Power From Below

Jan 23, 2012 update to the BMW 2002tii project car

Once the dressed long block was assembled on the engine stand, we switched gears: We dropped the front subframe and jacked the nose of the car way up in the air. The factory installs the engine and subframe from the bottom, which is a lot easier than trying to angle the engine/transmission combo into the short engine bay from the top. We took the time to degrease the subframe and give it a coat of Eastwood‘s Chassis Black paint.

We took our engine hoist and transferred the engine to the cleaned-up subframe. We will be using an ATV jack from Harbor Freight to lift the entire assembly back into the car.

Before we mated the transmission to the engine, we installed a Spec Clutch aluminum flywheel and high performance clutch. The Street Prepared Rules allow for these parts, so now is the perfect time to improve our car’s performance.

With the engine and transmission mated up, we then slid the entire kit and caboodle under the lifted BMW. At this point, the bottom of the front air dam is nearly 30 inches off the ground. We then carefully lowered the nose about 10 inches on its jack stands to button up the last few parts.