Well, I am installing a set of Jet Hot LTs on my friend TheHeadFL's car. We're working on it for hours and so far we have the passenger side all the way in. Went in with minor difficulty after the motor was jacked up. 10 minutes max.

Drivers side wouldn't go in any way whatsoever. Car is easily high enough, and the oil filter, steering linkage is removed. Motor mount unbolted and motor jacked up to the cowl. Nada. Ground down K member lip some. This worked on my car, but still not working here. Basically, at this point, I think my only option is to drop the cradle some.

The problem is I don't know how. I found all 6 cradle bolts but here is what I am unclear on. I want to undo BOTH motor mounts and support the motor by a jack. THEN, I need to undo all 6 cradle bolts, and lower the cradle down as much as possible. The problem is, I don't know what I am forgetting. What else do I need to do to get my cradle down a few scant inches?

 

I had the same situation happen to me.
What I did is put two jacks underneath the cradle and then one to support the transmission. I unbolted the tranny crossmember and let the jack support the tranny. THEN, I took out all 6 cradle bolts and lowered the engine some with the 2 jacks. Then I lowered the jack that supported the tranny to the point where the tranny supported itself through the driveshaft on the x-brace. Then I lowered the engine as much as the springs allowed me to. Only then I could slide the header in. It would not go in any other way.

 

So the motor needs to come down with the cradle? IE the motor mounts are bolted in place?

 

I guess you could do it either way, but I left the motor bolted to the mount since I just replaced the mounts and had no desire to mess with them again.

 

Well I'm not very familiar with this process. If we unbolted both motor mounts and supported the motor, would it then be possible to drop the cradle w/o messing with the tranny and whatnot?

 

All you would do is just create more work for yourself. There's really not much messing with the tranny. All you need to do is unbolt the 4 bolts of the crossmember. You can leave the mount nut/bolt on.
This will allow for more clearance. When I unbolted just the cradle bolts, I still couldn't get the header to fit in.

 

We did it!

Unbolted drivers side motor mount, jacked motor to the cowl, unbolted 3 drivers side cradle bolts, used pry bar to pry down that side of the cradle and it went in. Bolted everything back up and we're golden. Not quite done yet, but pics are soon to follow. I took approx 150 pics so I have to sort them... I will be posting a full install guide documenting all of thse issues and how to deal with them....