Race (and 1JZ) Buildup Journal

6/12/2004 - Engine Install

On Friday (the 11th) I loaded the car, engine and all the assorted pieces I might need onto my Ivan's trailer and my truck and headed to Seguin. Originally I was planning on install the engine in Houston (I even bought a engine crane), but my dad decided to air condition the shop, so off to Seguin I go. On Saturday, the outside temperature was 92F. Inside it was a cozy 78F.

The first project of the day was to assemble my new RPS Max clutch and all new Toyota parts. As it turns out, just assembling the release bearing onto the hub took about 3 hours. It didn't take 3 hours because I am a retard. It took 3 hours because Toyota isn't very careful about the quantity of cone washers they put in a bag. I got 2 stuck together (so I could not tell I had 2) and the result as that no matter how hard I tried (and I tried hard) the snap ring that hold the release bearing to the hub would not seat.

After calling several people who all said roughly the same thing: "it should just snap in" I looked a little closer and noticed that when smashed in the vice, the cone washer was split! I removed the extra cone washer and it went right together.

The next project was installing my TRD light weight 1JZ flywheel and new pilot bearing.No problems there. After cleaning everything with brake parts cleaner I used an alignment tool and install the disc and pressure plate and then tried to add the tranny. As it turns out this didn't work very well (as you can tell, it wasn't as productive a day as I would have liked). We couldn't get the nose of the input shaft to line up on the center of the pilot bearing so the tranny wouldn't go on all the way.

To solve this problem, I put the hub/pressure plate assembly and disc onto the tranny input shaft and then bolt the tranny on. Everything lines up much easier this way. After the tranny was secure, I slid the pressure plate forward, lined up the dowels and then installed the 6 bolts, tightening completely in about 6 revolutions.

After this, I did some final prep (installed some water plugs, a new oil filter, etc) and installed the turbo. With my fathers help I tried to drop engine/tranny into the car. Doh! You can't install my turbo/manifold combo together before installing the engine. The turbo hits the suspension tower. After removing the turbo, the engine went in with some pushing and shoving. A little surgery (to be cleaned up later) on the tunnel allowed the Soarer shift mount to poke through so the tranny support brace could be bolted in.

As a last project, I welded some tabs on the front cross brace for the intercooler. I'll need to do a little clean up work on them in the near future, but they are in and work.