The engine swap started at about 8:30PM on a Friday night. The crew included Ben D., the owner of the Garage Mahal; Ben M., another resident of Kokomo and owner of a turbo Classic; Jacen, who made the drive from Columbus OH in his very trick B14 SE-L to help out, and myself. We worked until around 3:00 (all times are Cincinnati times, despite the actual one hour difference due to being in Indiana).
During this time Ben D. and Jacen started doing everything necessary to get the old engine out of the car - disconnect wiring harness, radiator hoses, vacuum stuff, exhaust header, A/C and power steering, pulled the belts, drained all the fluids (oil, coolant, tranny fluid), pulled the axles, etc.
Meanwhile, Ben M. got busy prepping the new motor. He swapped the JDM intake manifold for a USDM manifold, so that I could retain the EGR system, which is omitted entirely from the JDM version. We have emissions testing here in Cincinnati and I want to have a reasonable chance of passing the next time.
I spent my time trying to help both groups, but mostly getting in the way of everybody...
By the time we were wiped out, we had gotten the old motor out, the clutch and tranny swapped to the new motor, as well as all the brackets and sensors that are necessary to make the USDM ECU play nice with the JDM motor (oil pressure, AAC, water temp, and some others).
Saturday morning we got up around 9:30 and got some breakfast, then got back to work. Ben M. had gone home for the night and sadly was unable to return Saturday. My brother Joel showed up to take his place though.
After a small panic with the engine hoist - for a bit it would only go about halfway up - we got the new motor dropped in and mounted. We reattached all the necessaries, and I turned the key around 7:00 pm that evening, and drove home.
Ben D. said that this was one of the smoothest swaps he's done at his place, due I'm sure in no small part to the fact that he had several competent helpers and that I stayed out of their way most of the time. We had very few setbacks - the hoist, the forgotten water temp sender, and that's about it. I needed to stick a resistor into the EGR temp sensor plug on the harness, because the JDM engine simply doesn't have the sensor that it plugs into; other than that it's been running great since the swap.
I still lust after a SR20VE, but that day is now farther off, it seems.
Scroll down for a few pictures of the swap; click here to see them all. They're arranged more or less in chronological order, starting with the old engine coming out, some shots of the new motor put together and on the hoist, some pics of the engine installed, and finally a few shots of the old engine out of the car and looking forlorn.
Left to right Ben D., Jacen, and Joel
