Motor installation for newbies

[redamnavit]

Having finally gotten my motor in my car, I thought I'd share my experience with those of you who may not have done this before. I had not done this before, nor had I ever seen it done. This was done solo so no spare hands to shove on things or a second brain to think through the issues listed below. All in all it was ~6.5 hours; next time I think I could do it in half that.

0) Did you remove the shifter? DID YOU REMOVE the shifter? Good, because it really sucks to get the engine most of the way in/out and then have to try to remove that snap ring. (Note: this happenned to me removing the KA, not installing the CA. Wasn't fun to deal with in removal either.)

1) The CA18 has a nice lean to the cylinders when in the car. When you position the lifting chains on the engine, do your best to duplicate this lean when the engine is hanging. Failure to do so will make aligning to the motor mounts a great deal harder.

2) The CA18 weighs, transmission and all, less than 1000 lbs. You could be safe and use the 1 ton setting for your lift arm but you'll be in for a great deal of hassle whe you find out that the lift arm is just short of being able to put the engine where it belongs without, say, cutting out the front of the car to accomodate the body of the lift or leaning on the engine very hard. Use the 1/2 ton setting.

3) Are you doing this in the garage? Does your garage have an electric opener? Failure to plan ahead may have you realizing that the arm of your engine lift will run directly into your garage door opener when the engine is halfway to being in the bay. Measure first.

4) The FSM shows 2 lift points. One is on the back of the head. While a strong point to mount from you may find that the chain you attach to those bolts will collide with the firewall, shorting you the last ONE INCH of clearance you nead. Shoving or bending the seam at the back of the firewall may be necessary. Using a strap on the support bracket under the intake manifold may work better.

5) Finally, common wisdom says to bolt the engine mounts to the car, then drop the motor onto them. This amounts to aligning two holes just the right size on to two pegs. Its great that this works for people, but if you forgot to do #1 in this list, it may be worth trying the reverse. Dropping a pet into a slot may be easier for you than dropping a hole onto a peg. One I tried for 3.5 hours, one for 40min. You guess.

I'm sure I'd be annoyed at this whole experience if looking at the CA in the engine bay didn't make me smile so much. Have fun!

[tyrannix]

did you put the harness on before you installed it?

and you get it running, or just all bolted up?

[float_6969]

Congrats and thanks for the info!

[NeedCAforS13]

5) Finally, common wisdom says to bolt the engine mounts to the car, then drop the motor onto them. This amounts to aligning two holes just the right size on to two pegs. Its great that this works for people, but if you forgot to do #1 in this list, it may be worth trying the reverse. Dropping a pet into a slot may be easier for you than dropping a hole onto a peg. One I tried for 3.5 hours, one for 40min. You guess.

The way I've found works best is to put one mount on the motor, and one mount on the crossmember. Then you align the slot first and can move the motor left and right to get the hole lined up.

[NeedCAforS13]

4) The FSM shows 2 lift points. One is on the back of the head. While a strong point to mount from you may find that the chain you attach to those bolts will collide with the firewall, shorting you the last ONE INCH of clearance you nead. Shoving or bending the seam at the back of the firewall may be necessary. Using a strap on the support bracket under the intake manifold may work better.

this works great! I wrap a chain around that support bracket on the intake manifold, and use the bolt above the #1 exhaust runner on the side of the head.

also, we used a load leveling engine hoist for the first time yesterday and it makes things alot easier too. While not neccesary, its a nice thing to have

[redamnavit]

I left the upper harness off; I'd removed it earlier to do the wiring changes and didn't see a reason to add it back in to the equation. You could probably tuck it on top of the engine and not have any issues. The lower harness was still attached.

From now on I'll definitely be using the intake mani bracket as my second mounting point. Which hopefully will be no time soon. I forgot to mention that I did use a load leveler, which I would take to be pretty essential if you're doing this solo.

[tyrannix]

speaking of motor mounts,

how in the world do you get the old motor mounts off the frame? i dont see any good way to get to the nuts on the bottom, and theres no real good angle to use a socket or wrench even, let alone an impact tool

am i just not seeing something, or not thinking right? (dont have a lift anymore, so the car is about 1.5-2 feet in the air max on jackstands these days.)

[NeedCAforS13]

I used swivel head impact sockets. Regular sockets on a swivel joint was too long...

Sean

[redamnavit]

I held a wrench on the nut and beat the end with a 5lb. sledge to try to break them loose. Not that they broke loose; I ended up cutting the bolts off with a dremel. If I remembered to put a torch to them first to heat them up that might not have been necessary. If you do use a torch be careful around the power steering lines on the driver's side.

[float_6969]

I used the "box" end of a wrench, and then hooked the "box" end of another wrench to the open end of the 1st wrench to use it like a breaker bar. Came loose just fine.

[81na ZX]

2) The CA18 weighs, transmission and all, less than 1000 lbs. You could be safe and use the 1 ton setting for your lift arm but you'll be in for a great deal of hassle whe you find out that the lift arm is just short of being able to put the engine where it belongs without, say, cutting out the front of the car to accomodate the body of the lift or leaning on the engine very hard. Use the 1/2 ton setting.

lol. Try pulling a L28 out of a 280Z. Or any Z car for that matter. you almost need to hope they overengineered the lift