Im used to using hide point, and then delete hidden to remove part of a mesh.
Another way would be to GoZ, delete some faces, and GOz back.
In either of these cases, the mesh ends up re-projecting itself and loses some detail.
Is there a clean method to simply… deleting some faces?
Thanks so much for any help!
Set up different polygroups for each part you want to break off then use tool.subtool.group split
it will break them into different subtools that you can delete if you don’t want the left overs. It also doesn’t apply a smooth or projection like goZ or delete hidden does.
Thanks so much for the tip, it was really helpful!
Great tip beta_channel, thanks! 
another suggestion:
before deleting part of the geometry switch to the highest subd level and mask the geometry that you don´t want to delete
then switch to the lowest subd level and delete the hidden geometry
according to my experience this will keep the detail intact
cheers m
Thanks MichaelMaehring. 