Ponch has an obvious fear of going up in a helicopter and is trying to avoid his turn doing so. When he's finally going up, he's asked if it's his first time being in a helicopter and Ponch responds no, only that type of helicopter. In Career Day (1977) Ponch was up in a helicopter flown by and for the CHP. Not only was he eager to go up in the helicopter but didn't express any fears of it afterward.
The crooks had the lady's engine stripped out of the car and in the van in five minutes. This would have been a good few hours worth of work, even if being careless and rushed. There's no way that thin little cable would have worked.
The thieves place a stolen Trans Am engine if the back of their van but the van does not appear to be weighed down. It also gets in a high speed chase with quick turns--a loose engine in the cargo area would have caused the van to be unstable and maybe roll over. If the thieves had secured the engine, this makes the theft even more implausible in the several minutes shown in the episode.
The exact same dispatcher radio call ("all units in the vicinity of 5150 Ballentine. . .") is used for the second and third car stripping scene.
After stripping the Corvette, the thieves are shown getting into a 1960s Dodge van for their getaway, but a shot of what should be the Dodge's interior is actually the interior from the Ford Econoline used in an earlier scene.
Ponch spends the day trying to get out of riding in the helicopter but in Careers Day in series 1 he rides in the helicopter without complaint and finds a missing boy.
When Ponch is in the helicopter describing the GTA vehicles, he tells Jon "...A brown Chevy van, the same van, Jon..." However, the van used, and the one they had pursued before was a clearly Ford Econoline van.