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I feel some of your pains, those things really like to go in a certain way. There are some things that can help though.
You should be able to pull the bracket off the tran (rear motor mount) in the car unless you didnt remove the part with the two rubber ends. But thats one bolt and comes out without too much drama as long as you use a wobbly (universal joint) and long extension.
The t-case is fun to put in with the engine/trans mounted (/sarcasm). I put a ratchet strap on a bolt hole from the trans bell housing and pull the whole thing forward till the wg just about hits the radiator. Then lots of muscle and grunting.
I actually haven't had any issues with putting the motor/trans/tcase in as one big piece. Take the front mount bracket and the accessories off, and it goes right in. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don't have the radiator or any of the turbo stuff in yet either, but that's besides the point lol. I'm really hoping today is the final time of moving the engine around so I can finally focus on literally anything else. I still have a lot to do, and I'm ready to be done.
Stabbing back in the xcase with a second set of hands makes all the difference in the world. North/ south bar removed then have helper pry the engine forward with a bar. There is a nice spot between the block and subframe that is ideal positioning. Also removing the 4 bolts on the tailshaft stock portion makes a huge difference. With that off and engine py'd forward it comes out and goes right in.
Stabbing back in the xcase with a second set of hands makes all the difference in the world. North/ south bar removed then have helper pry the engine forward with a bar. There is a nice spot between the block and subframe that is ideal positioning. Also removing the 4 bolts on the tailshaft stock portion makes a huge difference. With that off and engine py'd forward it comes out and goes right in.
Yeah, with all the bits that I still have currently off the car (all accessories, the cross member, all turbo stuff, front mount bracket, wiring, etc), I can get the engine/trans/tcase out in like 10-15 minutes. I've had plenty of practice the last few weeks lol. At least I know I can do it pretty well now
Yeah, with all the bits that I still have currently off the car (all accessories, the cross member, all turbo stuff, front mount bracket, wiring, etc), I can get the engine/trans/tcase out in like 10-15 minutes. I've had plenty of practice the last few weeks lol. At least I know I can do it pretty well now
Make a video! It took me an hour to squiggle my engine and trans in WITHOUT the t-case so it would be really cool to have a video of the entire works slithering in.
Make a video! It took me an hour to squiggle my engine and trans in WITHOUT the t-case so it would be really cool to have a video of the entire works slithering in.
If I have to pull it out again (hopefully not any time soon), I will definitely take a video. I'm going to try to better about video-documenting my build going forward anyways; a lot of my friends have been pestering me to do like a YouTube channel to document my build and all the progress I do on the car, along with any track events and meets and whatnot that I do with the car.
I finally managed to get the whole motor bolted in tonight. Got the rear mount bracket fixed, and then fought with the rear mount itself for an unnecessary amount of time before it finally lined up. Tomorrow, I shall tackle getting the bay wiring all plugged back in.
I DID IT, I FINALLY WON. Well, I've won this particular battle. I still have a lot to do, but with the engine in the bay on its own mounts, none of the wiring pinched in places it shouldn't be, I can now start tackling the rest of the tasks in order to get her running. I'm aiming to complete the bay wiring and get everything plugged in today, so we'll see how that goes.
This past week or so has been fairly productive, I'd say. I'm finally done moving the motor around, and have everything all bolted into place as far as that goes. I've been working on getting the engine bay wiring harness all plugged in (success), and all the turbo stuff sorted out (work in progress), and all the interior stuff buttoned up (work in progress). It's all a bunch of little things at this point.
Getting this JDM HVAC swap all done and wired in has been a bit more challenging than my electrical/wiring-retarded brain could handle, but it's all done and it has tested out fine so far. I'm excited to do the full test once the car has fluids.
I still need to finish up the exhaust, brakes, oil drain line (ordered a new one, so that has to come in), charge pipes (waiting on a few couplers to come in), radiator and hoses, wastegate and all the boost lines, ebc, fpr, and the gauges on the interior (boost, afr, oil temp, oil pressure). Then it's fill everything up with fluids, bleed all the systems, and prep for start-up. It's crunch time!
Did a little project last night while I'm waiting for a few little pieces to come in to finish the charge pipes and turbo stuff. Prosport 45mm boost gauge tucked into the cluster. I love how it came out. Nevermind the white face of the gauge; I'll match it to the factory red of the rest of the cluster as soon as everything else settles down.
