motor plates vs standard mounts

WARRIORWELDING

WARRIORWELDING

Owner opperator Of WarriorWelding LLC.
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Location
Chillin, Hwy 64 Mocksville NC
Open to discussion and pro's and cons of each. Motor plates fore, mid and aft like a drag car? Or standard good ole o.e. style rubbers? And last but not least upgraded fabbed prothane style bushings with dom inserts and housings? Let er rip fellas!

I do know you need to be consistent throughout and I have worked with both the later styles, but I'm tinkering with the idea of motor plates. I have my reservations for one reason only, chasis and or frame flex.....
 
I'm a fan of the "leaf spring" style bushings. Got a set of Ironman motor mounts in one TJ. Fixed its issues nicely. I'm not a fan of mounting the tcase in a similar manner - I think it should have one mount in the center to allow for frame flex. The only one I've ever done differently was a 205 - used a leaf spring bushing from the factory tcase mount to the frame. But those were all cast iron cases and adapters.
 
How much do you like feeling engine and driveline vibes?
 
jeepinmatt said:
How much do you like feeling engine and driveline vibes?
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This^^ You will feel everything plate mounting it. Also locktite and safety wire everything because the vibes can and will loosen fasteners on a regular basis. Also don't try to plate mount an aluminum block unless your chassis is rock solid (iron block either for that matter)
 
Compliant mounts of some type. Don't solid mount it with plates, you'll feed vibration right into the chassis and feed chassis loads right into the block. Blocks don't like to be twisted like that, and no engine that you're going to put into your vehicle is going to be designed for that. Racecars can get away it because they run low miles under well-understood conditions, or have engines that are meant to be semi-stressed.
 
Unless your chassis is a drag car, engine plates are good for flat land straight racers trying to do away with flex entirely. Not for the 4x world. Period.
 
Could you not isolate the plates from the chassis with the puck style poly bushings? I like working with motor plates but all my experience is with track cars. You can handle the vibs for a few minutes but a few hours would be butt numbing for sure
 
All good points. Vibration does not concern me much. I have ideas to combat that.I also realize the chasis would need to be super stiff in the drive line zone. So what does BaJa run? Or the track guys runnin the offroad truck series? I also like the idea of a plate poly hybrid......any thoughts?
 
Dumb question: What have you got against traditional motor mounts? I'm absolutely sure that building a nice captured "tube and spring bushing" style mount would be no challenge for you, would be somewhat compliant, and seems like it would handle most semi-wild builds.
 
Hey Drew, I like motor plates. I have considered them as well.

Here are a few thoughts...

Im afraid if you use a traditional motor plate set up you will break things. We used them exclusively on race cars but those only flex in fractions of an inch and the plates served to stiffen the engine bay of the chassis. I believe offroad rigs flex too much and are subject to much too high shock loading when they bounce and land, to try to set up such a rigid mounting system. And a flexy plate system would seem to negate the reason to run a plate! Maybe there are other factors to consider? I dont know.

Offroad racers run extremely rigid chro-moly chassis. (Ever seen all the triangulation in them?) And I havent noticed motor plates in any of them I have eyeballed! I think things would just continuously crack if they mounted all that weight so rigid.

Nice if an ultra 4 or pro4 racer would jump in here, eh?!
 
Once I installed the Atlas TC in my cab truck, it would rip a stock rubber motor mount apart regularly. The lower gearing increased the load on the motor mounts. I had to upgrade to what everyone is calling the leaf spring bushing in a piece of tubing style. Then the stock transmission mount couldn't hold up either and I had to upgrade it.

In my Samurai, the 1.6 16v motor I bought had the leaf spring bushing in tubing style motor mounts with it from the PO I bought the motor from and they have held up fine. The stock rubber transmission mount gave up after a couple of years though and I had to upgrade to a HD version in it too.

Basically my belief is any off road vehicle that is going to be driven hard needs upgraded HD motor and transmission mounts. If you don't, then it is only a matter of time before they will fail.

I would never attempt to run a solid plate style motor mount on any of my rigs.
 
what about limit straps/chains?
 
WARRIORWELDING said:
Open to discussion and pro's and cons of each. Motor plates fore, mid and aft like a drag car? Or standard good ole o.e. style rubbers? And last but not least upgraded fabbed prothane style bushings with dom inserts and housings? Let er rip fellas!




I do know you need to be consistent throughout and I have worked with both the later styles, but I'm tinkering with the idea of motor plates. I have my reservations for one reason only, chasis and or frame flex.....
Click to expand...

So you are building an electric car???:flipoff2::flipoff2:.......I put the "bomb proof" ENGINE :flipoff2: mounts on my yota and I feel like I am at one of those cheap hotels you put a quarter in the bed. But it's a trail rig so it's ok, now my friend has a nova with solid mount and it is not to bad, so really I have no useful input!! Lol
 
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