The motor I have already has the turbo system attached along with the tranny. Can I just swap motors without pulling the tranny.

If that is a pain do I need to drop the tranny from the car and install motor and then tranny.
Or can I just pull the motor and tranny attached together and then install the other motor and tranny attached.

I would rather just swap motors. But Im running out of time on vac. and I m going to at least start it this week.

 

You can pull just the motor if you want. Leaving the tranny where it is.
You can also pull the motor with the trans, which some say is easier to deal with if you have a leveler on the engine hoist.
It's all personal preference.

 

I've dropped the tranny once and removed 2 motors with the tranny attached. Leaving it attached does not make it any more difficult.

When I blew up my original 5-speed over Thanksgiving, I actually pulled the motor to swap trannies. It took a little longer and was probably more technically challenging, but working under the car is ******* miserable and I will never do it again.

 

Unless you have a lift, pulling the whole enchilada is easier IMHO for the same reasons Savington mentions.

Frank

 

Yes pull the whole thing and then you can setup your clutch etc in peace and comfort ont he new motor, savington is right pulling just the tranny is a PITA. For example it takes me about 3 or more hours to pull and replace my tranny if nothing screws up. When on the other hand i can have the motor out in 2 or so and back in with another 2 being carefull and nto deal with laying on cold concrete for an hour + at a time. And also those Tranny bolts are a real PITA if you have some real arms about you with the tranny installed.

 

magna,
2 hours to pull? Hell, I'll fly you up to Baltimore and pay you to pull mine when I'm ready for the LS-1 swap. I'd like to cut my wrenching time in half. I'll have a 4 post by then too! I'm old and unmotivated.

Or maybe I'll have an open house for the DC area people. Free use of tools/garage/lift if you give me some labor and pull my motor/trans/rear. I'll throw in a cookout/food.

Frank

 

Sounds like we've found a new meeting place

 

I pulled mine by myself within 2 hours. probably closer to 1.

 

Frank I would love to. But sadly i am bogged down with OT on my Job for now. I have pulling my motor down to a sceince, while putting a LSX in the car in place of the B6/P will take a little longer i doubt it takes any more than 8 or so hours. Heck if you don't wanna reuse a bunch of stuff i could probably cut down the pull time some more.
Heck It's just 12 easy steps

1. Disconect exhaust
2. Take out coils
3. take out Cas
4. Disconnect Fuel lines
5. Undo main grounds
6. undo thermwires
7. remove crossover
8. Undo the main motor mount bolts
9. slip out the driveshaft
10. Remove 3 bolts from the PPF-tranny
11. Take off the shift **** and top plat
12. Lift pull tilt and viola done.

 

Now that I've found a way to get the top two bellhousing bolts from up top I find it pretty easy to remove the engine while leaving the trans in the car.

 

I pulled my engine and tranny together in about 2 hours, but I had the radiator, hoses, PPF 'n crap out of the way already. I did it alone with an engine hoist and tilt and zomg! cant believe how easy it was.

 

You guys must not drink when you do this. I can probably do it in 3. Done it 4 times now. But the crawling under, forgetting tools, forgetting crap like pulling the shifter out of the turret and all that crap always seems to slow me down.

Arkmage,
Don't you just pull the coil pack and use a long extension and wobble from the bottom to get the top two? Been probably 4 years since I did my last one.

Olderguy,
I'm actually just south of Baltimore, so I'm closer to you! I'll probably set up a hangout some time this coming spring for the local Miata dudes. I did it last year for the Suby guys. There's a dyno 4 miles from my house and I'm friends with the owner, but most of you guys are spoiled with load bearing dynos and it's a dynojet.

Frank

 

Pull the motor and trans together.

 

Sweet. Thanks . I guess Im going to have to use 305cc or 330cc injectors for awhile.
How do you adjust the afm to idle better. Can I adjust this to optimize a/f for cruise since I have an afpr during boost? Thanks

 

305s would do better. If you don't have anything to control them, 300 anything CC injectors will KILL your gas mileage.

 

Wow, what type of gas milage are we talking about intown or highway. My gas mileage is more of a consern than power. I would like to stay in the 23-25+ mpg range.
I know that I have to be realistic on what can be acheived and how until I get a megasquirt. Then power and mpg......When babied. Lol
How does the Rx-7 AFM help? Is it more adjustable, or is more boost acheivable?
Thanks

 

I got 17 mpg vs. 26 before I adjusted the off-boost fueling with emanage.
Rx7 afm can help you get idling better and adjust fuel in the midrange I believe. I had no problem idling 305cc injectors with no adjustment.

 

Yeah, once all the crap is clear, it's about 60 minutes to actually lift the motor out of the car, between trying to rearrange the PPF (protip: remove one bolt and loosen the other on the diff), getting to the wiring you've forgotten, etc. I took 3 days to remove, replace the tranny, and reinstall; spent all Thanksgiving day removing the front sway bar, radiator, fans, coil packs (CAS can stay, at least in a 1.8), turbo and downpipe, and as much wiring as I could reach. We had the motor out in about 2 hours on Saturday, most of which was struggling trying to actually lift it OVER the radiator support since my dumb *** located the car RIGHT above the main garage beam, so we couldn't lift the motor high enough, and then took about 4 hours dropping it back in and bolting it back up again. Motor was out of the car all day waiting on another coolant temp sensor (careful, they are easy to break when removing the wiring harness ) and a driver's side motor mount (the motor mount is NOT supposed to break into 2 pieces when you remove it).

Not necessarily in this order, but here's what has to be removed:

-Radiator
-front sway bar
-both front wheels
-turbo and DP
-crossover tube/any IC piping above the exhaust ports
-main wiring harness underneath the intake manifold
-coilpacks
-4 grounds: one next to throttle body, 2 behind intake manifold, one next to exhaust headers (might have forgotten one, check yourself)
-throttle cable
-single tranny bolt holding bracket for clutch line
-clutch slave cylinder (I opted not to rebleed the clutch, left it all installed instead)
-all vacuum lines including brake booster hose off the IM
-fuel lines

From the tranny side:
-speedo cable
-driveshaft (not required, but do it now rather than when you are reinstalling the motor)
-reverse switch wiring
-PPF bolts (remove 3 from the tranny and 1 on the diff, loosen the other on the diff)
-shifter turret

I have another post like this where I had just done it like 2 days earlier so I was rattling off individual connectors and ****.

 

Thanks, I thought I was going to be able and at least get a used E management to day. But instead found a 1992 Miata that wasn't running for my brother. I guess I found a home for the Ebay kit. Lol.
Im glad the second turbo kit hasn't sold yet. Lol
The guy said it had fire but no gas..... And he replaced the filter and fuel pump. He thought it was a cam sensor.
It is a pretty nice project car just needs some TLC.

 

Sounds like you are right near the dyno we use for dyno days; ACA