How hard is it to pull the Engine?
 

I would like to get my motor street-ported sometime in the near future and was just considering some possibilities. Since labor seems to be the big issue with this, I was wondering how hard it is to do it yourself. (just the removing the engine part, I personally won't want to tackle the porting job myself). Of course I will need an engine lift, but what else does it require? Are there any how-to's on this. Thanks

Taylor

IMO, pulling the motor isn't that bad. The hardest part is just getting the wiring harness through the firewall.

The grunt of the work will be transferring all the crap around the old engine to the new/rebuild one.

it gets expensive and a pita when you decide that you want to replace tons of shit while the engine is out (clutch, pilot bearing, ect)

pulling the engine itself isnt too hard, its just putting it back in that takes forever.

I have found that pulling the FD engine is VERY taxing, personally. Meaning I have been trying to get mine out for oh....'bout 7 months now and just keep getting stonewalled. I've pulled literally dozens of engines from other vehicles in my life but nothing, and I mean NOTHING compares to the total hassle and incredible frustration I have with removing this 13BREW!

What are some of the problems that you have ran into? With the amount of times that you have tried to take it out, maybe you should try and take it out the bottom ;) hehe.

the first time i did mine (so far it's the only time), it took about 5 hours. i did it by myself. the only somewhat hard part, was unmating the engine from the tranny. i ended up having to use a strap and hook it to my jeep to pull it back a bit and move it around. anyway, if you really want to make it easy, go to www.rotaryresources.com, and you can buy a video which will guide you through it.
good luck.

Wait, why would the harness have to be pulled through the firewall? Can't you just leave it unconnected in the engine bay?

What needs to be taken off when the engine is pulled? I'm assuming ic and some piping, radiator, maybe turbo's, and transmission? I can't think of anything else other than things that may need to come off in order to get to wires.

haha, through the subrame... riggghhttt :rlaugh:

What problems are you having?

Have you asked for help on the KC forum?
http://kccompacts.com/kcrx7/modules....iewtopic&t=358

We aren't Pettit/KDR or some other super shop, but maybe we can offer some "somewhat local" help.

I pulled mine by myself pretty much in 2-3 hours minus trying to figure out the power steering and a/c which was the hardest thing for me at least.

Just pulling the motor is easy and shouldn't take more than an afternoon. I did it in just over 3 hours from the point of jacking up the car to having the engine sitting on the floor.

The work is in swapping all the parts from the old motor to the new one. I spent a lot of time cleaning and replacing hardware and I spent about 10 hours just prepping the new motor for install. Dropped it back in and had it running in about 4 hours the next day (takes longer to add fluids and doublecheck everything before turning the key).

I haven't had any problems yet to ask about because I haven't even started the pull. I just wanted to see what what you all thought of it. Sounds like it shouldn't be that difficult. I hope it doesn't require as many people as I saw in those pictures on the KC forum. :)

Do you think it could all be done in one weekend? maybe a week total including the actual porting part of the job?

Porting may be a different story. You will be at the mercy of the shop porting your housings and I have seen many that take way longer than it should. Getting the motor in and out in a week should be no problem though, esp if you buy the video.

If they can port it that quickly, sure.

I pulled my engine/trans on a Sat morning. Had it out before lunch time. Spent the entire rest of the day (until about midnight) swapping parts, replacing studs/nuts on the exhaust manifold (a few of them broke off) and cleaning all the accessories. Mated the tranny back to the motor and went to bed. Came out Sunday morning and installed it; had it running by lunch time. If I didn't do all the cleaning work I could have done it all in one day but it would have been a long day. I had an extra pair of hands when actually hoisting the engine/tranny out and in.

The wiring harness part... It's much easier to pull the wiring harness out with the car (so you can connect everything up to the new/rebuilt engine) then to remove every connection to it, leave it in the car, and then reinstall the enginie and then put every connection back. ;)

As far as the number of people, you can do it yourself if you have a load leveler on your lift. The KC group had the local MR2 club come by to watch (as the owner of the FD is friends with the MR2 guys). ;)

You can run into problems that can delay things. The car you saw on the KC forum, it took us 2 days. The first day it was raining and the exhaust bolts were just heated together and forged. We ended up having to cut the exhaust off which we didn't expect (or have everything we needed to do that). That added extra time so we ran out of available time for the two married guys who were out on lease for the afternoon (myself and "ebb" here on the forum).

However, when we pulled ebb's engine, it came out in 2 hours flat.

I saw Steve and Chris at Gotham pull my motor in less than an hour...Friggin amazing.

I don't understand what you mean by this? Do you mean pull the harness out with the engine so all the connections can be made easily?

Yes, you disconnect the harness from the ECU. Then pull the wires from inside the cockpit, through the firewall into the engine bay area, and then you just pull the engine with the harness still attached.

Took me 6 hours prep work before pulling engine. Actual pull was 45 minutes.

Took me 20 hours to transfer parts. 4 hours to put the engine back and firing up. YOu need a garage and an engine lift.

i highly suggest to you to buy the rotaryaviation video to see how to do this. the video is ~60 mins long and it shows exactly what you gotta do to pull it (it even shows what you gotta do to yank that engine harness thru the firewall). i dont doubt that pomanferrari only took 45 mins as if you watch the video, it seem fairly easy if no nuts and bolts get seized on there. if you have airtools, it should be just fine.

for ~30 bucks this video will save you alot of time, aggravation and confusion! If a picture is worth a million words, how much is a actual live video of how to do something worth (especially something as confusing as pulling an engine)???

surgemonster's went in on the curb. 1 afternoon out 2 in. something will always seem to screw you. never anything big but something. for surge it was june sunlight in tampa fl with no shade.

my frd did remove the motor with tranny before ?
i prefer take out the tranny first then motor

Why take out the tranny first and then the motor? Its easier to remove the engine with tranny at once if you want to remove the tranny too. Unless there is clearance problems.

But I agree with the above posts, the video helps a bunch. I don't have an FD but the video helped tremendously for my FC engine removal.

I don't know whether to pull the engine AND tranny (remember it is the automatic) for one thing. It looks damned near impossible to get to all the tranny bolts to just remove the engine from the transmission. And to pull the engine and tranny there are about 86 different electrical and/or hydraulic lines to remove that go to the auto tranny....sigh.

bajaman,

Send a PM to "RTS3GEN" either here or on the KC forum. He'll get you going. ;)