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Posted by: Amenson Aug 11 2006, 01:49 PM

As the title states my project has turned a critical corner. After may months of planning and measuring and prognosticating how great it will be, I put down the sand blaster and stripping pad and got down to real work.

I purchased my 914 with the plan of dong this swap. The motor is from my ex-daily driver that I managed to shorten a bit. The 914 that I am starting with has been restored once before and had a decent autocross suspension. The first thing I did to it was to upgrade the front calipers to 3-series BMW. It is not perfect but is pretty clean and straight. The only part that had not been repainted was found behind the heat/sound pad in the engine compartment. The plan is to repair some shoddy patch work in the battery tray area and repaint the engine compartment once all of the fab work is complete for the swap.

Project details:

Engine:

’05 Subaru STi

Trans:

Stock…for now

Adapter Plate/Clutch:

Kennedy Engineering adapter plate and Stage 3 clutch.

Engine Mount:

Modified Small Car Performance mounts bolted to the stock engine bar. The solid body mounts at the ends of the bar have been replaced with stiff 911 mounts. The engine bar has been modified to accommodate the mounts without changing the position of the bar.

Oil Pan:

I will probably take the easy way out and have Small Car Performance shorten and box out the stock pan.

Exhaust:

Custom exhaust will be made starting with Outback stub headers. 2” tubing will be run to the turbo from each header. Exhaust from the turbo will be 3” SS to a straight through MagnaFlow muffler. The exhaust will exit in the stock location (maybe people will not notice anything unusual about the car when they pull up next to it).

Electrical:

The entire electrical system will be taken from the STi harness with unnecessary parts removed. This may seem like a lot of effort but it will provide a much needed update to the old stock harness and allow me to still develop my digital display product. It will also make it straight forward to use the throttle by wire.

Cooling:

Ron Davis 28” x 16” x 3” double pass radiator mounted in the front vented through the hood like wbergtho’s. The current plan is to run the cooling lines through the center tunnel.

Steering:

The stock steering column will be replaced by a shortened STi column. This will allow use easy use of the of the stalk switches and more importantly, the RF ID security key system. Initial measurements show that this will be fairly straight forward to do and will also give the benefit of adjustable steering wheel height.

Seating:

Momo Start. These seats were chosen because of the FIA certified seats they have the thinnest seat cushion and are bottom mounted to allow for the lowest possible seating position (they are also quite economical). I tried a set of Corbeau seats that I had from another project and I hardly fit in the car at all much less with a helmet on.

Belts:

For the road I am going to run Schroth Rallye Cross 4-points. They are DOT approved and have a quick latch mechanism. I will install 6 points for track use.

Intercooler:

A 25” x 12” x 3” Ebay bar and plate front mount intercooler will be mounted to the top of the engine. While this is not ideal, the intercooler will get quite a bit of fresh air from in front of the engine. The engine lid will be modified to a GT style so that as much air can flow through the area as possible. 3” Al tubing will be run from the turbo to the intercooler and on to the throttle body.

Oiling:

A remote filter/cooler is necessary because the stock oil/water cooler does not quite fit with the engine mount in place.

Unresolved Items:

Turbo placement.

It is awfully tight under there even with some of the sheet metal removed. We will find out on Saturday, that is when the exhaust will come together.

Cooling lines:

The plan is to run them through the tunnel in thin walled Al or SS tubing. With the heater control and throttle cable tubes removed, two 1” od test tubes fit to the front of the tunnel. I would like to use slightly larger tubes and still need to fit the fuel and brake lines. The tightest spot is right at the shifter. I am considering widening the tunnel at this point.

Throttle Pedal:

I am not sure how to mount the STi electronic throttle. In the Suby it is top pivoting. This may be uncomfortable with the floor pivot brake and clutch pedals. I have also considered linking the throttle sensor to the stock 914 pedal. This will have to wait until I have seats in the car again.

Starter:

Not really a problem…just have not picked one out yet.

Wipers:

I have not yet checked if the STi wiper control system will run the 914 wiper motor.

