Disclaimer: The following is provided as a GUIDE ONLY, and neither myself, nor Fitfreak.net take any responsibility for the outcome of someone else doing the following. You follow these steps at your own risk! If you are not extremely comfortable doing this get the help of a friend or 2 OR have a mechanic do it!
Thanks to GETTINAFIT for his much needed help during installation! Thanks to Innovative for hooking me up! and thanks to 03DSMRDX for helping me find Innovative!
It took me and gettinafit about 4 hours to install with air tools. We had to do some grinding to get the A/T tranny mount in but these are prototypes and Innovative designed them without having a car in their shop. Overall i'd say they did an AMAZING job. The majority of the install was done with a full-size jack (shown below). However we did use an engine stand (because it was available) at one point. I think a jack could be used for the whole thing but depending on how high you raise the vehicle the jack you are using might not give you enough clearance when raising the engine.
shall we begin!
First raise the vehicle on jackstands. Allow room for working under the car but too high and you will not be able to raise the engine from underneath. You will need a FULL SIZE jack similar to the one showed below (among other things).
Then remove both front wheels. Lower the jack and place some wood on top of the jack. Place it under the engine close to the back as shown below.
Then raise the jack up until it moves the engine up an inch or so.
Remove the following(pics not included):
- air intake box
- battery
- battery tray
Now that we have got that mundane stuff out of the way let us take a look at the engine.
Keep in mind that throughout this installation we were frequently jacking the engine up and down (within reason) to get the mounts out and in.
The picture following is a view of the A/T tranny mount. Looking at the arrows do the following:
- remove the 4 bolts labeled by the green arrows starting with the 1 that the wrench is on. This is the bolt that goes through the middle of the tranny mount. Take note of the red arrow. This is pointing to a plastic shroud that will need to be removed in order to get the bolt out. It is small and is easy to pry off. Just one clip. Then remove the 2 nuts and 1 bolt labeled with the blue arrows.
This pick below shows the tranny mount after removing the 3 bolts holding the mount to the frame. You will need a pry bar also throughout this installation. Use the prybar to pry the old tranny mount out of the aluminum housing.
Here's a pic of the old and new tranny mount side-by-side. The red part that is highlited was obstructing installation. We made it work (as you will see) but the production version will need to be modified. I notified Innovative and i am sure they will look into it.
Another pic of the tranny mount.
Old mount and aluminum bracket (that we will reuse)
Here is a pic of the engine with the entire tranny mount and housing removed.
Now we are not going to put the tranny mount back on yet. We need as much clearance as we can get for the rear engine mount. Raise the engine high up being careful about clearance and any engine hoses/clamps/etc...
Now lets take a look under the car.
Remove the bolts marked with the green arrows in the pic above and remove the black mount bracket.
Another pic of the rear from a different angle above. the bolt going through the center of the mount should be removed last.
Now raise the engine up from the rear as shown above so you have more clearance to get to the bolt going through the mount.
After you have removed the black mount cover you will need to remove 2 more bolts. 1 is shown by the green arrow. the other is not seen directly from this pic. After you remove them take out the rear mount.
The pic above shows the new rear mount in its mounting position. green arrows indicate where the bolts go. Reinstall all hardware and mounting bracket.
Now that the rear is on we can put the tranny mount back in. Install the 3 tranny mount bolts but not the center bolt going thru the bushing. Then reinstall the aluminum housing as show. Use a rubber mallet or pry bar to get the housing in place while raising/lowering the engine for proper clearance. This took a little time to get in but it will go.
Now thread the center bolt thru the bushing. Again you will have to raise/lower the engine slightly to get it thru. Then tighten everything up.
Now lets do the passenger side mount shall we. Below shows 2 pics with the stock mount. Remove all bolts/nuts marked with the green arrows.
The red arrow above points to the bolt that you will remove but not reuse.
Above shows the other 2 nuts that should be removed. 1 is visible from the top and 1 is visible from underneath through the wheel well.
Remove the 2 bolts holding the A/C line so you have a little more clearance to remove the mount.
Below are pics of the OEM and new mounts side-by-side.
Note the metal spike attached to the OEM mount. I had to get a 10x40 1.25 bolt and nut to replace it.
Now install the new mount and reuse the top part of the OEM mount or the stock bolts will not fit. Again raise/lower the engine and use a pry bar to get the bolts threaded.
Above shows the new mount in place. Below shows the other side.
Make sure everything is tightened up. I also used blue threadlock on some of the bolts.
NOW YOU ARE DONE
Go out and put that power to the ground.
RESULTS:
- the construction of the mounts is TOP NOTCH! They are fantastic. All OEM hardware was re-used in installation.
- Initial startup has noticably more vibrations. It took a minute for the car to fully warm up but once it did vibrations reduced significanlty.
- Yes it does vibrate some and you hear much more of the engine but it is not as bad as i thought. I drove the car home 50 miles and on the highway vibration was nominal.
- Cabin vibration is suprisingly nominal. My radar detector was vibrating but it did that before. Fixed that when i got home. The Fit interior has it's quirks with noise. The mounts have made some of those noises more dominant. But that is to be expected. But i was expecting worse and was pleasantly surprised.
*remember i have a 75A rear mount. The 2 sides are 60A. I would say that a 60A rear mount would reduce the vibrations even more.
Now for performance:
- Throttle response is 100% better. Accelleration is smooth and lag between shifts has been noticably reduced.
- S mode is now more like a true manual. By that i mean that upshifts and especially downshifts are
instantanious. Before if i downshifted it would pause at least a second after the tap for it to kick in. Now it is tap and GO!
Enjoy Fitfreaks.
Life Savers!!!!!!
Linear Mode
