Can I hose my motor down?
 

I want to clean up some grime and have read some posts, but most were while the motor was out. So can I just pop the engine lid and have at it(covering the distributor)?

Remove the fan and shroud, cover all electronics, and take your time with a degreaser and light water pressure. I used gunk with great results.

Is there any way to not remove anything, just cover things? Not looking for concours, just want to do a light clean and hose the degreaser off

Yes..but you will regret it.

If you want to own a water damaged Porsche, there are plenty of Sandy victims to choose from.

of course you can hose it down. I do it all the time and it lives outside in the perpetual rain. After cleaning it, I take care to run it to get it dry, and then spray it liberally with aerosol vaseline. I use that stuff on my motorbikes too to preserve against road salt and grime through the winter season.

There should be no ill effects, just be gentle with ignition and air itake areas

What is the objective?
 

Years ago I had to Simple Green & wash my "on engine" BEHR because my 3.0 was running hot oil temps. I do not support hosing down the entire engine bay but cleaning the oil cooler and/or heat exchangers (& maybe jugs) from below on a "warm" not "hot" motor" worked for me. A body shop had sucked paper down on my oil cooler and I cleaned it several times until the paper washed out. Good luck and remember that in process engineering, water is called the "Universal Solvent" because it can wash things but also corrode metal/electronic components. Good luck.

What he said, although some 3.2's do seem especially vulnerable to water under the distributor cap.

My car regularly got parked outside in the rain (turbo decklid didn't exactly stop much water getting into the engine bay), and then I'd go drive it through puddles. It didn't care.

Surely most of your dirt is underneath the car? I'd pressure wash the underside without blinking an eye. I'd be a little more careful inside the engine bay.

The indy shop I take my car to does it this way when they need to work on a dirty block.
They get a spray bottle of bio deg cleaner and go to the car wash.
They prop the gas peddle at 2k rpm (obvioulsy running)
They spray the degreaser directly into the fan letting it spray the engine inside the cover then hose it with the wand...water directly into the fan again...he's been doing this for 20 some odd years with P cars.
I've done it a few times myself and it works great....this keeps the degreaser from drying in the odd nook...and liberally spray with clean water.
No, it will not harm th alternator.

I use P21s Total Auto Wash

This stuff is incredibly powerful yet safe to use all around. It will not harm or stain metal, aluminum, hoses, belts, wires, rubber, and fabric.