GrooveStyle's Build

GrooveStyle

Ok, sorry I haven't been posting yet, had some great progress but long last two days.

Day 1 - 12/23
After getting my base tune for uprev late the night before, I was able to get started. I had a few hours before I had to leave for holiday stuff. Got as far as the intake manifold removed and called it for the day:




Day 2 - 12/28
This was the teardown day. Got the bumper, crash bar, power steering lines, windshield washer tank, air cleaner ducts, cats and headers off!





I also installed the Z1 urethane motor mounts. They are supposed to be height adjustable, but I don't think they were able to give me the full 6.25 mm of lift that I needed to compensate for the supplied spacers. In the end I used the motor mounts at stock height with the engine mount spacers. Overall things went pretty smoothly:



Day 3 - 12/29
Now things get interesting. I heeded Jayhovah's advice on pretty much everything he's said in his build thread, and things have worked out pretty well in my favor so far. It was slow going, but I installed the fuel line extension first, then the heater hose, then the heat shields onto the exhaust manifolds, and then the manifolds into the car.



It took a fair amount of bending and tweaking of the water pipe on the driver side to get wrench clearance to the manifold nuts.

The passenger side had it's own issues, requiring the removal of the black plastic electronic box that holds the main harness to get clearance between the wires and the manifold. I ended up removing the box and heat wrapping the harness (Jayhovah confirmed that this is standard practice as per Gamma tech support).



I also had to remove the rear two engine studs to get the passenger exhaust manifold on, then put them back in with the manifold in place. Man, those manifolds are tight in there! Should be good now.

I ended the day with the headers on, but not torqued.