Sorry, I was confused.
I found using SMALL amounts of heat and a 10" crescent wrench works relatively well to get that nut to come loose.  Mostly lots of patients.  I am leaving town again for 4 days and hope to pull this motor out next weekend.  In 2 hours, I have virtually everything unhooked from the topside leaving the trans bolts, dog bones, and crossover left.  The turbo is off so that should be fairly easy.  One question, would it be easier to just lift the engine and tranny up as one unit to just change the pan gasket?  I was thinking about this and it seems silly to remove the whole darn thing for 5 minutes worth of work?  

REMINDER: all I need to do is remove the oil pan and reinstall it.

Just a thought

The TB coolant line was bypassed long ago and this is the 3rd time for removing the turbo for me, so it is getting pretty easy.  Do you remember which tranny bolt is PITA to remove?

I have a dented oil pan in my Turbo STE and need to straighten it.  I decided that the best way is to remove the engine.  Is there any quick tips or tricks that helps get this done quicker??

Thanks

plugged CAT.  If the wastegate is stuck open, then the engine will still have as much power as a N/A car.  If it seems doggier than that, plugged CAT.

I have done some long hard looking at the whole CAI vs. directly on the turbo thing, and here is my opinion (highly educated):
The CAI brings in air, cooler of course, from the bottom of the engine compartment.  Unfortunately, this is a low pressure area due to the airdam (unless the intake is in front such as the stock is).  Thus there is no ram air effect, just cooler air.  
Problems with CAI:  lots of piping and bends.   According to my Fluid Dynamics book, a bend has the same resistance of a straight section of pipe 5 times it's length.  Air also has trouble negotiating around them, and at high velocities such as full boost, can cause turbulance.  This actually makes a restriction for the air.  Since you are not runing high speeds 100+mph there is problems with the air pickup.  
The turbo still takes the air and compresses it, generating heat.  Since the temperature gradient is greater with CAI, there is a greater chance of heat soak due to heat transfer driven by temp. differentces.  This then completely negates the effects of the CAI and throw in the "resistance" of the setup potentially means less air at the same temps.  The intercooler then has less mass flow through it causing less heat transfer across the IC.  
The bends can cause serious problems.  Why do they make mandral bent pipe? Of course this can be eliminated by going with way oversize pipe!
Problems with filter directly on turbo.  Taking in warmer engine bay air.  There is more potential for more air due to no piping.  The intercooler is actually more efficient due to larger quantities of air.  
Positives about CAI:
HIGH SPEED DRIVING CAN CREATE A RAM AIR EFFECT
Positives about directly on the turbo:
Clean looks
more efficient
There are lots of other mods that create more power.  Some free (not including time) some not.
The best ways to get these cars faster is:
1)put them on diets
2)make the intercooler more effiecient
 The best way is to remove the AC condensor fins and put a switch on the secondary fan and keep it running whenever you want to race.  The fin removal provides tons of extra mass flow through the IC, and then directly into the turbo creating a ram air of sorts.
Spray some sort of low boiling point liquid onto the IC to aid in heat transfer.  
3)dry nitrus kit.  This additionally cools the post compressed air.  
I've talked with my professor and he thinks it would be a great IC engines lab project to see if my hypothosis is correct?  

I've thought and looked long and hard this summer and this is what I came up with.  If you wish to refute it, please do, maybe you will bring up points I haven't thought about and other things to test for :lol:

find yourself some Conklin rust bomb.  Works sooooo much better than wd40

Just by chance.....did you check the cv shaft?   I had basically the same problem with my TSTE.  I was waiting to get the money together for a tranny kit when I decided to check everything out.  The cv boots looked good, but the splines were stripped on the inner joint.

Packing ice into the intercooler will block air flow.  Instead, get 2 WS washer fluid spray nozzles and fill your washer fluid with rubbing alcohol/water mix.  Fasten the spray nozzles so they spray onto the intercooler and connect them to the bottle.  When the turbo is making boost, hit the WS washer button.  This allows more heat to be extracted by the intercooler.   If you run high octane fuel, make sure it is unleaded.

I have some questions for your "mechanic".
When they replaced the cracked head with a replacement, did they surface it to match the head that was warped?  
 If not there is certainly a compression difference from one side to the other.  Have they done a compression check to make sure all the cylinders were close to the same compression?  It doesn't matter what the reading is, as long as ALL 6 cylinders have the same (or similar).  

My TSTE was doing something similar.  What is the condtion of the CAT?  If the answer to these questions sounds fine, then have him remove the right side splash gaurd, and with the engine running, wiggle the harness going to the right side electrical center.  If the engine runs differently while wiggling the harness, EACH fuse terminal needs to be removed, cleaned and tightened.  This is what was wrong with my car.

Of course there is always the possibility of a faulty plug, wire, sensor, injector, or just Friday the 13th.

Now that I look back on the whole experience, I did look pretty cool.......Then, not so much :shock:

I've had more serious problems when mine went bad.  The engine moving around can cause the pressure fuel line to bend and rub at the crimp and spray raw fuel onto that nice hot ignition source.  About 15 hours of rewiring everything and cutting away melted plastic made me fully aware of how bad this problem can be.  DON'T TRY TO SAVE MONEY by letting them go.  I had flames coming from the hood louver and burnt everything between the master cylinder and battery in only about 30-45 seconds.
If your dogbones have been bad for a while now, check the fuel lines for any wear!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Corey

sometime when its running, carefully grab ahold of the wire harness underneath the RS elec center and see if it doesn't change anything.  Also if the ecm is getting PS fluid on it, that can't be good for it.

Now I know this is gonna sound dumb, but this sounds like what my car was doing slightly.  I fought a poor running, EXTREMELY rich condition and checked everything.  Tried different O2, different coils (all), module, changed plugs and wires time and time again.  I even went to the trouble of cleaning all the ground and power contact points under the hood.  Put it back together after each and would run fine.  Then all of a sudden it would shift all over the place, and run like dog poo.  After 7 hours a VERY competent mechanic couldn't find the problem.  Then he leaned on the right side elec center under the hood and whola, found it.  He grabbed the wire harness and could get the engine to kill and then run great.  I had to undo EVERY fuse terminal, wirebrush, and tighten it then reinstall it.  This worked perfectly.  I now have 2K miles on it and not even a burp.
To check and see if this is the problem, start the motor with the plastic cover off the right side wheelwell and wiggle the wire harness and take note of the engine condition!  
Good luck

That sucks,
I feel for you, I finally got my TSTE running to perfection and two weeks later...WHAM, broke something serious.  What a time for this to happen.  OH WELL, its only money right?  you can't take it with you
Corey