Hi all, When I took out my (now NOT busted) old engine and put in the new one the exhaust headers were warped and didnt fit up to my exhaust before my gutted cat. Causing a VERY annoying exhaust leak.

This weekend, I'm going to be taking the one thats on there off and put on my old one. It didnt leak so I do not think it is warped. I took it to an exhaust place, but they said they didnt have any flanges that were think enough to handle the head of the rotary engines. So I think this is my only option. I have (coming from mazda) both the header gaskets and the down pipe gausket.

Is there ANYTHING I should know before I dig into it? It doesnt look like I will be needing to take the engine out (thank god), and I'm going to drive it home late at night so that it will have all night to cool. Also going to spray some wD 40 and something else my dad said that was like liquid bolts or something that should loosen up the nuts. Dont want to pust a bolt. *scared*

So anything I should be looking at or for before or during the procedure?

Thanks guyz!

 

does anybody know the torque rating for those somewhat small nuts are? Im scared to bust one off.

 

Liquid Wrench is what it is called.

 

Hi,

Not sure what the torque specs are but the bolts can break realatively easily. Do you have a torch? If so heat up the bolts and carefully back the nuts off. If they seem to jam try tightening and then loosening again. I just did this last weekend and the bolts ended up coming out of the block, which isn't necessarily bad, they came out without breaking that was the important thing. I had the advantage of the engine being out of the car which makes it much easier. The bottom bolts are fairly simple to get at the top two, not so easy. If you don't have heat, then Liquid Wrench or any penentrating oil should help. Give it as much time as possible to get in there and do its job. Good luck.

 

So you have aftermarket headers on there? Or are you talking about the stock manifold and referring to it as a header?

 

+1 on the torch idea.

and +1 to what my 5A said. If there's still the heat shield on there, that's going to be the biggest pain in the ***. You might have to wind up ripping it apart, bending it, etc. to get it out of the way. The bolts that keep it on are probably rusty and soft by now.

 

Torque ratings can be found in the FSM 30 (Technical Data). I think 30-19 is what you're looking for.

 

the 4 main bolts were really easy, the heat shield is a bitch tho

 

Just spray on some liquid wrench and let it sit for a bit, it should be fine. Also, I'm pretty sure there is onle one header gasket on NA's.