As much as possible items will be mounted to the engine in a way that will allow for minimal disassembly when removing the engine/trans. The current exhaust/turbo plumbing plan should all come out with the engine with the exception of the supply to the turbo.

Timing….the goal is to have it ready for the track day at Mid Ohio on Oct. 6th. This is a bit aggressive, especially considering that I will be vacationing in London for 8 days at the end of the month. I have been making great progress the past month and I have most of the critical parts already. Just need to keep plugging along and hope that my friends keep helping. Without them this project would not be possible.

Now for the important stuff…the pictures.

This is the engine that I started with, it came out of my daily driver STi that came to an untimely death:


When the timing belt broke 2 valves were bent so a teardown was necessary:



Due to the obscene cost of the Subaru tools to remove the valves I, made my own:



Put the engine back together and attached it to the trans:



Slipped it into place and attached the trans mounts:



Here is a picture of the unmodified Small Car Performance engine brackets mounted to the bottom of the engine. They wrapped nicely around the oil pan. There was a slight interference between the water line from the oil/water cooler that required a notch.

Posted by: Amenson Aug 11 2006, 01:50 PM

Then spent hours and hours getting it to the right level and notching the brackets fit the stock engine bar. It is a little tight to the water pump housing. Otherwise there is plenty of room.



Lots of room in the front for air to get to the intercooler:



Welding a cross piece between the brackets that will bolt to the stock engine bar.



It was a bit tight welding under the car so we only partially welded it on the car.


Finish welding was done on a bench, fixtured to make sure that it did not move.



Done!



On the car…look ma, no jacks!




You may have noticed that a notch was taken out of the top of the mount. This is a mistake and is not necessary. While the mount is very solid and should do its job very well, it is not as tidy as I would prefer. I may make another one paying a bit more attention to the finish portion of “Fit & Finish.” Now that I have this one made it would be easy to make a jig to make another mount.

You also probably noticed that everything looks pretty bad in the engine compartment. I am partially through stripping/restoring the engine compartment. I took a break from that work to do the more interesting fabrication work. The engine/trans need to come out again so that I can run the cooling, fuel and brake lines. The beautification will be completed at this time.

I am sure that I missed some details so feel free to ask questions. Also feel free to use my mount design. If you order the parts from Small Car Performance, mention this post...maybe if a few people order the parts I can get a discount on my oil pan work.

More pictures to come as more work gets done.

Scott

Posted by: TonyAKAVW Aug 11 2006, 02:02 PM

COOL!!! It will be really interesting to see how this engine works with a 901 transmission. Sounds like you have quite a project on your hands but you've identified a lot of the tricky aspects. I'll definitely be watching whatever progress is posted.

-Tony

Posted by: JerryP Aug 11 2006, 02:10 PM

Wow...good luck.

Posted by: Travis Neff Aug 11 2006, 02:44 PM

Very cool project, and ambitious one at that!

I'll be watching!

Posted by: fiid Aug 11 2006, 02:53 PM

NICE WORK!!!

That's a new approach to the engine mount problem - very interested to see how that works - looks like you have all the bases covered.

Where are you planning to put the turbo? Do you think you have enough space for the shift linkage?

Posted by: Amenson Aug 11 2006, 03:05 PM

I have had the shift linkage installed (not sure why I don't have a picture) and it works as well as stock. The exhaust tube that will connect the left header to the turbo needs to make a slight jog around the shifter shaft but that is not a problem. The turbo will go behind the right head, as far up and to the right as possible. I hope to have the pressure side of the exhaust done tomorrow so we will find out soon if my plan will work.

Scott

Posted by: Loser_Cruiser Aug 11 2006, 04:10 PM

Im sorry for asking, I may not have read enoguh yet, but did you make those mounts your self or buy them and adapt them for your purpose? BTW awesome project. hopefully I will be doing this in the future.

Posted by: Rotary'14 Aug 11 2006, 09:37 PM

I like your engine mount too.

-Rob

Posted by: mongrel-gs Aug 11 2006, 09:42 PM

Very Nice! That's going to be a fun ride!

