Originally posted by DV8 & written in 2003. First RL swap ever, period.
Ok first off, we will start with the order i discovered it all myself.
-Ordered up a pair of RL HG's. They matched to the legends perfectly.
Bought a Chiltons manual, readily avalible at any auto store. In the manual it speced out every acura engine since 94-01. in the spec sheets i did the classic compare and contrast. Obviously the RL block was stroked 300cc's bigger with no bore size increase. the HG's told me that and the manual confirmed. Also the compression depending on the manual publisher said both Legend and RL Use the same compression ratio 9.6:1. To me that confirmed the piston would be a flat dish and they changed crank shaft geometry and rod length.
It didnt take a genius to figure that that ment the rl had less topend, even if i didnt understand what it all ment at the time. It seems that the RL physically is missing support caps for the camshafts. What this means is that it's not as friendly to reving higher RPMs like the TYPE II heads.
Lastly for all you FUEL nuts, the Valve diameters.
The TYPE I Legend Intake valve is 1mm smaller than the TYPE II. The RL seems to share its valves with the Type I. Exhaust valves are nearly identical.
Next i located a RL block at my local junk yard which was convinent. It was still in a 98 RL special edition, heads and everything. The heads however were damaged. i struck up a deal and got to dissasemble the whole engine myself after the cut it out of the car. I had a blast, i got to see the whole thing and i got to take everything apart myself so i knew everything was done right. First thing i saw what that although the topend lookedsimilar to the legends, parts were either changed around or gone completely.
-fast idle tube was gone(big black tube on the Left side of the engine)
-Fast idle valve was relocated from the back of the intake manifold to the top of the Intake manifold were the TB connects too
-Coolant sensors were swaped around in the intake manifold water passage
- intake air sensor was relocate to the back of the i. manifold
-fuel rail looked different, smae layout but square not round.
-injectors had different wire harness connections
Thats about it. I pulled everything apart and got the block home. I ran the VIN off the RL and it came back as a wreck in may 02 were the engine had 32,8**. That made me happy. The block sat a while while i took it further apart checking teeth on the timming belt,cam sproket, and crank sproket. Matched it up to the legends and it all came out the same, except the timming belt it was 1 tooth longer. under further investigation it appers honda increased the deck height of the block to compensate for the added 300cc's of stroke. I made no other thought about this othe than the fact i need to to use the rl timming belt, which i was right, but later i still got bit in the A$$.
*******
I waited on my Level 10 PTS kit to arrive before i dissassembled my car. I was assured by SAM at level 10 that the PTS kit would greatly improve shifting ability and be even more powerful with they're high stall Torque converter. I bought both but the T-C was a retrofit of my own, so i had to tear apart my tranny to get it . The PTS kit arrived and i took the engine out of my car. taking out the engine took me 4 hours, easy since i did it before. Everything went smoothly, i took out the T-C and sent it off. I called up 13 tranny shops to install the PTS kit and went to 1 with a friend that was buds with him. I got the same answer everywere. NO.
The main reason was liability, who's to say that if in case of failure it wasnt the parts or the labor? Nobody wanted to take the chance-not even a liability waiver. I did have 3 guys say they'd do it, but id have to pay for 10-14 hours of rebuild time as specified by thier rehaul book on Legend trannys. That equals about 1300+ over here in labor. The main question i posed SAM at Level ten was the cost for install on a loose tranny, he said no more than 6 hours install; around 500 bucks. I also found out the PTS kit is a soft overhaul kit not a full overhaul, so that means that all the real mecanical parts arew not replaced only the ones that are in constant use. what good would that do my 160+k tranny? exactly so i scraped the idea of wasting money on the install or buying a younger tranny etc. Sold the PTS kit on ebay and lost 100. oh well at least i had the T-C on the way.
I prepped the block and during my prep work i was swaping all nessasary part over the the new 3.5. Starter,Diff, etc. When i came to the front engine mounts i bolted up the drivers side and then the pass, when i started to turn red with nerves, i couldnt belive what i was staring at, the mount engine bolt pattern on the pass side was different. i swore i made sure both were the same as the Legend, looks as though i was wrong. i didnt know what to make of it i started to think about the cash i already spent on the block and what i would need to overhaul one of my other 3.2's. I said F it went back to the junk yard and picked up the rl mount. as they looked kinda similar i traced out a pattern that would cut the leg off the 3.2 mount and the same for the 3.5. using the engine bolt pattern of the 3.5 and the leg of the 3.2 i devised a totally one off custom mount to fit the engine and mount.
As soon as the T-C came i got ready to drop the block in with the tranny attached and put the heads on later. Although i discovered this before, it worth metioning that out of the six bolts that bolt the tranny to the engine block only 5 line up, it wasnet a a big deal since the one bolt wasent in the end or top of the pattend i thought, but because of the added balance shaft the block is a full half circle rather than the 3.2 blocks half circle with a downward slope on one side.
The install was a little more nerve racking than the unistall. mid mounts and tranny mount didnt want to line up so i had to take many trys until they did. trust me it was no fun AT ALL. after the block and tranny were seated i bolted the heads, everything was going smoothly and quickly now, i could feel the start of the car within a couple hours, untill i layed the intake manifold on the heads and it DIDN'T FIT.
continued next post
~Dv8
Ok first off, we will start with the order i discovered it all myself.
