STEP 1, GET YOUR CAR UP

The weight of the car must be on the suspension. Use a drive on hoist to do this job if you have the use of a hoist. If not, you can use ramps and numerous pieces of thick lumber about 12 inches wide and 14 inches long. Here I would like to add safety is #1 one because dead guys can't work on cars.

If you are going to use ramps and lumber to lift your car.

Back onto ramps with the inside edge of the ramps pushed all the way to the edge of the tire (see illustration). Later, you will need this path clear to work your wrench.

Use a small jack under the driver side to lift the car enough for your big jack in the front.

Then, in the front, lift by the center of the front "K" member. Be carefull about the oil pan, make sure none of the jack is on the oil pan.

Lift your front high enough so that you can put enough lumber under the front tires to equal the height of your rear ramps.

For an extra precaution after the car is resting on the lumber you can return the floor jack so that it is just touching the member.

STEP 2, INSTALL THE SFC'S

Lay an old blanket or towels down on the floor. The SFCs weigh around 20lbs each and I guarantee you will drop one to the floor at least once. You don't want to scratch that pretty powdercoating!

You have three choices when fitting the SFC to the car: create a custom spacer, grind down the lips on the rear chasis, or you can bore out the SFC holes.

Take a look at the downward facing side of the chasis towards the rear of the subframe near the Lower Control Arm (LCA) bolt, and note that the holes in front of the rear control arm bolt (where the SLP bolt goes through) has about a 1/8" lip around the hole from the stamping process.

A. Create a custom spacer the same thickness of the lip and install it between the rear SFC mounting plate and the rear subframe.
B. Use an air grinder with a 3M style pad to grind the lips off. The metal is soft and flattens easily. Be careful not to grind any more than necessary and brush on black Rustoleum where the metal is bare.
=OR=
C. Bore out the SFC holes during the fit check as described later on.

 

Next, loosen and remove the four bolts that hold the cross car brace to chassis, located under tranmision output shaft.

Locate the two bolts and nuts that hold the front ends of rear lower control arms (lca) to chassis. NOTE: Only one lca bolt should be disconnected at a time, otherwise the rear end could roll out.

The drivers side is the hardest because of the heat shield so lets get that out of the way first.

Remove the rear lca bolt that is nearest the front of the car. Hold the sfc up at the rear and align the sfc tab with the lca bolt hole then re-install the lca bolt.

Hold the sfc up at the front and mark where you will need to cut the metal heatshielding that covers the fuel lines. Remove the heat shield to trim it with tin snips, there's a picture of how we trimmed it.

You need to rearrange the lines. There is one large line and two small lines. There is one main clamp on the car body and another smaller clamp between the two smaller lines. Remove the smaller clamp between the two smaller lines.

Notice on the main clamp that there are extra channels/notches above the channels/notches being used. MOve each line one notch up on the main clamp. To do this you will need to loosen the main clamp and the forward heat shield. After that I also used a small tie wrap to secure the lower smaller line to the upper smaller line.

Re-install the heat shield, here is what it looks like with the heat shield reinstalled.

Here is how that area looks after the SFC is on.

Install the two different nut plates into the frame rails. The double threaded hole plate goes through the gap in the front frame rail and the single threaded plate goes in the square opening of the rear rail where your lower control arm is.

Check to see how the holes in the sfc line up with your cars underbody. I think you will find one or more of the holes in the sfc will need to be made larger to line up with the under body. When they weld the underbody parts at the factory there's no thought of someone putting on sfc so each car might be a little different plus the more miles your car has on it the more flexing it has done.

While you are checking for the hole alignment, keep the sfc on the lca bolt. Tighten down the lca nut on the lca bolt, but leave it loose enough where you can swing the sfc up and down to check on the hole alignment progress. Bore out the holes in place under the car with the sfc hanging down. Use an electric rotary tool grinder like a Dremel or a grinder bit on your power drill. Mark any holes that need to be made larger (only remove enough metal in the area that need be, not the whole hole). I used white out to mark the edge of the hole where it needed to be enlarged.

Once all the holes are lined up loose'ly fit the sfc (do not tighten the two center bolts until both sides and the cross car brace are on) When installing the bolts that come with the kit put the lock washer on the bolt first and then the flat washer. Bolts with the SLP SFC's have 16mm (5/8in) heads.

The passenger side is about the same but there's no heat shield to trim.

Once you have both sides on, re-install the cross brace you took off. The subframe connectors should be closest to the chasis and cross car brace goes over that.

Torque the bolts in the following order: Center cross car brace, Front/rear side bolts (any bolts SLP sent), LCA bolts.
Torque Specs:
Cross Car Brace (center) bolts 27 ft/lbs;
Front/rear side bolts (any bolts SLP sent) 59 ft/lbs per SLP;
LCA nut 70 ft/lbs (bolt head 87 ft/lbs).
I should mention here that we used red Lock-tite on all the bolts that came with the kit.

After about 50 miles or so you should check the tightness of each bolt. There are 12 bolts altogether. To aid in spot checks you can mark the position of one corner of each bolt or place a small bead of JB weld along one edge of each bolt head during the initial install. Any movement from the mark or a crack in the JB compound would indicate a change in tightness.