Here's the rewritten text in a well-structured article format:
**A Little Housekeeping: Installing New Engine Mounts**
As I take advantage of this opportunity to do some housekeeping on my Mazda Miata, I'm glad to be able to share this experience with you. Using a little bit of brake cleaner and a rag, I'll just clean up most of the gunk that's accumulated over the years without going overboard.
Now, it's time to install new engine mounts using a whole extension gang to ensure these bolts are torqued correctly. You see, if we don't torque them down to about 40 foot pounds, we risk having our engine mount let go of our engine or chassis, which can be costly. So far, the juice has been worth the squeeze, and I'm glad this little project is coming along.
**Fiddling with Bolt Threads**
Now, if you've ever struggled with bolt threads that are a bit tricky to start, you know how frustrating it can be. But trust me, using power tools to ram them in isn't the best idea – instead, do it by hand and feel for that perfect fit. It's like playing a carnival game where you need to get those bolts through without any issues.
**Lowering the Jack: Getting Those Studs into Place**
So, with all our bolt-holding engine mounts securely in place, we're now ready to line up the studs that hang from the sub-frame and drop them into their holes. Carefully lower the jack and gently maneuver those studs into position, then put on those lower nuts and tighten them down – it's getting close!
**A Little Misalignment**
Okay, so it looks like our studs aren't quite in the right place yet. No worries! Let's just loosen the bolts on the engine mount to make it easier to drop that thing into place. This isn't a big deal; we'll get there eventually.
**The Final Touches: Tightening and Checking**
With both studs through their respective holes, we're almost done. All we need to do now is tighten those studs up, torque them down, put the wheels on, replace the coil pack and intake – and that's it! Let's see how she feels...
**Test Drive Time!**
And here we are – test drive time! I take a deep breath, start the engine, and... nothing. Just a little bit more vibration through my butt, seat, and pedals – which is exactly what I'm looking for in this car. It feels connected to me now.
**Conclusion: Are Engine Mounts Worth It?**
In my opinion, especially on the Miata, engine mounts are 100% worth it! For just a couple hundred bucks, we've improved our car's performance and made it feel more connected to us drivers – which is exactly what I'm looking for in this vehicle.
That's all for now; thanks so much for watching! Your support means everything to us at Donut. Make sure you're subscribed to the channel and have that notification bell ringing, so you know every time a new video comes out – which, spoiler alert, is every single day! See you next week...
WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- You know what I love?I love parts that arelow key, easy to install,and make a big impact.But what are those parts?Today, we're messing with engine mounts.And I know you probably never thoughtto change your engine mountsbecause they're honestlypretty damn boring.But they're also important and cool.So today, we're going toinstall a set on the Miataand along the way we'lltalk about what they do,how they work, and whatthe options are out there,so you guys can choosea set for yourselves.I'm Zach, this is Money Pit, let's do it.(upbeat music)(calm music)- (whistles) Weighs like two pounds.Do you see those little boys,stuffed way down in there?Those are the stock engine mountsand those are what we gotta remove today.So, your stock mounts start out softand they get even softer over time.You see how much enginemovement we have upfront?That's terrible, that is not what we want.(engine revs)So today, we're gonna fix that.A lot of people sayyou have to take off the exhaust manifoldbut we're gonna try to do itwithout removing the exhaustmanifold and see if it works.(squeaking)(jacks rattling)We're getting the wheels offof the front of the Miata right now.That'll give us a littlebetter access to the sides,which is where the engine mounts are.(drill grinding)So we'll get the wheels out of the way,and then we should be ableto get to all of the hardwarefor the engine mounts.All right, we got the car upin the air, the wheels off,and we're ready to dig in and rip outthose old floppy engine mounts.But before we go any further,let me put you guys onto some gameabout what the pros and consof what engine mounts even are.Why are we doing this?First off, you don't want a floppy engine.And a good aftermarketperformance oriented engine mountkeeps your engine nice and tight.Which means that whenyou put the pedal down,rather than your engine twisting a bunch,it just twists your tires,which is great for performance.That's the best way tomake it out of a corner,but it's not just about performance.It's also about the way it feels.A car with a good set ofengine mounts, in my opinion,makes the car feel so much more connected.The engine feels like it'sconnected to the chassis,and then you feel connectedto the engine through that,which is awesome.Now, that all sounds great,but what are the