-Ordered up a pair of RL HG's. They matched to the legends perfectly.
Bought a Chiltons manual, readily avalible at any auto store. In the manual it speced out every acura engine since 94-01. in the spec sheets i did the classic compare and contrast. Obviously the RL block was stroked 300cc's bigger with no bore size increase. the HG's told me that and the manual confirmed. Also the compression depending on the manual publisher said both Legend and RL Use the same compression ratio 9.6:1. To me that confirmed the piston would be a flat dish and they changed crank shaft geometry and rod length.
It didnt take a genius to figure that that ment the rl had less topend, even if i didnt understand what it all ment at the time. It seems that the RL physically is missing support caps for the camshafts. What this means is that it's not as friendly to reving higher RPMs like the TYPE II heads.
Lastly for all you FUEL nuts, the Valve diameters.
The TYPE I Legend Intake valve is 1mm smaller than the TYPE II. The RL seems to share its valves with the Type I. Exhaust valves are nearly identical.
Next i located a RL block at my local junk yard which was convinent. It was still in a 98 RL special edition, heads and everything. The heads however were damaged. i struck up a deal and got to dissasemble the whole engine myself after the cut it out of the car. I had a blast, i got to see the whole thing and i got to take everything apart myself so i knew everything was done right. First thing i saw what that although the topend lookedsimilar to the legends, parts were either changed around or gone completely.
-fast idle tube was gone(big black tube on the Left side of the engine)
-Fast idle valve was relocated from the back of the intake manifold to the top of the Intake manifold were the TB connects too
-Coolant sensors were swaped around in the intake manifold water passage
- intake air sensor was relocate to the back of the i. manifold
-fuel rail looked different, smae layout but square not round.
-injectors had different wire harness connections
Thats about it. I pulled everything apart and got the block home. I ran the VIN off the RL and it came back as a wreck in may 02 were the engine had 32,8**. That made me happy. The block sat a while while i took it further apart checking teeth on the timming belt,cam sproket, and crank sproket. Matched it up to the legends and it all came out the same, except the timming belt it was 1 tooth longer. under further investigation it appers honda increased the deck height of the block to compensate for the added 300cc's of stroke. I made no other thought about this othe than the fact i need to to use the rl timming belt, which i was right, but later i still got bit in the A$$.
*******
I waited on my Level 10 PTS kit to arrive before i dissassembled my car. I was assured by SAM at level 10 that the PTS kit would greatly improve shifting ability and be even more powerful with they're high stall Torque converter. I bought both but the T-C was a retrofit of my own, so i had to tear apart my tranny to get it . The PTS kit arrived and i took the engine out of my car. taking out the engine took me 4 hours, easy since i did it before. Everything went smoothly, i took out the T-C and sent it off. I called up 13 tranny shops to install the PTS kit and went to 1 with a friend that was buds with him. I got the same answer everywere. NO.
The main reason was liability, who's to say that if in case of failure it wasnt the parts or the labor? Nobody wanted to take the chance-not even a liability waiver. I did have 3 guys say they'd do it, but id have to pay for 10-14 hours of rebuild time as specified by thier rehaul book on Legend trannys. That equals about 1300+ over here in labor. The main question i posed SAM at Level ten was the cost for install on a loose tranny, he said no more than 6 hours install; around 500 bucks. I also found out the PTS kit is a soft overhaul kit not a full overhaul, so that means that all the real mecanical parts arew not replaced only the ones that are in constant use. what good would that do my 160+k tranny? exactly so i scraped the idea of wasting money on the install or buying a younger tranny etc. Sold the PTS kit on ebay and lost 100. oh well at least i had the T-C on the way.
I prepped the block and during my prep work i was swaping all nessasary part over the the new 3.5. Starter,Diff, etc. When i came to the front engine mounts i bolted up the drivers side and then the pass, when i started to turn red with nerves, i couldnt belive what i was staring at, the mount engine bolt pattern on the pass side was different. i swore i made sure both were the same as the Legend, looks as though i was wrong. i didnt know what to make of it i started to think about the cash i already spent on the block and what i would need to overhaul one of my other 3.2's. I said F it went back to the junk yard and picked up the rl mount. as they looked kinda similar i traced out a pattern that would cut the leg off the 3.2 mount and the same for the 3.5. using the engine bolt pattern of the 3.5 and the leg of the 3.2 i devised a totally one off custom mount to fit the engine and mount.
As soon as the T-C came i got ready to drop the block in with the tranny attached and put the heads on later. Although i discovered this before, it worth metioning that out of the six bolts that bolt the tranny to the engine block only 5 line up, it wasnet a a big deal since the one bolt wasent in the end or top of the pattend i thought, but because of the added balance shaft the block is a full half circle rather than the 3.2 blocks half circle with a downward slope on one side.
The install was a little more nerve racking than the unistall. mid mounts and tranny mount didnt want to line up so i had to take many trys until they did. trust me it was no fun AT ALL. after the block and tranny were seated i bolted the heads, everything was going smoothly and quickly now, i could feel the start of the car within a couple hours, untill i layed the intake manifold on the heads and it DIDN'T FIT.
continued next post
~Dv8
