I hear ya. My old man's pride and joy was a '63 Pontiac with a mildly worked 454 under the hood. He did pretty much all of the work on it himself- had the engine built by one of his workmates but he did all the maintenance that was necessary- and there was quite a bit of it. My first car was a Nissan 200sx and despite the fact that it was only a turbo 4-cylinder, both engines were about the same size. Obviously his block was bigger but all the extra stuff that goes on the more modern cars really fills the engine bay to overflowing.
I don't bother working on the mechanicals of my car anymore. It's a Renault turbo diesel and I wouldn't have a clue where to start if anything went wrong under the bonnet- but having said that it's 15 years old and I just can't kill the thing.
