Not easy for a person with limited expeirence.

AS many people said, remove the radiator and this will be MUCH easier. I installed mine without removing the radiator and It was a little tough. Removing the manifold and hotside will make things even easier. When I look back, I wish I had removed my hotside and radiator.

 

plus if you have a mint radiator your almost certain to bend over a few of the fins and that will just bug the hell out of you until you die.

 

This job can be a real *****. I'd definitely recommend soaking everything in PB a COUPLE times and letting it sit. I'm not new to working on DSM's and thought I had made all my rookie mistakes on some ****ty cars and that I would be better with the EVO. I thought wrong. All because of that damn o2 sensor. I bought the crow foot socket from Harbor Freight. It doesn't seem to be the right size because I definitely rounded off the o2 sensor trying to get it out. Also, while really cranking on that sensor I put I nice crack in the radiator.. . I'd recommend spending the extra 10-15 minutes and just get the radiator out of the way. It makes life much easier. Between that and the heat shield, it just plain sucks. Everything else was cake to get off. Yay for having to buy a new radiator and o2 sensor. Even with the o2 housing in my vise and torching around the sensor, it's not budging...

 

back from the deaddddd...anyone know the part number to the studs in between the hotside that this write up recommends to order before the install?

 

Very helpful

 

Nice writeup. Halfway done with this myself. Im removing the manifold due to a crack. I've only worked on it maybe 2 hours and almost halfway done. I opted not to remove the radiator, however I did remove the fan. The biggest pain for me was the water return line. Took ne 45 minutes to get that hose off and the trans owned my knuckles, im removing the manifold to the o2 all in one to change the o2 housing as well. Hopefully all goes well tomorrow as well.

 

This is a *****! I would really recommend having this done at a shop. Save urself the headache really. I have wrenched on carssince I can remember and will never do this again. I have broke two bolts in the housing and two are still seized. The job wouldn be hard if people that owned the car before u knew wtf they were doing. In my case they didn't feel the need to use antiseize. It goes to show u just can't really tell how hard it will be until u tackle it. If the person before u used anti seize it might not be very hard. But for me this has been a nightmare and its not over yet.