Ok the best measurement I can eyeball is between 3 1/8" and 3 3/16".

Jeremy

 

mine looks to be 3 5/8" ....hard to get a perfect measurement.

the car only has 18k miles on it and no hard shifting

 

Ok well your part # seems to be the same as mine.

http://www.powerflex.co.uk/products....1&submit1.y=19

That 3 5/8" gap seems too big as you've indicated.

Well I guess you'll have to try one or both of the stock rubber pads then.

Jeremy

 

it very well might be the header heatshield making noise....we didn't put all three back on, only the top one for now. It wasn't touching, but over a hard bump it could easily. I bent it up a bit while measuring the bushing. The clunk sounds more solid, as if it's the gearbox bushing area. One of the downsides of doing a bunch of mods all at once...

 

I can't see your heat shield making noise. Once it's screwed to the head it'll sway to and fro with the head. The chasis heat shield-if bent up-should provide more clearance I would think.

Hmmmm you'll just need somebody to blip your throttle while you take a peek at the motor movements. Again good luck PGT!

Jeremy+

 

the two lower ones are off. only the upper that bolts to the head is on....I could tap it with a finger and 'CLANG!' I bent it up a bit temporarily - the lower ones are not there to clip in and support it so it's free to move a bit.

 

Installed the powerflex gearbox bushing and IE lower mount bushing today. The lower took all of 20 minutes, the gearbox takes some time to remove the intake and otehr parts, but installing the bushing was very straight forward.

In regards to the gearbox bushing, there is no way either of those two stock pads would fit after putting in the two bushings on my car. Did you check that the bigger diameter one was installed in the rear and the smaller diameter one in the front? Not sure if its even possible to reverse the two, or if it matters.

So far I only took a quick spin around the block but I could really tell a difference off throttle that there is ahrdly any lurching at all. I need to go on a longer dirve to see if it solves the issue with the center resonator on my exhaust hitting the heat sheild. I don't notice any increase is NVH, I had a LOTF before and now the lower, gearbox, and LOTF damper on. Also mine is a 2003.

I would highly recommend this upgrade, the install was much easier than I thought it would be. No special tools needed to press the bushings on either, just my hands, and I defiantely don't have huge lumberjack hands either.

 

I agree about the off throttle bucking.... Noticably absent and I am running a VIP damper too.

 

OK got both the lower and upper large mounts done.....but how do I get those small inserts out ? I hate to cut them out, but would like to get my new ones in.

 

I drilled them out, but yeah, you have to shred them to get them out.

 

Well i did this mod this weekend while i was replacing my failing tensioner. Let me tell you that the early 02 mcs is not an easy fit. it took me 2 hours and lots of beating on the mount with a big f$%^ hammer (rubber). I like the improvement but i would never do the install again

 

But it was fun to watch you do it

 

IMO....this mod doesnt do crap......i put these in when they first came out in 05ish i think it was and didnt feel much of a difference.

I also have the TSW damper which again to me....didnt do ish either after rebuilding it 3 times to see they came out with another design. motor still rocks and all my mounts have been checked and are good unless i missed something and didnt notice one was bad. i cant stand the engine drop you get when get on and off the accelerator.

i been reading and talking to people about locating it like the LOTF system cuz i heard the movement is drastically less then the TSW setup which not to mention i bent there bracket and bolt before. :(

 

A Tsw damper made a hug diff on my wife's cabrio. The off throttle was gone. Hers was a year old at the time so the stock mounts were'nt new. The same on my brand new car made less diff. I chalk it up to insurance as much as performance. With the VIP upper and IE and powerflex engine and gearbox inserts, the off throttle bucking is much reduced and things just feel tighter

 

i have the powerflex inserts on the bottom and trans mount also with the TSW damper and my engine rocks like crazy.


i also did thr powerflex mounts for the control arms thinking that was moving also on accel and decel

 

It was more like all of you gasping for air with each strike of my BFH. I still havnt got those damn trans bushings in yet. Ive got to figure out some way to press those damn things in.

 

why are you pressing the trans bushings out? is there a new designed insert?

 

know i have to push the insert in. all of my poly bushings were extremely hard to get in the mounts

 

thats odd, all of mine slipped right in....just remember to remove the blue plastic insert on the trans mount.

 

VIP upper, Powerflex gearbox and Ireland Engineering lower engine mounts on my '06 with 240whp this morning....you be the judge (sorry about the choppy audio...third party vid capture on my iPhone):

 

I have an 05 and installed the lower (both large and small) and the gearbox powerflex bushings. Thankfully I have access right now to a hydraulic press which I used to press out the old stock bushing...that got it out in about 20 seconds and required no cutting at all. I also read about needing to cut the small lower mount because it was too big. I did notice this to be a problem as well, but because I did have a press, I simply pressed the new small bushing in and did not need to cut it. If one does not have a press, I could see this as a problem though.

As for the differences felt, well, I did notice an increase in NVH but nothing I consider annoying. Could be much for some though. Differences in engine movement are also noticeable and IMHO I consider the increase in NVH and decrease in engine movement to cancel eachother out and make the mod so-so. But since I was doing a pulley install at the same time, an extra $80-90 was no biggy.

Keep in mind, I have an 05 and now only 26k miles on it, so my stock engine bushings were probably doing fairly well. This could be partly why I noticed a negligable improvement.

 

nice,.....but the thing is we popped my hood and with the ebrake on preloaded foward and reverse and you cant see the motor moving the way i feel when driving.

i was thinking about getting that upper dog bone mount when it first came out when it popped up on ebay

 

that vid is a fourth gear dyno pull at 240whp and well into triple digit speeds. no silly e-brake test while parked replicates driving conditions

 

I'm doing the lower engine bushing, and theres the big part of the dog-bone and the smaller end. Are you talking about drilling out the smaller end? Because I can't seem to take it out. I don't understand why this is so hard since the instructions say "Push it out." WTF!?

 

take it over to a mechanic shop or machine shop or anywhere they have a press. It will take them literally 30 seconds to have it pressed out for you and they REALLY shouldn't charge you for it. Or...1 minute of labor is what ~ $1-$1.50