Hey guys. I could really use some help, as electrical is not my forte, and I am super stumped. So, I've been rebuilding my Evo 8 the last 6 months after timing let go. I've gotten all the mechanical stuff done now, and am basically ready to start the car. However.. I started experiencing some weird issues.
Some background: While the car was down having the motor rebuilt, I decided that it was a great time to do the JDM hvac swap. I had collected all the parts, and did my due diligence with the wiring following a known-good write-up. Once the engine was back in the bay and I had the engine bay harness fully connected, I added my battery to the mix so I could turn the key to ACC and test the hvac wiring to make sure I did it correctly. When I connected the battery terminals, nothing out of the ordinary happened, and I was able to successfully test the new hvac system; blower speeds worked and the servo/direction motors worked, all as they should. Yay me! At this point, I did some wire management before putting the dashboard back in the car and continuing on with some mechanical stuff I needed to do (brakes, exhaust, etc). Two weeks after I initially tested the hvac system, I was at the point where I was ready to tackle wiring in the new gauges I got for the car (boost, oil temp, oil pressure, and afr). During those two weeks of in between time, I did not have the battery connected at all. When I went to put the battery back in so I could test for a good ignition wire power source, issues started happening. Note: new gauges have not yet been wired in yet because of said issues.
The problem: Keep in mind, throughout all of this, the key is not in the car at all. The engine bay harness is fully connected, and the interior ground tails that come off the dash harness are all connected. When I connect the battery terminals, all my lights come on. And by all, I mean high beams, low beams, blinkers front and rear, running lights front/rear/fenders, and brake lights. If the gauge cluster is connected, the fuel pump comes on. All these things happen even with light plugs (headlight/blinker stalk, and fog light switch) unplugged.
Troubleshooting: I'll lead by saying I am absolutely clueless about electrical, so I'm sure I'm missing something somewhere with reading the wiring diagrams, but I've had a couple people try to teach/show me some things with that. I followed the wiring diagrams to try to find things the lights all had in common. What I found was that things ran through a "front ecu" in the engine bay fuse box, and ran through the ETACS box that's connected to the interior junction/fuse box. If I remove the front ecu and separate the ETACS box from the junction box, then my symptoms go away. If I leave the front ecu in place and just separate the ETACS box, then my side markers and DRL's turn off but my highs/lows and tails are still on. Removing various combinations of relays from the junction box had no effect. If I leave the front ecu connected, and remove the junction box completely from the car, then my side markers, DRL's, and driver side taillights turn off but the rest still come on.
Does anybody understand how the junction box/interior fuse box, the ETACS, and front ecu get their power? What else can I check?
im in for what you find....
ive never heard of anything like that.
obviously it is something that has been done during the wiring work.
somehow you are energizing something... that is turning on all the relays.
may even be you have a ground wire energized that is back feeding all of the relays... turning them on.
If this is the case... could burn up easily.
i would pull out all your relays and see if you have power on both sides when the battery is plugged up.
im in for what you find....
ive never heard of anything like that.
obviously it is something that has been done during the wiring work.
somehow you are energizing something... that is turning on all the relays.
may even be you have a ground wire energized that is back feeding all of the relays... turning them on.
If this is the case... could burn up easily.
i would pull out all your relays and see if you have power on both sides when the battery is plugged up.
I've already gone back and retested the hvac wiring I did, and eliminating all the new wiring I did doesn't change any of my symptoms. I had pulled the interior fuse box completely out of the car, and my lights still came on.
I just tested a known good front ecu yesterday, and that didn't change anything, so now I know that mine isn't faulty. I'll be poking at it some more this weekend to see what I can find. I've been stumped for two weeks.
It could be something back feeding power into the circuit. Kind of like an accidental hot wire. Does the car have an alarm installed, turbo timer etc? I don't have access to diagrams for a few days but you could try strategically unplugging things and see if that corrects the issue.
Last edited by Biggiesacks; Nov 22, 2019 at 07:05 AM.
It could be something back feeding power into the circuit. Kind of like an accidental hot wire. Does the car have an alarm installed, turbo timer etc?
No aftermarket alarm. I pulled the turbo timer off the car a few weeks ago because I didn't like having it. The only aftermarket wiring that exists is the radio. Well, and the hvac wiring I did, but I've already tested that, and it's not the issue.
Have you tried plugging everything in and see if the problem remains? I noticed you said that many things weren't plugged in, and In my experience some cars freak out and do weird things when certain devices aren't attached. It could be safety related, who knows.. but If you haven't tried doing that yet, give it a shot.
Oct 23, 2019, 12:55 PM
