Well, I'm just about done with my heater core swap. I gave myself a week of evenings to get it done assuming the worst and, I gotta say, it wasn't as bad as swapping the heater core in an old Jetta I had, but definitely worse than pulling the dash in my RX7.

I ended up having to cut the short heater hose cause it was like melted on to the pipe, and ended up breaking the retainer clip that connects 1 of the ac lines coming out of the firewall.
Outside of that, no major issues. Took a little bit to figure out how to get the dash out and ended up pulling the dash cover, then partially removing the supporting bar enough to get the hvac unit out.
Of course, putting it back in went like 5 x's faster than taking it out.
I like the way the various dash pieces snap in--alot easier than the jetta or rx7 dashes.

Anyways, gonna do a radiator flush and start it up tonight.

If that goes ok, the last major thing is o2 sensors or/and possibly a new cat.

 

I wish there was a write up of the removal with pictures on the forum. I searched but didn't find one. I just did this on the new project car - this is NOT a small project...