P100DHG Build Thread - Gen 3 Coupe #138

[P100DHG]

I put my build on hold for the last 2 weeks while I digested and sorted this out.

If you want to get to the meat of it and skip this just play the video but here is the back story. Some of it is in the video but this is the full story.

My father-in-law who had helped me on the rear suspension and some heavy lifting really wanted to install the engine with me. After bleeding the brakes with my wife, I called him up and we agreed to install the engine when he was back in town. So on a Friday afternoon, I got off work early and we got together. Roush had represented to me under a salesman that has since retired that it would come with instructions on how to install it. I thought I was going to get the type of manual that Factory Five has made. What I got was Tremec's install sheet (no pictures), Quicktime Bell Housing's install sheet and some engine data about the Dyno. If you've read Tremec & Quicktime's install sheet they are basically worthless.

So I called Roush, got the sales manager Dennis Corn on the phone. Super nice guy who explained that this type of thing is passed down basically with verbal and hands on experience and that no one writes an install guide to these things. But he was so patient and nice and promised me he would teach me. Between what was available on the internet and his explanations we were going to get this engine in. So he left me with some homework. The homework was to lay out everything on the floor and work bench of my garage and get familiar with the parts. Well that's what we did Friday afternoon. I have an older 27" iMac in my garage and that same afternoon started to pull up YouTube videos on how to put the clutch fork on the bell housing, the housing on the transmission and transmission to engine and naturally we started mocking up everything and researching and realizing we were short certain Grade 8 hardware (I talked about in my previous post) which I went out and bought that evening. The next afternoon we met back up and we assembled and installed everything and installed the engine into the car but the engine wouldn't fully seat on the chassis mounts which we resolved Sunday (long story how I got it but if you run into trouble I can explain).

Anyway, Dennis called me Monday morning first thing and we ended up connecting Tuesday morning. I told Dennis about my Extra Credit! He was really excited and happy for me. Very encouraging guy. But what came next really felt like a punch in the gut. I was sick. He said, "did I check to make sure that after I installed the transmission to the engine that the crankshaft still had between 0.005" - 0.010" of endplay in it?" Naturally I asked why and he said, "because in rare instances after installing the transmission, the transmission input shaft can bind on the crankshaft and force the crankshaft forward and press it against the thrust bearing, and if I ran the engine like that I would blow out the thrust bearing and I would be in for a rebuild at my expense." He left me with, "go research it." Even as I type this it makes me sick to think that could happen. It was a real possibility that I could blow thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours of work.

Now you have to put yourself in my shoes because I've never done any of this so my mind goes to worst case scenario. If something was wrong I'd have to pull my engine out of my car and it wasn't a cake walk getting it in. Well I did a quick google search and then another and another and could not find anything about checking the endplay after the transmission was installed. So I called Factory Five and Dave B. whose been building engines for the last 25 years explained to me how unlikely it would be that such a situation could arise but he couldn't find a reason not to check the endplay. We talked about it for like 30 or 45 minutes, Dave is the BEST. I called 3 other reputable people here in Los Angeles. One guy basically said the same thing as Dave. Another guy said he does the check regularly and another guy said the chances of binding are very small but why not check.

I got the impression no one was going to say, "you're good to go" and have blood on their hands. Unprompted all of them came up with the same method of testing and I was careful not to give anyone any ideas so that way my information was pure. All said get a pry bar, wrap it in padding of some sort and place the pry bar behind the harmonic balancer and see if I could move the crankshaft forward and then backward by putting the pry bar behind the flywheel through the starter hole and pushing the crankshaft backward using the bell housing backplate to leverage off of. They said you can see it. I can tell you my eyes aren't good enough to see it (I have perfect vision but I don't have a microscope for eyeballs). The last guy explained to me how to measure it which I covered in the video. That's something I can get behind, DATA! No one could describe to me how much force it would take but the consensus was "not very much." I can confirm this. It doesn't take much at all. Some said this is a problem in automatic transmission applications others said this is a Chevy issue but everyone said CHECK IT. So I used a micrometer and stand from Harbor Freight. So I did the test, and there is endplay, and it's the proper amount. THANK HEAVEN! Learn from me and do this check before you install your engine/transmission into the car it will save yourself the agony of pulling your engine out if there is a problem. Piece of advice, attach the mount for the micrometer to the oil pan. If you've already installed your engine into the car, do not place the mount on the chassis. Luckily there wasn't any issue with endplay in my case and I can continue building!

Sorry for the blinding polished parts on the engine