Since I'm slowly chipping away at the MTX75 still, and engine mounts are on my radar, I thought I'd pay a little bit of attention to the drivers side engine support mount. One thing I'd been curious about from the start is the extra 14mm deck height, and the impact that might have on spacing. Well, from a mount point of view, I'm also curious to see if the engine mount retains the same distance from the crank, or the same distance from the deck. What I want is to keep the crank in the same position so as to keep the driveshafts where they were.
So I hunted down a bunch of pics. All adjusted slightly to try and keep the same orientation for comparison.
Ford Duratec HE 2.0 timing cover
Ford Duratec HE 2.3 timing cover
Mazda Duratec 2.3 Timing Cover
The key to the change is the bolt pattern around the perimeter. In all images, look at the bolt pattern on the left or right starting from the top going down. On the left, the gap between the 2nd and 3rd just above the idler pulley location is bigger on the 2.3 vs the 2.0. Same on the right, the p/steer mounts seem to have the same gap, but the gap between the 2nd and 3rd bolt holes is different. Which says to me that the whole engine casting is slightly stretch in that section, rather than just at the deck height - which would have meant a change between the 1st and 2nd holes, not the 2nd and 3rd. I note also that since the P/Steer mount stays the same distance from the deck, so the belt needs to be a little longer to reach the p/steer pulley on the 2.3.
Now, the engine mount. Did it follow the deck height or stay the same distance to the crank? Well, I still can't tell for certain. But running a straight edge between the top two (left and right) mount holes on the 2.0 just skims the bottom of the left engine mount bolt surface. Doing the same on the two 2.3 covers shows that there's a gap. So on first glance, it looks like the casting for the engine mount stays fixed to the crankshaft and not the deck height - but could that just be parallax error? It's looking like I'll need a proper measurement to know.
What does this mean for me?
(1) if the engine mount is the same distance to the crank, I have no changes to make.
(2) if it is the same distance to the deck height, I will need to make up a 14mm spacer for the engine mount to lift the crank to be the same height as it is now, and get slightly longer high tensile bolts to compensate.
I have read how doing the 2.0 to 2.3 swap in a Focus has required slightly altered engine mounts, which is another pointer to (2). So we'll find out one way or the other.
Luke