Last week Chris’s protege sacrificed itself for our purposes. The B6 (SOHC 1.8, 102hp for those who do not know) in my Protege is probably a little tired after 248,000 miles, a bunch of track days, and only 2 oil changes in the last 103,000 miles. The BP (DOHC 1.8L, 125hp) in Chris’s Protege is in it’s infancy, relatively: 148,000 miles. The engine/transaxle assembly is an easy direct swap, so I pulled the it out of Chris’s car. Here’s what it looked like to begin with:

The left front had been damaged in an accident, so there was a lot of cutting, hacking, and other violence required just to get the radiator and some other normally easy stuff out. But soon enough the engine was out of the car…

…and then Chris went to work taking other stuff:

The best part about pulling engines out of cars you don’t care about is the recklessness with which you can work. A/C, power steering line, or other part in the way? Hack it in half, dump the fluid all over the place, and move on. A bolt won’t come out? Just cut parts around it until it doesn’t matter, like I had to do with the shifter rod. Need to relieve fuel pressure? Cut the lines with a knife. Gas goes all over the place and pressure is relieved.

The Protege engine is very easy to pull. Someone with moderate mechanical skill can have it out in just a few hours. If, like me, you’re swapping (or planning on swapping) the DOHC BP into an SOHC Protege, make sure you also take the driveshafts, ECU, wiring harness, and ignition coil from your donor car. All those are unique to the DOHC model.

Check out the picture gallery of the engine pull. A bit later, we also tipped the car on its side in Chris’s driveway. You may be amused.