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Engine Swap Guide
B18A1

 


So you want to remove your engine and swap in that other engine? This is an extensive project that will require the following tools. You will need an engine puller, the following wrench / socket sizes: (10mm, 12mm, 13mm, 14mm, 17mm, 18mm). You will also need some sort of jack stands or blocking to hold the vehicle from moving. Now when you are starting to remove your engine, you want to make sure that you keep all of the bolts that you take out. You can use whatever you want to hold the bolts and nuts. I used a cleaned out glass apple sauce jar.

The easiest thing to do is to remove the hood to start with. On the right side of the underside of the hood there is your window washing lines. Disconnect these. Next, you want to remove the battery so that you dont short anything out. This will require a 10mm wrench or ratchett. After removing the battery, remove the battery base below the battery.

Next, you need to remove the splash shields, brake booster hose, clutch cable, engine ground cable, throttle cable. The brake booster hose connects to your intake manifold and is real easy to disconnect. The hose itself is held in on a U shaped bracket. Pop it out of the U shaped bracket for now. Then remove the clutch cable. To remove that, all you have to do is spin the threaded nut all the way up or enough so that the arm drops down and you can pull the cable away from the arm. Then remove the engine ground cable. This is two 10mm bolts that are on the front of the valve cover. Then remove the throttle cable. This is located on the intake manifold and is a 12mm nut. Loosen the 12mm nut that is to the right of the bracket so it loosens the whole cable section up. Slip the cable end out of the accellerator linkage. Then remove the battery base (12mm) and the transmission ground (10mm).

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Battery Base :

1

Throttle Cable Removal:


Now you can remove the front tires and splash shields. So get your 4-way, impact wrench, or 3/4" Socket out and pull your front tires up.

Note: Make sure your car will not fall down while you are working under it!!!

Drain the radiator clean of anti-freeze (change the seal), and then drain the transmission oil/fluid out (change the seals .. DONT OVERTIGHTEN!!!). Re-install both plugs for now. Its easier to remove your radiator right now. Start by removing the two brackets that hold the radiator to the core support of the engine bay (10mm - 2 bolts). There are wiring plugs on either side of the radiator (green plugs with 2 wires). pop them plugs apart. Then remove the upper and lower radiator hoses from the head of the engine. Its easier to use a pair of vice grips to pull the clamps back far enough to pull the hoses off.

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Next, move on to your fuel feed hose. Make sure you relieve any pressure built up by turning the service bolt about 1 turn (12mm). Then continue to remove the bolt. Make sure you arent smoking too, because you could catch your car on fire.

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Now you can remove your intake air duct and air cleaner (ACL) housing. (10mm bolts on the ACL Housing)

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Now to remove the distributer. To make it easier for you, keep all of the distributer wires connected to the distributer cap. Disconnect the wiring harness from the distributer (2 plugs), and then take out the three 12mm bolts that thread into the side of the head. Replace the O-Ring on the distributer.

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Remove the engine wire harness connectors on the drivers side of the engine compartment. It is right behind your strut mounts. Make sure to remove the harness bolt that connects to the strut. (10mm)

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Remove the engine wire harness connectors, terminal, and clamps on the right side of the engine compartment. Then remove the engine wire harness and starter cable from the main fuse box.

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Now its time to remove the Brake Booster hose. You should already have it popped out of the U shaped bracket. Remove that hose and the fuel return hose.

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Remove the power steering pump belt and pump. (dont remove any hoses). To remove the power steering pump theres two brackets on the head of the engine. (12mm). Loosen both bolts and the pump will drop. Remove the belt off of the power steering pump, and move to the drivers side wheel well so you can see your crank. Pop the belt off of the crank pulley and pull the belt out. Dont remove any brackets until you get the engine out.

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Now you can remove the AC Compressor and AC Compressor belt. This is done by removing the four bolts that are on the compressor itself (12mm). Remove the 4 bolts and then the compressor will fall out. Remove the belt the same way you removed the power steering belt.
Note: You might have to loosen up the Idler Pulley bolt to get the compressor belt off (14mm)

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Now it's time to remove the alternator. There's two bolts and two nuts that hold the alternator in place, the one bolt and nut being the adjusting bolt and the other bolt and nut being the mount bolt. These bolts are (13mm and 14mm). The easiest way to remove the alternator is to first remove the wiring from it. Theres a plug and a 12mm bolt with a rubber housing. Pop the plug loose and pop the rubber housing off and use a 12mm wrench or socket to remove the wiring harness from the alternator. Then you can remove the adjusting bolt and mount bolt. Now remove the alternator belt.

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Remove the power steering speed sensor now using a 10mm ratchett. (dont disconnect the fluid hoses)

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Now remove the exhaust pipe from the header of the engine (three 14MM Nuts). It was easier for me to heat the nuts / bolts up with a torch and then break them loose. (note: Using a torch is really stupid because you can screw a lot of shit up, so be really careful)

Once you get the 3 nuts off, then move back to the Catalytic converter and remove the two bolts and nuts and drop the down pipe out. (12mm) Make sure you dont loose the center ring that goes between the downpipe and catalytic converter, and also make sure you dont loose the springs too.

Now you can remove the lower ball joints and pop the CV Joints out of the transmission. To remove the lower ball joints, pull the codder pin out and loosen the nut off. Grab a pickle fork and pop the ball joint out. Now if you dont have a pickle fork, you can do what I usually do and thread the castle nut back onto the ball joint until the top of the castle nut is flush with the bottom of the threads on the ball joints. Now grab a hammer and hit the lower control arm a few times, and then hit the castle nut with an upward motion, making sure that you dont damage the threads. (Make sure the castle nut is on the ball joint threads though, because if it isnt then you will fuck the threads up and you will have to buy new ball joints.)

Now once you get the ball joints out, you should be able to pop the CV Joints out of the transmission. If the CV Joints wont pop out right away, try spinning the driveshaft around a little bit until it pops out. You will have to pull the brake caliper up. Since the ball joints are disconnected, the CJ joints should drop down. Make sure you get some plastic bags and cover the end of the drive shaft so that it doesnt rust or get damaged while you have the drive shafts disconnected. Zip tie the bags to the drive shafts.

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Now remove the Shift rod and Shift lever Torque rod. (12mm and 8mm punch). To remove the torque rod, just remove the 12mm bolt and pull the torque rod off the shaft. Its easier to put the bolt through the bowl shaped washer and thread it back onto the transmission so you dont loose it. Now you can move to the shift rod. Pull the boot back and spin the shift rod until you can see where the spring pin. Put the 8mm punch square with the pin and hit it with a hammer until it comes out. Make sure that you replace this pin too.

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Now remove the torque converter cover, cable holder, and shift control cable, Rear engine stiffener, Front engine stiffener.

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Now take out the engine by taking out all of the engine mount bolts. Once you get the engine mount bolts out, then you can either put a space collar on the back side of the engine for your chain, or you can do what I did and wrap the chain around the drivers side front engine mount. Pull the engine out... Now to install the engine, all you have to do is do all of these steps in reverse!

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After you have the engine removed, make sure you remove the compressor bracket, and power steering brackets (14mm) and install them on your new engine. Make sure when your swapping engines you replace the intake and exhaust gaskets as well.



Below are torque specifications.



Engine mount installation (Torque Specifications):




Transmisssion, alternator brackets, power steering bracket, front rear stiffener, compressor bracket, side engine mount bracket torque specifications:


Vacuum Diagram (Click Image to Zoom):
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