Well, I know that I, as well as many of you other EF ******, absolutely enjoy stuffing B series engines under our hoods.

I'm sure we are all aware that the rear L-bracket is probably the most difficult\annoying\time consuming part of the entire swap.

With that aside, I think I may have stumbled on a bit of an installation time saver last night, er...this morning while pulling an all nighter on my friends 90 Civic Si w\B16A. If anyone hear has heard this or figured this out, congrats, I'm just trying to help fellow tuners.

First, if you are doing this swap or a similar one, read HT member DroppedCRXSi's webpage and while you are at it print it out and bring it to the garage with you. If you follow his instructions, you'll lower the tranny lower than the passenger side mount bracket, install the mount, and lift that mount into the bracket. He mentions that during this process, the L Bracket needs to be losely fitted onto the engine and then worked over the rear mount. Of all the instructions I've read, this is the most vague part.

Mainly, most people need to figure it out their first few times with a friend and a lot of wiggling and jiggling that bitch in a not so large area. However, most of us seem to get the mounts inside the brackets, it's just that the bushing bolts may sometimes be the hardest to get in. I figured this out last night while doing the L Bracket, and this can be applied for the other two bushing bolts, but for all intents and purposes this is "about" the bushing bolt for the rear bracket.

When you get the L Bracket situated around the mount, focus SPECIFICALLY on the drivers side of the bracket. This would be the side with the welded nut on it. Do whatever wiggling and jiggling you need to do, but get that hole lined up with the lock nut before all else. When this is done, it's okay if the other side is not straight, let me explain...

If you use the other bushing bolt from the drivers side mount, this will be cake for you. Take on bushing bolt and thread it the wrong\opposite way through the welded nut on the drivers side of the L Bracket. It doesn't have to be in all of the way, just enough so that the bolt has made it inside the mount ( doesn't have to be tight ). Now, approach the correct end of the bracket with the bushing bolt that you will be threading in. Push it all the way through ( hammer usually helps it hit a dead stop ) until it runs into the bolt you threaded in backwards.

Shwing! You now have the entire bushing tunnel aligned with the mount bracket holes! All you have to do now is back the bolt going through the welded nut out of the hole it's and push the other bolt. When the other bolt is threading, start backing the inital bolt out of the bracket All you've done is displace\remove a discrepancy in an other wise straight line, but you've displaced it porportional to movemet, it's cake.

I figure that should save you all a combined total of a million hours next time you touch a B series EF combination. If anyone can think of anything better, post it up here. Let's combine resources and come up with the ultimate, time-saving swap guide for 88-91s

 

I usually just stick a jack under the trans, and jack and lower the it until the rear bracket is lined up. If you have the 2 side mount bolts in, the rear bracket is pretty much lined up, it just needs to be lowered.

 

Tried that for a while. I believe the directions say keep all mount bolts loose so it's easier to move the engine around, but after that porved ineffective, we tightened the bolts down thinking that the mounting geometry would be all sweet and lined up. But such was not the case If you pull a mount bolt out of a fully mounted engine, in all likelihood, it will go back in with ease, however, when installing the engine, the mounts haven't yet sat in their correct positions long enough to "memorize" it.

When I thought this little bolt through both sides of the bracket to line the mo ***** up scheme, it took about 2.5 miinutes to execute and complete fully. I can only imagine how much time we would've saved if I had that epiphany sooner.

 

What makes it harder is the tranny mount bolt position, there is one bolt that is impossible to get to because it hits the mount. So the mount has to be on first, I just drop the trans below the mounting place and jack it up

I just dropped a b18c into a 94 civic, and it was a lot easier then the crx. The trans mount can come off so you have a lot more room, then all you do is just get the 2 side mounts lined up and the rear basically lines itself up.

 

Right, I'm aware that it's easier in 5G Civics and up, but it's a biatch in the EF chassis to do. This is kinda for the EF B series swap questions that pop up every five minutes