Cusco engine mounts

[Ohio Enthusiast]

I installed Cusco engine mounts about 700 miles ago.

Impressions: engine feels tight, especially evident on cold start and when letting off the gas in low gears - barely any movement felt in the car. After my other bushings and inserts mods, I felt that I gotten rid of all the driveline slop. Turns out that there still was some and the engine mounts took care of that. Shifting is even more smooth and precise.
Idle vibrates quite a bit more, especially when cold, and even more so with the AC running. Felt especially in the steering wheel (which I suspect the rack bushings contribute to that). With the AC running vibrations boarder on excessive and uncomfortable and the rearview mirror shakes quite a bit (to the point you can barely see through it). I usually keep my left hand on the steering wheel while stopped, but had to stop doing that because of the idle vibration (to the point that it started numbing my palm). This was slightly improved with break-in, but not by much.
There is a big bark of vibration and noise when taking off. Most of the time I find it quite nice and fun, other times a little annoying. Similarly some vibrations going in 1st and 2nd gear near idle (such as in a parking lot) around 1200-1300 RPM.
During normal driving there's a bit of extra mechanical noise (probably a mix of engine and transmission) and slightly more vibrations, that peaks at around 2500 RPM. Above 2500 RPM and all the way to redline everything smoothens out and there is barely any difference with the mounts from an NVH perspective. The 2500 RPM point does have extra vibration and noise, especially noticeable doing 20 MPH in 2nd gear (school zone) and 45 MPH in 5th gear (both right at 2500 RPM). With the RPM lower or higher it mostly goes away.
During highway cruising there is a bit of extra engine noise but no noticeable vibrations above 3000 RPM (60 MPH and above). It helps drown out some tire noise, so I'm happy with that.

Installation: Removed the aluminum skid plate, removed the nuts holding the mounts, jacked up the engine by the oil pan (didn't remove or loosen anything else). Removed the steering rack bolts and let it hang, which gave good access to the rear bolts holding the mounts to the engine. With my stock header (which for the 2017+ cars appears to have a different and bigger heat shield than older cars) it was impossible to access the front mount bolts. Ended up unbolting the header from the car (nuts were tight but not too bad, but couldn't remove the header from the front pipe) which gave enough access with a 1/2" universal joint and socket to get to the front bolts. The mounts came out fairly easily, just kept rotating them around.
The Cusco mounts are quite a bit heavier than stock, and you need to tighten two bolts per mount before installation (which is quite a pain to do as there is nothing to stop the mount from rotating while torquing them down, and I'm sure there wouldn't be access to tighten them once bolted to the engine). Wiggling the mounts back into place was easier than taking the OEM mounts out thanks to a somewhat smaller size. It was quite a pain getting the bolts holding the mount to the engine started, between holding the heavy mount overhead and the tight access. After that torquing everything down was a breeze.

Prior mods: I have all of the other driveline bushings and inserts - transmission mount insert, front and rear shifter mounts, diff inserts and rear subframe inserts. Also have steering rack bushings and front control arm bushings (front and rear). On top of that a Billetworkz short shifter.

Conclusion: I'm very happy with the mounts. They add to the raw feel of the car and for me the extra vibration and noise are not a deal breaker (and I don't think you could have both rawness and no NVH increase). However, someone more sensitive to vibrations and/or spending more time in stop-go traffic will probably not appreciate it.