rear crossover tube is going to fit around the headers. Its going to be very tight if not dimpling the header tube for cyl 1 and pulling some thermal barrier on it.






Not decided if I want to cut the 2.5" v-bands off and go up to 3" with dual 3" to the rear. Or go a little cheaper with the 2.5" existing on the downpipes and 2.5" to the back?