Mojo-Jojo

Unfortunately I wasn't taking pictures as I went, but it should be easy to describe...

You'll need:
Jack
Jackstands
14mm socket
17mm socket
19mm socket
Maybe a breaker bar, u-joint adapter, assorted extensions and such.

So, the problem I was trying to fix was that every time I'd give a throttle input, whether accelerating or decelerating, my engine would rock back and forth, and would rock the entire car with it.

Obviously this isn't comfortable in day to day driving, nor safe during spirited driving, as rocking the weight of the engine forward and back in the middle of a turn is not a Good Thing. As a matter of fact, it can be a Very Bad Thing.

So, I started looking around here and there, and found three options:
Prothane mounts, Energy Suspension inserts, and jimfab.com's full on new mounts with poly bushings.

A long time ago, I had my favorite tuning shop order the Prothane mounts for me, and was going to install them on a day while I was doing spark plugs and a few other maintenance items.

Unfortunately, we were sent the Prothanes for a Jeep V8. Also unfortunately, one of the spark plug wires broke as I was pulling it off. Fortunately, my shop was close, I ran down there and exchanged the mounts for some NGK wires they had lying around.

So, fast forward to a couple months ago. Jim from jimfab.com posts in the Autocross forum. I check out the mounts on his site, and decide they look good. I email back and forth with him for a bit with some questions, and I decided to order a set of the front mounts from him a couple weeks ago.



Sexy, eh?

So, the install is pretty easy. Jack the car up, stick jackstands under the side jacking points. Use the jack to support the engine if it makes you feel safer. You're doing the lower mounts, so the upper mounts will still hold the engine, so no real worries about it falling on you at all.

Locate the lower front mounts. They are just inside and in front of the front wheels. (It was around this time that I figured out that the Civic has 5 engine mounts, not three like I though. Silly ol' me.) The Prothane mounts are the upper two and rear, the Energy inserts and the Jimfab pieces are for the lower front and rear.

Then, on the passenger side, loosen the 19mm bolt from inside the fender well, but don't take it off all the way. Not a big deal, just keeps the mount from falling off or wiggling too much while you're unbolting all the pieces. Then, unbolt the two 14mm support bolts that hold the mount into the frame of the car. Then, unbolt the 3 17mm bolts on the bracket that connects to the engine. (During removal, I found that the drivers side mount was almost totally torn through...no wonder my engine was rocking... )

Pull the bracket and mount out, remove the 19mm bolt, slap the new mount (the one that is doesn't have the slightly longer bushing) on with the new washer, and rebolt everything back up.

The drivers side was a bit trickier. On the drivers side, the bracket that connects the engine to the mount is also what I think is the A/C bracket.

I'm not positive because my car does not have A/C. If you do have A/C I imagine that this job will be a good deal more complicated.

So...basically the same thing. Loosen the 19mm bolt, unbolt the support bolts, unbolt the bracket. Remove the old mount and stick the new one on there. This is the one with the slightly longer bushing. The longer side points in, towards the engine.

Now, we just removed three of the bolts from the bracket, and loosened the fourth one on the top left, pivoted it on the top left bolt to get the mounts off and on, and then bolted the mount back on, then tightened the bracket.

The problem is that the machining tolerances on the Jimfab mount is so tight, and the bushing so incredibly stiff, that we couldn't get the bracket back into alignment with the bolt holes. It was being pushed a bit too low.

So what we ended up having to do was put the jack on this little nubbin that sticks off the bracket underneath the bottom right bolt hole. Then, we jacked up the car on that bracket enough to lift the damn car almost off the jackstands.

That put enough weight on the bushing of the new mount to compress the top of it enough to let us bolt up the bracket.

So, we tightened everything up, and then set her down.

I hop in the car and turn the engine one...

BAAAARRROOOOMMMMM!!!!

It was like being on the inside of a speaker. Everything rattled. It was like being inside a big diesel truck.

So, I took it for a quick trip around the block. The engine was of course VERY controlled, I'd have to be purposefully jerky and pulse the throttle rhythmically to get the car to bounce.

Unfortunately, from off-idle to about 1750 RPM, the spot where the engine settles into the lower RPM and kinda shakes a bit make the entire car rattle, and hum, and shake, and...just ugh. I mean, for a race car, it'd be ******* perfect. (Which is probably why Roger Foo uses Jim's mounts in his new Protege) The engine doesn't move, shifting and throttle inputs felt way smooth. But, I just couldn't deal with it for a daily driver. It was just way too harsh. All the vibration of the engine was transferred into the interior. It sounded like I had a really loud exhaust from inside the car, and was a bit louder from the outside.

