January 21, 2013

Black Halo Racing's Motor Mounts

Picture direct from Black Halo Racing's website
There is something to be said about a car part that you can look at, and seriously consider it a work of art. The team over at Black Halo Racing never fail to produce top notch results, as they focus heavily on the quality and usability aspects of their products. They have recently released these beautiful replacement motor mounts for the RX-8. These mounts will last a LOT longer than the OEM mounts that are prone to failing quickly (even the revised mounts are not lasting as long as most would like). Let’s have a closer look.

The full kit! 
The two mounts come as an entire kit. Each kit includes the following you see in the picture above. If you’re missing any of the pieces shown above, PLEASE don’t hesitate to reach out to Charles at Charles@blackhaloracing.com and he will be sure to get you anything you need. Now with the contents out of the way, let’s have a closer look at the bushings.

The different color bushings indicate different stiffness levels for your motor mounts.
  • Red is the softest bushing, equating to the stiffness of the OEM motor mounts
  • Orange is stiffer than OEM, feeling as stiff as the 80 durometer polyurethane that you can fill your OEM motor mounts with
  • Black is the stiffest, feeling so hard that it feels like delrin (even though apparently it’s not!)

Motor mount bracket without bushings
Assembly of each motor mount is relatively straight forward. Should be helpful with the pictures below.
Top bushing inserted into bracket
1. Take the mount and insert the desired bushing into the top and bottom of the mount. Be sure to make the bottom bushing completely flat with the mount, which may require a rubber mallet to bang it into place. The top bushing will stick out slightly.
Top of mount with top cover
2. Insert the aluminum top plate (has the four small circles uptop, with a long, threaded cylinder) into the top bushing. Be sure that the four small circles are aligned like the picture, or else they will get in the way of your engine brackets.
Bottom of mount with bottom cover
3. Place the bottom bushing cover at the bottom of the mount so that the flat side is flat against the bottom bushing.
Bottom of mount
4. Using a 6mm hex key, thread the bolt into the bottom hole so that it will secure the bottom and top bushing covers together.
Completed motor mount
5. And now you’re ready to install! Be sure to use the new bolt provided with the motor mounts for the top where the engine bracket connects to the motor mount. One washer per side on the motor mount where it bolts up to the frame of the car.

I'll be installing my set as and giving a mini-review of them sometime in April after the first autocross. Let me know what you think of your set!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Ordered mine last week. Hopefully they ship out soon. My passenger side mount is collapsed, so it should be a major upgrade!

Marc Monnar said...

Yeah? Tell me what you think of them! I should have the car back on the road in a week or so once I'm done with the differential swap.