I had a productive 1.5 hrs while the kids thankfully napped and my wife escaped to Target. I got the drivetrain in the chassis for the first time! I did it alone with the hoist and it was not too bad just had to take my time. I repurposed some old pool noodles to try and help protect the frame from being scratched. As others have mentioned I did notice the oil pan and oil filter hang low below the frame. I do have an oil filter sandwich plate so this does make it a little worse. Also the 6sp trans oil pan hits the frame in the rear. I was planning on modding the frame to lower the rear of the trans to address the trans oiling concerns. I have learned the pre '08 6spd use forced lubrication so they do not suffer from the overheating issue as does the 5spd. So with this it seems better to raise the engine rather than lower the trans to address these issues.

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I made sure my frame was level first and then took a measurement at the tail of the trans to see my nominal tail angle. With no adjustment the nominal trans tail is ~5* up. I raised the engine and placed 2x4 blocks under the engine mounts to see what a 1.5" increase would do. This brings the trans tails to 0*-0.5* down while moving the engine oil pan/filter above the frame and also giving some clearance to the trans oil pan (~0.125").

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My initial thought to raising the engine would be to add spacers between the block and the engine mounts. I am thinking 1.5" aluminum spacers at each bolt 2x per engine mount so 4 spacers total. I would need increase the length of the bolts given the spacer length and use a higher grade bolt. Since this is a clamped load (engine mount to block) I think adding a metal spacer would be okay from a structural/vibration standpoint. I welcome feedback on this approach if I am mistaken.

Then once I have these made and installed I can work on creating the trans mount. I like the way Hobby created his 6spd mount so I may leverage a similar design.