I've spent the last 5 days with my car on a lift re-doing every suspension and chassis piece on the car(another story) and made an observation. The engine and transmission are mounted to a cradle (like a K-member) that is bolted to the car by two bolts on each side directly below the front shock mounts and by two diagonal braces under the car.
If you disconnected the steering shaft from the rack and pinion, disconnected the front upper control arms from the steering knuckles, disconnected the engine harness and vacuum lines(and assorted accessory/fuel lines), and of course removed the drive shaft,shaft beam and shifter linkage, you could lower the entire engine and tranny out of the car in one piece (with the front lower A-arms, spring, tie rods and rack+pinion all in place). Obviously, a lift is pretty mandatory for this.
If you wanted to go one further, you could disconnect the batwing and rear control arms from the frame and raise the body up from the entire power train assembly. I believe they did the opposite on the assembly line installing the whole power train.
I pulled my motor and my tranny (both separately), and you have to disassemble so much stuff , that I thought this might actually be easier for pulling a motor / tranny combo, but I haven't tested it, so anyone who has tried, let us know.

 

I asked this question a while back and no one answered.

 

good luck with that.. i know what you went through to get your engine out.. but it sounds bad either way...

 

That's (whole drive train) the way it was put together. The auto mfgrs figuered out awhile back that bottom loading was cheaper to assemble, especially if it's all in one i.e. front wheel drive (now you know the biggest reason they went to FWD). I believe there's a pic in Antonicks "Cor-Vette Specs" book. If you have a lift and the proper jacks/supports it would be much easier BUT the setup has to be right or "gravity will get ya"!

 

To do the entire assembly right you need a rigid support that will support the rear axle and front axle assembly without moving at all. Otherwise you're going to damage stuff. But yes, removing it that way is an ideal scenario which is unlikely.

 

My next door neighbor (SAE Mechanic) told me that's how you get the engine out of his 94 camaro. It sits so far back under the windshield.

 

That is the way a lot of cars are done now, we have a steel table, that is on rollers that we put under one of our lifts just for that.

For me i will stick to removeing the c4 engines from the top, i worry about to much stuff i guess.
Greg N