SOLID-orange

So for the 4th of July I called everyone I knew who I thought would be willing to help me work on my car to come over for burgers and beer and help my pull out my LS1, hammer out the tunnel and and put it back in with new mounting equipment. What better way to celebrate America than to fire up the grill and tool around with a V8 right?

I had a really good time and I was really happy with how many people came to help out, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Sad to say though that aside from making more room in the tunnel the day was a loss in terms of progress on the car.

After talking with Rich, showing him pictures of what was wrong with the fitment of the mounts before he said that he would send me a redesigned transmssion cross member and redesigned engine mounts, and that if the engine cross member had problems I could grind it down further myself. From Rich himself:  “I can send you some modified mounts and a new transmission crossmember to correct your issues.” All I ever received was a new transmission cross member.

So we pulled the motor hammered the crap out the tunnel more and put the motor back in. The new transmission cross member was exactly the same width as the old one, and couldn’t be bolted up because it was mis-aligned by half the width of the bolt. Also I noticed that the Transmission X-members (both the new and old ones) were not square. I pulled off the original Nissan transmission crossmember for reference to make sure it wasn’t supposed to be that way.

Here’s the old one:

Here’s the New One:

Here’s the new one again from a different angle:

And Here is the original S14 Automatic Cross member for reference:

The transmission was litterally as high as it could go any higher and the shift box wouldn’t fit in the tunnel:

However even at this height the Engine still had a crazy angle to it:

This picture taken with my cell from just inside the shift box shows that the engine is still cocked too:

We ran a shop towel up and over the transmission and arond the bell housing and were able to proove that there was ample room between the transmission and the tunnel (since the towels never tore and coul be moved about freely.

After looking at tings closely there is littereally no room to make the mounts shorter since the oil pan would run into the steering rack and cross member… pulling the motor back out and measuring however I noticed that there are significant difference between my stock S14 cross member and the Daft cross member. I think maybe I got an S13 or some other cross member instead.

Original S14 Cross member:

Daft S14 Cross member:

Original S14 Cross member:

Daft S14 Cross Member:

On the Daft X-memmber the mount surface’s angle is steeper, it bumps up much higher, and if you notice where it’s welded to the main piece the inside flange is much larger on the Daft one, and the flange alone the bottom sticks out on mine where it lays flat on the daft one. Unless Nissan Changed the design mid-S14 cycle this is a different X-member.