Sorry about the crappy Iphone pic, after the last post i got back out to the shed and put some ideas down on paper as to how i was going to mount the gearbox and motor while sealing the engine bay off. I decided to integrate the mount into the firewall by using an old school drag method of using an “engine plate”, the metal work has began and the wooden template will be the adapter plate for SR to RB box and will mount to the firewall and seal everything nicely while making it an easy slide out operation.
Paulie
this might seem silly…but will the excess vibration cause any problems?
i know you can solid mount engines/gearboxes etc, but given the postion on the mounts, often the mount acts as a counterlever and can absorb ‘a touch’ of the vibration.
it just seems like a possibly bad that mounting everything to the firewall in a car that will see a fair bit more abuse then 10 or less seconds of straight accelerating. as you said, its a drag racer technique and those cars go flat out, 100$ throttle in a straight line for 10ish or less seconds. not: on/off throttle/clutch kick/handbrake/sideways/ripple strips etc.
in my head at least the rotational forces of the motor and the vibrations will put a lot of stress on your cage. hopefully it doesnt crack or tear prematurely.
not hating or anything, just some mech eng related feedback 🙂
Nigel
Its a good point, I have talked to a few people and they say that the SR is the least “harmonic” and fairly well balanced motor to do an engine plate setup on. If i build it strong enough then there shouldn’t be an issue. If something does fail then it will be lesson learnt i guess.
daryl
They use them in Nascar with no problems.
Paulie
cool as 🙂 i hope it works perfectly cause if it does, it will be awesome in looks and functionality too. dismantling it will be easy as pie too
Mitchell
Are you going to run a scatter shield around the bell housing in-case of clutch/flywheel failure?
Nigel
Yep i will have a scatter shield surrounding the bellhousing
Niko
Is the front of the engine going to get a plate aswell? A solid mounted gearbox with conventional mounted (rubber mounts) engine could be trouble?
Nigel
The front of the motor will have an engine plate aswell.
Tone
I’m not really a drift fan, but I’ll give you two thumbs up for your build on an engineering level. I’m just about to start building my first full chassis drag car in a few months, so I can appreciate the time and effort that goes into something like this, even in the planning stages. The only comment I will make on your mid mount setup is that you may still want to rubber mount the gearbox as it will remove some of the vibration if it’s not perfectly balanced. You might also want to get some offset dowels for your bellhousing just in case alignment isn’t perfect, but then you probably already know this 😉
Tone
Nick
Fantastic work nigel! they use this type of engine plate in all sorts of sppedway vehicles here in NZ and they get a hiding! though i cant see the difference between this and a totally solid mounted “conventional” setup.
p dub
hope it all turns out well man, but from a vibe point of view i have a tuned sr20 with solid mounts and it is horrible… only done about 50km on it cause it is sooooo vibey, so i am changing to semi solids this weekend
good luck with that man
Jase
Rubber mount the engine plate some how..
Sleeved suspension bushing are awesome for making near indestructable mounts..
Tang_01
First of all, love your blog and all the work you do, truly amazing skills you have.
I was just reading about you trying to create a conversion plate to combined the SR to the RB box. Over here in the UK there are 2 tuners/companies I’ve heard of who have created one already. Julian Smith of Garage D and Polo of S Body Automotive. If you need any information from it or even a contact number I can give it to you. But no doubt with your skills I believe you can come up with your own conversion plate.
Good Luck with the project and I cant wait for more updates!