awd swap starter plate

[cj8990]

Ive read somewhere about people drilling their starter plate to make room for the awd starter bolt but i cant seem to find it again. Anyone else do this and if so how?.. Also sorry if this is in the wrong area.

 

[bryanwheat]

You can't just drill a different bolt hole in it. The bit hole that the starter fits thru is in a different location.

 

[Killa_dsm]

Ive read somewhere about people drilling their starter plate to make room for the awd starter bolt but i cant seem to find it again. Anyone else do this and if so how?.. Also sorry if this is in the wrong area.

I did this a while back. You basically need to slot the 2 starter holes. All you have to do is put the GST starter plate up against your awd tranny, mark the holes and drill/slot the holes. Its pretty straight forward.

Also gorf post should help explain it a bit.
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/dri...e-advanced-merged-2-07-a-5.html#post151267039

 

[gieri002]

I tried doing this, I would just bite the bullet and buy a new plate.

 

[mike96]

I did this a while back. You basically need to slot the 2 starter holes. All you have to do is put the GST starter plate up against your awd tranny, mark the holes and drill/slot the holes. Its pretty straight forward.

Also gorf post should help explain it a bit.
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/dri...e-advanced-merged-2-07-a-5.html#post151267039

It isn't quite that simple, you have to make the hole that the starter goes thru bigger as well... I tried doing it and failed... Over time the starter would shift up to where the gear on the starter would barely touch the teeth on the flywheel and start grinding.

 

[crash89]

It isn't quite that simple, you have to make the hole that the starter goes thru bigger as well... I tried doing it and failed... Over time the starter would shift up to where the gear on the starter would barely touch the teeth on the flywheel and start grinding.

This...

I also tried to just drill out the starter plate and well lets just say I said screw it and found an AWD starter plate..

 

[turboglenn]

I thought it was fairly simple, you can use a dremel tool or an air die grinder to enlarge the hole on the FWD plate since the 2 holes will slightly overlap it's easiest to just "port" the hole into place. What i did was use a few bolts to bolt the FWD plate to the AWD trans and then with a porting bit and die grinder I ground it enough so that the hole that was out of alignment was just a tad over being "flush" with the AWED tran's upper starter hole and it's worked great, What killed my starter was my helper not tightening it all the way and when i tuned the key it straight broke the mount on the upper side as it sits when bolted in

Thee entire swap is quite simple actually, it just takes a good deal of patience. A friend and I finished mine on the 7th day from when the donor car was dropped off. I've spent the last 4 days working out kinks and taking care of "details"

Some things that were important and should be paid attention to during the swap IMO

caliper glide pins: remove, clean, grease and re-install

make sure that when putting the tank into place that any lines you may hgave for water injection/nitrouse dont get pinched and become a permanent fixture (you have to basically drop the rear subframne to drop the tank again - at least for it to be easy)

the sub-frame bolts you move forward,: either weld LARGE plates to them to keep them from spinning or once the sub is in place with the bolts through it , weld them into the uni-body so they don't spin constantly

tank bolts: much cleaner and easier to cut from the inside of the car to place them, my thread and photobucket shows exactly where these openings should be..

***for locating where you need to cut all the new holes for tank and subframe bolts: use a long flat head screwdriver and a hammer, push it up through the holes and hit it with hammer untill you've pierced the sheet metal, much nicer than just cutting away and hoping to get close to where you need to be, using this method all my holes were nice clean cuts that welded back shut very easily (i've seen pics of some hack job cuts that you'd have to put new metal over to get them to ever look decentthere's locating holes already in the FWD chassis for every single bolt you'll need to add to the car's underside

it's much easier to just put new bolts into the front carrier bearing bracket already on the GST than it is to actually swap the one from the AWD into the FWD chassis (too much drilling into the body removing spot welds for one simple exhaust hanger since you're gonna be welding anyway, might as well just weld in a new hanger and shave a few hours of tediouse frustrating labor out of the job

**remove the one existing exhaust hanger stud from the rear carrier before welding it in and just weld a bot in like you would for the front hanger to hold the exhaust hanger bracket in there or it won't sit flush when you try and weld it in

** cut a good amount of loom from the AWD's tank connections from the chassis so you have clean connectors to put onto the car's chassis that's being built (mine plugs in like a factory AWD because of saving these)

** an important one IMO< remove EVERY suspension bolt for the arms and strut mounts and add a good amount of anti-sieze before you install the rear subframe - this makes future work much easier since you'll be breaking things free while you have easy acess to them instead of when they're in the car and some being impossible to get an impact wrench on at that point

Finally, if you're gonna upgrade clutches, do so now, you don't want to drop the trans again after this swap when you relaize the ACT 2100 justr isn't gonna cut it unless you're running a factory T25

The emergency brake cables won't all line up at the very rear on the FWD chassis after install (at least mine didn't) so save the brackets from the FWD units so you can swap/add them to the AWD cables to help secure them as best possible

I'm gonna cut and paste these into my thread about my swap, and although they aren't asked for by the OP they are good tid-bits of advice for anyone doing the swap

 

[mike96]

I thought it was fairly simple, you can use a dremel tool or an air die grinder to enlarge the hole on the FWD plate since the 2 holes will slightly overlap it's easiest to just "port" the hole into place. What i did was use a few bolts to bolt the FWD plate to the AWD trans and then with a porting bit and die grinder I ground it enough so that the hole that was out of alignment was just a tad over being "flush" with the AWED tran's upper starter hole and it's worked great, What killed my starter was my helper not tightening it all the way and when i tuned the key it straight broke the mount on the upper side as it sits when bolted in

You must have done something different then or had a different part to begin with... Mine wasn't that simple. I started exactly with what you are suggesting but once I got the holes for the starter blots lined up I quickly found out that the large hole for the starter had to be "opened up" as well do to the starter not going all the way into the trans like it should. This is when it dawned on me how the starters were the same even thou the flywheels were different. Once I ground out the bottom side of the starter plate I was able to get the starter in place but as mentioned earlier over time the starter would shift outward (or technically upward) until it was just barely making contact with the flywheel.

 

[Killa_dsm]

Wow its not rocket science. Its was so simple that I don't even remember the procedures because I didn't think it was a big deal.

But Glenn described it pretty well.

Edit: Next time I have the trans out maybe I will take a picture of it for you guys if I remember.