So, I let Jim know what was going on, he said to try loosening all four of the 14mm support bolts, and then retightening them because the engine can get a bit misaligned during all this, so let it settle into a normal position and then retighten. He also said that it usually mellows out a bit after 50 miles or so.

So, I did the unbolting and rebolting, which did help a tad, and then gave it a couple days, and drove on it for about 150 miles. And it did mellow out, to the point where if I was totally sacrificing comfort for performance, I would have kept them. At that point it would only rattle badly at the lower RPM's, and every now and then above that an interior panel would buzz at a certain RPM range that it resonated with. On the freeway, it was fine. The interior did still have that droning thing going on a bit, and it gave me a headache on a couple longer drives. But, since I have to deal with stop and go traffic on a daily basis having the whole car shaking while I'm stopped wasn't going to cut it, so I decided that I would have to swap them out. I let Jim know, and he said that was fine, and to just send them to him after I got them swapped out, and he'd refund my money.

I thought about the Prothanes, since my shop can get a good deal on them, but I remembered how stiff the Jeep ones were, and so I did a bit of searching here. This was when I found out that the Prothane ones were only for the upper and rear mounts, so they wouldn't work anyway.

So, the ES inserts were the last ones to check. Turns out they are almost as soft and squishy as the stock bushings, just enough to be comfy and still control the engine better than the stocks.



Nowhere near as sexy.

So, with these, what they do is sandwich the old mount in between them, and then you ziptie them to keep them on, and then bolt them up. That's how they work with torn mounts, they just fill in the spaces and support the old rubber material. They are a bit stiffer, and since they fill in the airspace, that's where the extra control comes from.

Install is essentially the same, except that you reuse the old mounts and such. Pretty straightforward...the only even slightly tricky thing is the drivers side mount...the new driver's side insert has a groove on one side. That side goes on the short side of the mount, and then when you put the zipties through it you want the big piece of the ziptie going through there so it ends up flush into the groove, and then the little locking piece of the ziptie goes on the engine side. It's hard to describe, but if you saw it in person you'd understand.

Also, since these are softer, it was way easy to do the driver's side and I didn't need to jack the bracket up to align it.

So, now the car feels...well...better than it did when I bought it 2 years ago. The engine had always rocked, and now it only does it if I'm not smooth enough on the throttle, but it's definitely more controlled. I don't know if it's better than stock because the upper mounts aren't upgraded, and I haven't installed the rear ES insert, because...well...I've heard it's a total bitch, and I don't want to deal with it at the moment. Maybe when I put a new clutch in, since I'll be down there ******* with the transmission anyway.

So...to sum up:

Torn stock mounts: Suck.

Jimfab.com mounts: Great engine control, but too harsh for me to drive it daily.

ES mounts: Almost perfect. They could be a little stiffer, but no droning or annoying vibration, and the motor control is better than it was.

And I want to give Jim extra props for being so helpful with advice in the beginning and accomodating when I realized they wouldn't work out.



Thanks again.

Evs-One

excellent review. I've been thinking about new mounts, and didn't think of the side effects of having stiffer inserts. Thanks
BTW- how much did each cost??

Mojo-Jojo

Jimfab mounts were $55 for the pair plus $10 for shipping since he's having a sale at the moment. Normally they are $85, so if you're going to get them, snap them up now.

The Energy Mounts were $40 from my secondary shop. The price on the SK Speed website that I linked the picture from is like...33 or so. I paid the extra because Dale, the guy that owns the shop I bought them from let me use all his tools and helped me with the install, so I figured I could give him the $7.

brcivic411

go head and put in the rear mount.. it'll make a difference

Lei Siew Long

as you have heard, the rear mount insert is a pain in the *** to put in. i couldn't get the "T" bar off in the rear to put the insert in the mount. this was when i was installing my clutch. the best bet, i think, is to have a hoist and lift it off the rear mount just a little to get the bracket off. maybe someone else has an easier and effective way of getting that bracket off

Mojo-Jojo

Oh, I plan on doing it eventually. I just don't want to deal with the hassle of it at the moment. It's not like I'm going to throw the rear insert away or anything.

sackdz

Which bushings did you oreder with your fimfab mounts? I know he offers a "race" bushing in addition to the standard.

Hatch-E

iTrader: (1)

with your ES mounts.. Fill the stock ones in with "Window Weld" And then squish in your ES mounts, wait about a day, and then you'll see that the whole mount is solid polyurethane

works great!

ejprimo

i have the es mouts in my ride (the rear one also). my dashboard is vibrating like hell when it idles.