what's the diffs between the 7 bolts?

[turboblack2door]

by this i mean the first gen 7 bolt (92.5-94 one with the 1st gen head) and the newer 95-99 7 bolt? which is better i haven't been able to find any post about this

 

[NN4S]

The biggest difference is how the bellhousing bolts up; the 1g bellhousing is like a 6 bolt & the block has motor mount bosses on it. The 2g has an expanded bellhousing surface at the front (provides a better spread of the mounting loads on the tranny front to rear) and no place to bolt up the 1g motor mounts. Other differences are related to the cam/crank sensors (like the 6 bolt, adjustable(cam) & not vulnerable to thrust bearing damage(crank)) and the head (1g 7 bolt head has large intake ports like a 6 bolt, 2g is smaller by nearly 1/4" in port height). There are some differences in the water pump & TB tensioner arm/pulley (it's like the 6 bolt here) that require countersinking one bolt; I modified the arm instead of trying to find the one that works w/o mods.

I installed a 1g 7 bolt NT based engine (no oil squirters) in my daughter's 95 Talon AT FWD (7bolt - 7bolt = no flexplate issues) and my only major issues came in working out the timing belt/pulley/arm combo so that I could still use stock timing tools on it as needed (due to the differences in the motor mount brackets).

 

[turboblack2door]

i trimmed the 2nd gen motor mount like the 6 bolt swap requirs and tried both tensioners and pulleys and the first gen works best to my knowledge