1. Engine at 45deg angle trans down, both motor mounts attached, high enough to clear core support. Car needs to be ~15" off the ground. In she goes, right up until the valve cover is nearly touching the firewall.
2. With a floor jack, lift the back of the trans until the turret is a bit below where it's supposed to sit. With the engine leveled, you can slide it back approximately into position.
3. Center the shifter turret in the hole in the trans tunnel. Once you have that, the motor mounts should be very close. Use the leveler to get the engine level side to side, use the floor jack to level it front to back. Get the driver's side in the hole first, then do the passenger side.

The secret is the floor jack and centering the shifter turret in the hole. Without doing this, you'll always be too far forward. Working on my own, I can have a motor/trans in the car and bolted up (mounts/PPF) in about 10min.

 

just to clarify, engine mounts are already bolted to the engine before you start lowering into the engine bay, and you are just slipping in the two single bolts into the subframe with the hoist/jack. Correct?

 

​​​​​​​That's how I did it!

 

Sav:10 mins? Are you available for my pit crew sometime?? Come on over and try out my new gantry crane...

 

Let the fun begin!

 

Ok. Fun's over. I've got 3 exhaust manifold nuts that just say no. Too tight for a box end. Tge open end wrench just spreads. I wonder if anyone makes a 14mm brake line wrench? I'll put it to bed with some PB blaster and check it out tommorro.

 

That turbo setup has been used and abused Craig, is honestly consider a new manifold. You'd have flat flanges, good threads, and could install inconel hardware. I give those nuts and studs a 90% chance of cracking.

 

Yeah, I might have got it hot once or twice... If it comes off I can check it for straight. If it doesn't come off... ? What you thinking?

The manifold design never gave much thought to removal. The three nuts that are problematic are the ones that can't be reached with a box end wrench. If I use a cutoff saw, I wonder if the stubs wil be long enough to extract from the head? ...it'd be nice not to trash a good head. I'll throw some heat at it this morning... But can't cuss cause it's Sunday... Maybe I oughta wait till Monday.

 

With no space in front of the car, learning to juggle the engine alone was the only option.
Keep the clutch line+slave in place, no mess with smelly trans oil, and a number of other simplifications.
Lining up the pilot bearing is not that hard when the mounts are out and you can stand in the bay wiggling the thing in place (trans being raised 2" from the crossbar).
Mounts (AWR) can be a pita to get in place and adding the bolts in the block last seems to be less problematic.

Everything is easier the third-fourth time you do it

 

Heat, 14mm brake line wrench and my best framing hammer are no match... I'm thinkin' sawsall!
A fine solution to this problem would be if the kit manufacturer supplied 1/4" shorter manifold bolts for the center 3 locations... Then you could get a decent wrench on them. I'll call and suggest that.

Josh, I've got inconel + high temp theadlock on the tubo to manifold flange. Is it also recommended for the head to manifold flange?

 

No, but new OE hardware from Mazda is probably a good idea. Like I said your hardware has been to the fires of hell and back, multiple times. I'd highly suggest replacing it. You can also measure the hole diameter of an uncut hole and one with the relief cut going through it to see how much the manifold has warped.

 

Good call on the warpage... I'm 0.025" from flat. And yes, the holes with reliefs have narrowed a bit. It doesn't appear to be cracked or leaking exhaust. I'll see about getting it milled flat.

You've done this before, huh?

 

race cars destroy turbo manifolds. Anyone who says otherwise is either Andrew or only doing HPDEs.

My last Artech manifold was milled a few times, relief cut, and the holes drilled out (because the relief cuts had closed). Final step was replacing the turbo flange with a thicker 1/2" flange. Didn't test it much before I sold it when I upgraded to an NB engine. It was sold with the #1 and #4 runners ~1/8 thinner than the middle of the flange.