Head Swap: Day 1

Today I started my head swap. Finally!!

I started at about 1:30 or so, and worked all the way to about 10pm. Ya, I took breaks, ate, sat around, and took my time, which is why it took so long. And I'm not even done.

First, one of the lug-nuts on the passenger-side wheel stripped, leaving it with nothing to grip to. Man was I pissed. It just got worse and worse. I ended up kicking the car :screwy: , and bruised up my big toe pretty bad. I think there's blood under the nail. :shakehead I decided to do the rest of the work and wait to do the lugnut later. My bro came home and we ended up sanding it, then cutting it with a carbon-dremel cutting disc, sticking a crow bar end in there and hammering it, then hammering a socket on to it. In the end, it worked. Big pain in the ass, and a waste of 3 hours.

Everything else went pretty quick and easy. Until I got to the UDP. I rented a 3-jaw puller from Autozone, turns out center bolt was too small. Went back, got the bigger one, and the frame of the car is in the way now. WTF!. So I get it around and even, use a crow bar to wedge it in there, and keep turning. Then, the lower timing belt cover cracks. Shit. So I stop, get mad and do something else for a little. My Dad brings out a big-ass crow bar, (while I'm still mad which is a bad move) ad I go running at it and start prying. POP! The thing moves right off. Only problem, the damn frame is in the way. My Dad pushes down on the engine, and I go flying across the garage floor as the pulley breaks free.

Now I'm working on the motor mount. Says it should unbolt, and come right off. Not really. Not without the engine being out of the car. So that's where I'm stuck at right now. I basically destroyed the outer timing belt cover and the motor mount is still hanging on without being connected to anything. Fun. Any suggestions?

The inside of the existing head looks great. Everything is gold from the oil, not like dark or coppery at all. The rockers are smooth and so are the cams. Everything looks great in the current head.

All in all, I'm about where I wanted to be at this moment. I'm looking at about being 45% done right now. Tomorrow my guy is coming over early and we going to finish it all up. Hopefully everything goes smoothly. Pictures tomorrow.

You talking about the passenger side motor mount right? The easiest way to get it off is to loosen up all the bolts and then jack up the motor (using a large board on the oil pan) and it should slip free once all the tension is off of it....that makes it a TON easier to remove/install the UDP too.

Sounds like you just had one of those days where everything seems to go wrong, tomorrow will go alot smoother. This thread is deff. worthless without pics.

Well the actually mount (where the rubber, or Prothane mount in my case is) is off, but the actually connection to the block on that side is causing the problem. There's 3 bolts that are too long to take all the way out because the frame gets in the way, and then the mount itself is too big to take out. I'm going out there now to work on it and see what's gong on. You think if I take the front roll mount off that it may work better?

I know exactly what your talking about David. I had the same problem when I did my timing belt. I think I ended up takin out the front and rear mount also so I could move the motor around enough to get them out. Those metal lines are getting in the way also right?

Ooooooo I know what you're talking about, those bolts are a BITCH, I scream and swear for an hour every single time I have to work with those mofos. I think I used a cherry picker to lift up that side of the motor enough to where you can wedge them out. It takes some finangling, but you'll eventually get it.

We finished it last night. I'll post pics and everything later. Too tired and busy driving around this morning. Now I'm at work. We took out 3/4 motor mounts in order to get them out. Not fun. I'll post whole thing later when I'm home.

So David, what I really want to know is did it really make a big difference? I mean Im sure that head cost a good bit to build.

Need a quick fix. The CEL came on coming home today, and idle was being really shakey. Like going from 800- 2000rpm. Really unsteady and bad. I haven't checked under the hood yet, but I know all sensors were hooked up as of last night. Taking to Autozone to get read and figure it out. Any ideas?

Besides that, still testing and tweaking.

CEL is P0505. I've looked around and seen the IAC may be causing it. Hell, I didn't touch the IAC. I'll have to rip it apart. It sucks idling at 1500rpm most of the time.

It sucks idling at 1500rpm most of the time.
Everybody turns and looks at the homo reving his motor to 1500rpm at the intersection... :lol: :icon16:


I bet the whole IAC just went poo poo on you...

Wow, I've never had any problems quite like that. Mine just normaly end up with me in the urgent care..

I was looking at the car today. The IAC and everything is fine. The wireloom right by the EGR is being pressed down by the EGR pipe. It looks as though some of the wires had burned through and MAY have been shorting out on the pipe itself. I didn't run the looms through the pipe, I just ran them underneath, which may be causing the problems. Have to rewire some of them up. Hopefully the sensor itself isn't shorted out now. I have to test it tomorrow. I'm going to do a big post on all of this later for future nOObs and reference.

like i told u last night, check all your vacume lines if that dont fix it or ones not broke ect. then check you TB gasket and BISS screw. if there is a leak in the tb and the MAP and IAC arent geting the same reading as it should it could be what is throwing the CEL. dont get piss'ed and kick ur car again...... ask brian what that did to my fender haha anyways if u cant figure it out call me back and let me know ill help u figure it out

dont get piss'ed and kick ur car again...... ask brian what that did to my fender haha
It's a love hate kind of relationship for the car... lol

My toe still hurts from that. Not good. See, I kick the solid parts though.

So I think I figured it out. I moved them looms by hand temperarly out of the way, and the car ran better today. CEL still on and idle was still shakey, but I figured with the saved code, it's probably going to do that until I clear it. So tonight when I get home, I'm going to fix up those wires, move the whole looms and wires around the EGR tube, and get the code cleared. Hopefully that will work.

Also going to play around with the cam gears a little today too and see what happens.

sry, I just found your thread, lol...

Easier way to get at that timing belt/pulley... remove that engine mount, and put a jack under the front of the engine crossmember, loosen the bolts and slowly let the engine down enough for the pulley to clear...

Been there done that, I put on a udp also, it was an f'in nightmare... my dd, a busted balancer, and three sets of 3-jaw pullers(one wrong size, one broken, finally got it right), and a couple of days of wanting to kick my car and working in the rain...

Since this is a head swap, the most likely culprit for idle problems is the throttle cable setting. Worth a quick check with the procedure in the forums here, if you didn't do it that way. Any damage found to the wiring?

The throttle cable was fine. The wires were burned and shorting out on the EGR pipe. The pipe was pushing down, burned the loom and wires, and was shorting out, causing the bad idle. I'm not sure if the TPS or IAC was damaged in the process, but it's working fine now. No CEL or bad idle yet. Running really well now.

good now i wana see some numbers ;-D

1234567890

Good numbers

good now i wana see some numbers ;-D

1234567890


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Oh man that made my sides HURT! lmao.

c'mon, where's the wise ass who rebuttles me by saying:
one two three four five six seven eight nine zero


lol, but seriously; glad to see things coming together for ya.