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So we decided to drop the engine in today (along with attached tranny).
We inserted the headers (NOS Veloce) first, then proceeded to expertly maneuver the engine/tranny into the engine bay, and that was the end of the "easy" part.
Tried "Difficult Part I" (described below), couldn't get it done, so all sat down to lunch first.
Difficult Part I: Installing the billeted Veloce Mounts to the engine and setting the entire engine/tranny assembly into the proper mount receptacles in the chassis - this proved a bit difficult with the loose headers getting in the way this way and that. We finally had to nut down one side, and later resort to a bit of brute force to slide the other side in. This took four men tackling the job, yanking and cursing, and two innocent visitors looking on incredulously. This shop is always full of visitors, Alfa experts or not.
Difficult Part II: Properly attaching the headers onto their corresponding head studs. This took some effort, and lots of primitive-seeming tools to get done. One helper split on us half-way through, so progress became even slower (the visitors had also decided to leave due to the randomly thrown-about foul language). We got headers #2 and #3 attached first, while #1 and 4 remained stubbornly unaligned with their bolts. With some clever "leveraging" and said tools (axe, mallets, pry bars, crow bars), we finally got #1 and 4 to install.
Difficult Part III (ongoing): Helper #2 also decided to split. We then discovered that #1 and #3 are jammed up against the frame and brake MC, respectively; no playing around with engine height/mounts helped. We're still working on a solution for this.
In the meanwhile, enjoy the pics:
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