cons?Well, really there's only one biggish con,depending on you andhow you feel about thisand it's called N.V.H.That stands for noise,vibration, and harshness.And your engine creates a lotof all those three things.Your stock mounts, wellthey absorb most of itso it doesn't make itthrough to the chassis,it doesn't make it through to your ears,but these sweet aftermarket mounts,they keep the engine in place real nice,but they also transmit alot more of that N.V.H.to the cabin.Now, in my opinion, a littlebit of N.V.H. in the cabinlet's you know you're drivinga performance oriented car.I like it, it makes you feel connected,it's more fun and spirited.So in my opinion, the prosfar outweigh the cons.And you know what else is great?The ones that we boughtonly cost about $230.00and generally speaking, that'sthe ballpark you can expectto pay for engine mountsfor most platforms.So if you wanna get a setof mounts for yourself,for your platform, hit up the Internet,hit up the old Google,check out the forms,and see what's out there.See what people are saying,see how they feel in your specific car,and base your choice off of that.(calm music)We got the intake slightly removedand we got the coil pack out,so we got some cursory work done up top.Now we're ready to go below andget those engine mounts out.So one of the big partsof changing engine mountsis that you're gonna haveto support your engine.And you're gonna have to lift it up,especially in the case of the Miata,we're gonna have to lift itto get the stock engine mounts out.There are a few ways to do that.What most people have is a jackand a little piece of a two by four.So that's what we're going to use.We don't need that yet, theengine mounts are still in placebut the next thing I'm gonna dois pull out engine mount hardware.So I'm gonna get our jackand piece of wood in place,so that when we disconnect ourengine mounts, nobody dies.(drill grinding)Okay, one nut, one washer.All right, so this nut is loosened.I'm gonna leave it threadedon, just as a fail safe,while I loosen the other side.(drill grinding)Okay, now this side is offand the nut's fully off.We're ready to jack upthe engine a little bitand separate the enginemounts from the sub-frame.They've been smashedtogether for 25 years,so it might take a littlepressure to get them apart.(gentle music)Our engine mounts are coming apartand we're ready to removethe rest of the bolts.You can see one right there.Okay so, we got the enginemounts loose from the sub-frame,we've lifted the engineabout half and inch.Everything's going swimmingly so far.Now we're ready to get at all the hardwarethat holds the enginemounts to the engine.So we've got three boltsholding the engine mount to the engineand then one extra just holdingon to that starter bracket.(tool rattling)This should make today goa little bit more smoothly.(tool rattling)Somebody just almost lost an eyeball.- Or a lens.- (laughs) Probablyshould've seen that coming.So we're taking our hardwareout of our engine mounts.I got the first bolt outand all these bolts aregonna be different lengths.We need to remember where they came from,just for when we go to put them back in.One of the easiest ways to rememberis just to make a littlerudimentary drawing.I'm no artist, but it'll do the trick,and you just push the hardwarein to where it came out of.And then when you go to put it back in,just look at your drawing.Okay, so there are ourbolts of different lengths.Held in the places wherethey will return to someday,hopefully.So this mount is completely disconnectedand ready to come out.All we gotta do is jack upthe engine and wrestle it out,but I guess before we do that,we might as well go takeoff all the hardwarefrom the other engine mount.So let's do it.(tools grinding)All right, we have somecompletely detached engine mountsand now, all we have to do get them outis lift up the engine as far as we can goand wrestle them out.How hard can it be?(laughs) Probably pretty hard.Now when you jack up the engine,you wanna be mindful and carefulthat you're not squishinganything, cutting any wires,pinching any hoses orbreaking anything, you know?All right, that looks like maybe about it.See what we got.(parts clanging)Tight, tight, tight, tight, tight.And then, oh yeah, look at that.(calm music)That's where a lot offlop and slop comes from,that is a completelydestroyed engine mount.This thing was ripped in half,and literally just doing nothing.This thing's gonna feel so much better.Just even getting onpower out of a corner,you know, you hit the gas pedal,rather than everythingtwisting around and floppingand then putting power down,with new mounts it's just gonna be like(makes engine noise).Now let's get that other side out.If it goes even remotelyas easily as that did,I'll be happy.Oh yes, she's ripped.That's great news.Look at this.This is gonna work.What wonderful, wonderful, wonderful news.That's exactly what I was hoping,that this mount is also destroyed.Man, these things wereliterally doing nothing.That's awesome,this thing's gonna feel somuch better with new mounts.They were soft to begin with,but now they're doing nothing.So if these are basically aripped in half marshmallow,these are basically some