Stohr Engine replacement part 3

The engine replacement in my Stohr is rolling along nicely. As you read about in my last entry on the topic I had everything out of the car (engine, wiring, cooling system, etc) and it was time to attempt to fit the new engine. Well thats really where the joy ended as I started to see there were multiple areas that the new engine would not fit.

1. I was able to confirmed what I had heard from Lee Stohr about the main engine mounts being different on the 2004-2006 Yamaha R1 engines compared to the 1998-2003 engines.
2. I was able to see that the spar also was not going to fit the new engine
3. Much to my dismay that the oil pan of the original engines oil pan would not fit.

So I knew this was going to be a costly investment but figured might as well just go for it after looking at and confirming the 2007 R1 engines mounts are the same meaning I had an upgrade path. So I fired up the trust Dremel and went to town.

My first step was addressing the fact that the new engines rear top mount was now about one inch to wide on the right to fit the spar. Thus after some analysis I decided to cut it off to make it fit the spar as there was no structural integrity being compromised and my new engine cradle would be built to unstress these mounts. Much to my further dismay I found that Yamaha actually change the rear engine mount more than just making it wider on the top. They moved the bolt hole approximately 5-10mm closer to the engine meaning I have to weld and plug the spar complete with redrilling the mount hole in the spar. This picture shows the engine and spar mating after I modified the engine.




So next up was trying to actually fit the current engine into the car so that I could give the local race shop an idea of how everything would mount up by putting in some template mounts. Despite what I had heard from others the new engine was too wide to fit into the old cradle so out with the angle grinder and back to cutting off one side of the mounts.



Once I got that done, placed the engine and rear spar into the car it was pretty clear the oil pan was not going to fit as it hit the floor. So since I was going to go dry sump anyway it was time to take the oil pan off and just put a simple seal on the engine bottom until Ken Taggert was able to ship me the new dry sump.



Once that was done we spent the day before Christmas putting the engine back in the car and bolting her together as best as I could possibly given the limited mounting points that lined up. It was then all ready to head off to the chassis shop where she remains today.



At the current moment the chassis is sitting on a chassis table, jigged up and ready to be re-welded while the shop finishes up a set of cars that is going to Barrett-Jackson. I hope to have the car back in the garage by the end of the month so that I can plumb everything back in with the new dry sump and move to single radiator. Should have that finished in February and I am hoping that the car will be starting and running in March. Fingers crossed!