lol! let me see what I can do... I haven't taken a ton of them but I have a couple quick shots.

Here's three quick ones from night before last.

I got the insulation and more harnesses removed last night, didn't take pics because I suck.

Got the HVAC unit out and the heater core bypass installed (might need to trim the hose up a little).

Just need to get the dry ice so I can get started on the sound deadening.

Woot!

What'd you do to cap off the heater lines on the engine? The one on the driver's side that has a stock metal pipe bolted to it, and the one sticking up in the rear, etc?

Oh, and it was a real bitch getting the passenger side hose disconnected because...

The ******* clip broke! One of the tabs you compress to get the hose clamp off just snapped off... I had to take a damned cutting wheel to it to get it off of the hose. Luckily the new hose went on without incident.

See that aerial view of the back of the engine? See the ~1" black hose going from left to right in an arc? That's the bypass. You can put a hose from one side of the engine to the hardpipe on the other, completing the circuit that the core was part of previously.

Costs 3 dollars worth of hose and a few minutes time (if you have the right pliers, I recommend some long nose, 90 degree angled ones at least 10" long, makes the whole thing a lot easier).

Edit: to clarify, it's 3/4" heater hose, if you need to go buy some. It just appears to be around 1" from the outside. Ask for 3/4" when you buy. Fit perfect, kudos to Spohn on that.

The A/C system is more tricky. I borrowed a charging gauge set from a coworker and used it to discharge the system into a bottle (to catch any lube that came out) before using disconnect tools (also borrowed) to disconnect the lines. They're so damned close together and the radii of their bends so tight that it was really hard to get the lines disconnected from the core unit.

Also, there isn't an intermediate joint on the skinny side (H Side) so I ended up needing to cut the line in the interim since I won't have time to remove the compressor et al until after the cage is in and didn't want the full line flapping about.

I have given up on the crappy disconnect tools I bought and I think I'm just gonna hacksaw the AC lines off. I doubt anyone wants them anyway.

I banged on my rear quarter panels a little too hard this winter and dented them trying to remove the tar. For the front I've been using a razor blade scraper and hammer which works surprisingly well.

Spohn says that the dry ice method works wonders, so I'm going to give it a shot. The other option is a chisel/scraper + hammer, which I'm really loath to try.

Yeah I guess bypass hoses are the only reasonable way to go for now, given how the water outlet routing works. I just wish I could get rid of that double metal pipe on the driver's side of the bay and cap it off at the head there (and ditto for the other inlets outlets related to the heater core and the throttle body coolant).

I want to, too, I'm just concerned about where the coolant goes after the heater core, are they depending on that coolant to cool the engine or is it just going back into the radiator or something?

I need to get in there and see if I can trace the route of the hose. My thought is that they may be using that to cool part of the engine, and if that's so, something will have to be fabricated to replace that hard pipe and route to that side of the engine.

Yea I'd like to get rid of this also. I believe it goes back into part of the engine block passage but not sure. Most everything on a car serves a dual purpose but who knows.

Wish we could get someone familiar with the Doran RC car to weigh in on this, since theirs definitely has that pipe removed.

I should really be more proactive checking the FSM...

Looks like we could block off the heater outlet and inlets easily.

I had the flow backwards in my mind.. also explains why I was having so many overheating issues, my headers are baking that hard pipe as the coolant flows back to the water pump, which bypasses the radiator.