The Racing Beat endlinks came the other day, but the installation didn't go quite as planned...
Car up on ramps, oh hell yeah, time for the slammed thread! (spin) Would you believe I haven't washed my car since last November? I think it looks alright considering, lol
Soaking the bolts in PB (peanut butter blaster, for those in the know), I really should have been doing this for a few weeks instead of 3 mins before I wanted to remove them...
Soaking the bracket and mount
As I'm sure you know, it's basically impossible to ever get end links off, and I planned on cutting mine off anyway, so I'm not sure why I sprayed it with PB
Both sides required two cuts, one with the angle grinder which kind of skimmed off the outside of the nut, and then I went back in with the Dremel to cut off the edges of the nut. This pic hopefully explains it better. This side was a pain because there's the tube from the gas tank filler in the way, so I had to also use a Sawzall, but I got it eventually.
Wait.. what?
Pack my fudge.. this bolt snapped off. Probably should have soaked it for quite a while instead of just a few minutes before. I guess that's what I get, but I was pretty sad. I thought I was screwed for a quick minute.
I've decided to just cut off the mount and make a new one. There's really no way to get in there to do anything, and the threads are rusty as all get out, so there's a tremendous amount of resistance. Even if I drilled a hole in the bolt and hammered an allen key in there (good luck without a lift...) there's no way I could get enough torque on it to get it out. It was still a struggle to turn the bolt with a 24" breaker bar.
I've seen where the mounts actually tear out of the sub frame, on Civics, or the front on NB Miatas with upgraded bars. I highly doubt that my 17mm bar off a Contour would be thick enough to do that, but I'm going to reenforce the area on the subframe where the new mount will go. I got some 3/16" steel stock, and it's quite a bit thicker than the subframe, so that's my thinking. It's kind of a "Why not, I'm in there anyway" thought. Something I didn't consider until now is that I might not be able to form the 3/16" to the contour I need to fit the subframe. I might get a bit of something smaller, maybe 1/8th to attach directly to the subframe, and then weld the mount onto the beefier patch. I'm going to get some 17mm Energy Suspension poly bushings to finish off this upgrade. I'm not sure what to use yet for a bracket.
Hmm, guess which one is the new bar.. Hint, I still haven't finished painting it. In all honesty, I've been waiting for it to be less humid so the paint will work right, but every single time I remember, it's been raining. It feels like I'm living on Ferenginar.
I've run across one of the most epic things that I've heard of yet, since researching the KL. I don't know how many of you start on one link, and find another, and then find one on the next page, and just keep going and finally wonder how you got to where you are (aka internet addict), but that's what happened. I started on here in the thread about the guy asking questions if he could put a KLZE in his 87 626, and Mono said sure, since it fits in a Ford Festiva. I then googled that, and came across a killer build thread:
Right here
I was reading along, "eh, yeah, this is pretty cool," and I see the one guy's sig about having the first Toyota E153 trans in his Escort in the states. I didn't think much of it, but as I continued exploring the site, I went back and checked out his threads, and holy cow, it seems pretty possible. Those guys are looking for them for the 323's and stuff for an awd platform, but apparently it's been going on for a while in the BP/B8/FE3, etc. world as there are adapter plates already.
Now, this is interesting because the G-series trans that the KL uses is pretty weak, along with almost all of the other transmissions that Mazda has ever built, but the E153 trans is as I have heard, "BEEFY" in comparison. Toyota makes awesome transmissions from what I've seen. The one in particular that stands out is a Mk IV Supra running an 8 second pass on a factory stock 6 speed trans.... Imagine doing that with anything Mazda makes..
There are still a few issues to sort out, such as
How to mount the starter, as the G-series has the starter on the front (facing the radiator in the engine bay) on the trans side, while the E153 has it on the engine side
Clutch, pressureplate combo? Apparently the Flywheel will work, or one from a BP will work (can't remember off hand)
Axles (likely will need a custom solution)
Shifting gears (E153 uses shifter cables while the G-series uses a linkage)
Mounting the trans to the frame (custom mount, which shouldn't be bad, and by the same token, I won't need to do the 2nd trans mount from the MX3)
How to convert? the signal so that my cluster will still work for the odometer and speedo
That's what I can think of off hand, so I obviously still have lots of research to do, but the plate was about 300$ from what I've seen. On ebay, I saw E153 transmissions going for a bit above 1k after shipping (which was half of the price from friggin Hong Kong), so I'd like to do better than that. Some had the factory LSD as the E153 was in the Turbo MR2 which has a Viscous LSD. I'd just get one from MFactory (I believe they make one for it). The E153 was also in v6 Camry's. Best case scenario, I'd run to Pull a Part, snag one out of there for ~100$ out the door and just have it rebuilt. Worst case, pay out the nose on ebay for a 1337 JDM trans and still have a plethora of issues to solve. (rolleyes)
