@Titon...yes, good advice on all points! Will look at the needs for detail vs the time wasted on poly reduction efforts. However too much obsessive/compulsive behavior with poly counts and the model will never get done in my lifetime. Model it, be done with it and move on!
Here's an effort I put in today and wasted 6 hours just to save 100K polys.
Top is the original mesh at 205K. The bottom is the reduced poly mesh at 100864 polys. Looks 95 percent detailed from the original, but cost me a lot of time. In this case, since I will be cloning it 10 times to cover the engine sides, it was well worth it to save a million polys.
