Engine Mounting

This was a big day for progress. There is nothing more exciting than to see the engine sitting in your car. Your imagination starts to run wild when you see it in place.

The process for me started with looking on line to see how people installed their engines. It's pretty tight in that back of the Pantera so I wanted to be ready to do whatever was needed to get it safely into the bay. First thing I needed to do was make lifting bar for my hoist. I used a piece of 3/8's flat steel and drilled a few holes to hand the chains from.

I decided to remove the intake to make more room for the installation. I used two 8mm course thread holes lift from the front and two of the 9mm course threaded holes on the bell housing to lift from the rear. I borrowed the idea to use tie down straps to lift the tail of the transaxle as the assembly goes in. Here's a picture of the engine hooked up to the hoist.

Here's a shot as the assembly got airborne. You can see the blue tie down strap on the tail of the transaxle. By the way, that's my future son-in-law from England jacking up the engine. He's learning the advantages of good old American horsepower first hand with the Pantera.

As we jacked up the assembly we simply tightened the tie down strap to get the tail up and the nose down. Here's a shot as it is going over the back of the Pantera.

You notice I used two straps at this time. When one got to short to pull up any further I put a second one on it an removed the first one and prepped it to take the place of the second one when it got too short. The same HAS to be done as you lower the back end of the transaxle. I got lucky when I mistakenly loosened one strap before putting the second one in place. That tail dropped in fast. I was so fortunate it has already cleared the back end. It would have definitely made some serious dents.

I did have to remove the exhaust manifolds in order to get the engine to fit past the shock towers and the roll cage. I think I will be able to fit them back on later - more on that in another post. Here's how tight it is sitting in place on both the left and right side of the engine.

The back sump of the oil pan is hitting a cross member on the frame. I will deal with that issue in another post as well. For now, here's how she looks right now.

Here's the engine setting in place. It isn't where it needs to be permanently but I'm close. With a few modifications it should fit like a glove. Better pictures will come in later posts as I do the modifications needed to get it locked into place.

I pulled out the engine and put it back in a few times to make sure I identified all the areas that needed a little trimming. I found a total of four spots that needed to be worked on. First the cross member blocking the oil pan needed to go. Here's a shot of what it looks like with the member cut out.

The piece I left will be cut off at a later date. A new set of cross members will be welded in at a later time. Next I had to take a little off the driver's side shock tower to make room for one of the rear exhaust stud. I thought I was going to have to take away more but it was a pretty minor cut. Here's a shot of what I removed.

Basically what I removed was where the all the pieces of sheet metal came together and were spot welded. Once removed I welded the edges to hold all the pieces in place. Next I removed one of the reservoir tank holders that was on the driver's side shock tower. I'll have to find another place to mount this tank at a later time. You can see from the shot below where I cut away the mounting bracket.

Finally I needed to make a little more room for the oil cooler on the bottom of the Coyote engine. I didn't need much room but decided to take away the seam sticking up form the driver's side frame running from the fire wall back. I removed about 1' from under where the oil cooler and filter sit. I once again welded up the open ends to keep things holding together.

While working on making the transaxle mounts I found one more thing that needed a trim. There is a tab on the driver's side valve cover that is hitting the roll cage. I ground it off and the engine fits so much better. Here's a before and after of the tab.

While setting the engine in one more time to check to see how the transaxle mounts were going to work I saw a couple more places that needed to be trimmed to get the engine to set just right. First I needed to remove a little of the back of the cross member of the roll cage. I know this will eliminate it from ever being raced in a sanctioned event, but I'm never going to do that so out came the grinder. I needed about 1/2" more to help the right head of the Coyote engine to clear (the right head sticks out a little further than the left - go figure). Here's a shot of what it looked like when I cut away the back side of the cross member.

I then used a piece of 1/4" plate to reinforce where I cut out the pipe and sealed the ends with sheet metal. Here's how it looked after welding it all together.

Next I decided to take a little more off the top of the driver's side frame to make it a little easier to change the oil. Here's a shot showing the entire area that was ground away and rewelded to join all the pieces together.

Next I added a cross member about 7" forward from where the original cross member was. You can see where the original cross member was next to the bolts and nuts holding the lower control arm.

Here's a shot of the entire engine bay with some paint on the areas that were changed. I was able to place the engine in place and block it up making it ready for the fabrication of the motor mounts. Look for that project in a later post.