big,buff, muscle laden rocks.So these are made by acompany called Innovative.They're basically bent sheetmetal with some poly bushings.Now, when we're talkingabout engine mounts,we're pretty much gonna be talking aboutone of three things.So you'll have rubber mounts,you'll have poly mounts,or you'll have solid mounts.Rubber is gonna be the most comfortable,the most absorbent of all the noise,vibration, and harshness.Where poly is gonna bea lot more resistantto any of that flex orany of that absorption,but it is gonna be a littlebit noisier in the cabin.Your third option is solid mounts,and it's basically just metal, right?Just metal mounting theengine to the chassisand that is gonna create the most noiseand that's some real race car stuff.Now the Miata, whileit's clearly a race car,we do want it to alsobe kinda comfortable.So I went with a 75 durometer poly.The durometer of poly is howyou measure its hardness,it's firmness.The lower the number, the softer it is.The higher the number, the harder it is.These should last the life of the car.I don't ever think I'llneed to do these again.Now let's see if gettingthese into the caris anywhere near as easy asgetting the old ones out.I have a feeling it's not gonna be.(squirting)We've got the engine mount outand it's really dirty where it was.That area hasn't been touched in years.So while it's out, I'm goingto take this opportunityto do a little housekeeping.Just using a little bit ofbrake cleaner and a rag.And we're not going overboard,I'm not gonna try to get thisclean enough to eat off of,but I would like to get mostof that gunk out of there.Now I'd say it's time to tryto stick in this engine mountand see if we can get it in there.(calm music)(tools rattling)Oh, God.(tools rattling)Oh, my god.(calm music)All right, so it's really importantthat you torque these bolts correctlybecause you don't want your engine mountsto let go of your engine or your chassis.So I've got my wholeextension gang up in here,and we're torquing thebolts to the engine,down to about 40 foot pounds, perfect.The driver's side mount's totally torqueddown to the engine.Now it's time to go do the same thingto the passenger's side.(calm music)So far, the juice hasbeen worth the squeeze.I mean this is a littlebit fiddly, you know,trying to struggle my handsinto the areas I need to get them in.But overall, not too bad.I can see what I need to do,I just need to get it done.(wrench rattling)Now if you've ever got a boltthat you're trying to startand you're unsure about the threads,even if you're not unsure,it's not a good idea to go usingpower tools to ram them in.You gotta do it by hand and feel it.You want that thing to just ride right in.(calm music)It's like a carnival game.Poking these bolts through this whole.(calm music)Sweet, okay.With that, all of our boltsholding the engine mounts to the engineare torqued and in place.So, now we just need to line up the studsthat hang and drop into the sub-frame,get them lined up andcarefully, gently, gingerlylower the jack and lowerthose studs into their holesand then put these lowernuts on, tighten them down,and that's it.Let's see how it goes, let'ssee if we can find the holes.(calm music)(tools rattling)So, a little misaligned there.I think if I loosen thebolts on the engine mountthen we should be ableto drop that thing in.No problem, which isn't a big deal.It'll take just another minute.Interesting, what's that?(calm music)Okay, so we've got both studsthrough the holes on the sub-frame.Which is great, we're close.So now all we gotta do is tighten them up,torque them down, put the wheels on,put the coil pack back in,put the intake back on,and go drive this thing.(drill grinding)(tools rattling)(calm music)All right, this is the momentwe've been waiting for.Let's see how she feels.(engine roaringDoesn't move at all.I feel a little bit morevibration through my butt,through the seat, and through the pedals,which is exactly what I want.With the engine so connected to the car,I feel connected to the engine.And that's honestly exactlywhat I'm looking forin a car like the Miata.I wanna feel connected,I wanna feel everythingthat's going on.I wanna feel everything in the road,and engine mounts are a greatway to start feeling more.(engine revving)Even downshifts feel better,it just feels tighter.It feels more crisp.So let's see here,we installed some enginemounts in a couple of hours,that cost a couple hundred bucks.And they made, in myopinion, a huge impact,especially when you compare themto the torn in half engine mountsthat came out of this thing.So in my opinion, especially on the Miata,engine mounts are worth it, 100%.And with that, that's gonnado it for us this week.Thank you guys so much for watching.Your support means theworld to all of us at Donut.Without you guys, we couldn't do it.So make sure you'resubscribed to the channeland you have the notification bell ringed,so you know every time a video comes out.Which, big hint, is every single day.And when those videos come out,you can find us in thecomments for the first hour.I'll also see you on Instagram, @ZachJobe.And while you're at it, follow Donut,@DonutMedia, across all social media.See you guys next week.(calm music)
