Hey guys, 

This might be a super novice question.

I am modeling an airplane, and have an engine I need to use to design a cowling around. The engine is very complex (air cooled, pushrod, etc), so it has lots of faces. 

Even though I went through and deleted all non essential faces and parts, it still is pretty conplicated.

Is there a way to save or export it as one solid part? 

My computer is struggling with commands like move or translate when insert the engine into my aircraft as a part. Any time I try to move or translate, and I try to highlight/select the entire engine, it sits there for about 5+ min trying to select all the faces. However, once it is in place, it doesnt big down my system at all. I can rotate, zoom, etc with no noticable degradation in performance.

Any ideas?