Posted by: BKLA Aug 11 2006, 09:50 PM

Keep the pic's and stories coming!!!

Nice job!

Posted by: boogerboy72 Aug 12 2006, 05:36 AM

your engine mount looks awesome. Looks like i found a simplier one to replicate for my project did yuo buy the brackets somewhere? link please?

Posted by: Amenson Aug 12 2006, 07:19 AM

Thank you for all of the positive feedback.

I guess that I did not mention Small Car Performance enough times as the supplier of the brackets that I used, so here it is again...in link form.

http://www.smallcar.com/sparts.htm

It is the "Subaru 4 Cylinder to Vanagon Engine Mount Adaptor"

Off to make the exhaust...

Scott

Posted by: Porcharu Aug 12 2006, 08:46 AM

Interesting engine mount. That is almost exactly how I am doing mine (just an N/A 2005 RS engine) except I am not using the stock engine bar. I'm using the 911 sport mounts at all 4 corners.

Posted by: DNHunt Aug 12 2006, 09:34 AM

I've dealt with Small Car Performance many times. They also supply type IV stuff. I usually get my Mahle oil filters, and consummables from them. Good people. They do conversions in their shop and keep trying to get me do this same conversion. The last time I was in there they had a WRX engine sitting on the floor and thet keept saying it had my name on it.

Dave

Posted by: Loser_Cruiser Aug 12 2006, 12:21 PM

Do you think the shift rod will have to be changed at all?

Posted by: Aaron Cox Aug 12 2006, 12:38 PM

"cooling lines thru center tunnel"

bad idea....

ask 'series9' how much of a PITA it was to do smaller 6cylfront cooler lines....

go thru the heater tubes/outside of longs/under car/ etc....

Posted by: 914-8 Aug 12 2006, 12:48 PM

Wow, youse gots some serious tools and workspace! And it looks like you know how to use them.

Cool project, keep the updates and pics flowing!

Posted by: Amenson Aug 13 2006, 11:18 AM

When I ordered my parts from Small Car Performance they told me that one other person had ordered them for a 914 Suby conversion...I guess that would be you. Do you have any pictures of your setup? I checked your blog but did not see any.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Aug 13 2006, 02:49 PM

We made most of the pressure side exhaust yesterday. We did not finish because I messed up the tube order and ended up one bend short. Still need to finish the collector into the turbo and final weld the seams, it is now only tacked.

The turbo fits! It was tight but clears everything. The final position will be slightly different than what is shown in the picture, it is only sitting on the tube right now so it rotated a bit.



It took a little more than anticipated to get around the shifter shaft.... The clutch pulley will need to be rotated slightly.



The major problem with the turbo location is caused by the waste gate actuator. It would be a much better fit if an external waste gate turbo were used. When I upgrade the trans I will also upgrade the turbo. This is why I did not make this part of the exhaust out of SS, the rest will be.

Scott

Posted by: Rotary'14 Aug 13 2006, 07:09 PM

exhaust looks sweet! keep the enthusiasm up! If I go subie,, I'll use your car for inspiration and as a guide.

-Rob

Posted by: Amenson Aug 17 2006, 06:41 PM

Not much progress this week...partially because I was waiting on some parts and partially because I had some stitches on my chin to keep clean. I made it 30 years doing careless and generally stupid things without having to be stitched up and I ruin the streak by running into somebody during an indoor soccer game.

Today my intercooler arrived and it looks like it will fit very well...there is actually room for a much longer one but this one is sized properly and allows access to the dipstick, oil filler and water tank.





I am probably going to relocate the in/outlets to the end of the tanks pointing toward the rear of the engine. This will make the plumbing much shorter.

The seat also came in this week.



Hopefully I can get the pressure side of the exhaust done this weekend...although with the Dream Cruise going on this weekend I may not get much done.

Scott

Posted by: zaphod750 Sep 25 2006, 09:49 PM

Awsome project...I say this because im doing something similar. Was wondering what parts of the harness you plan to keep? I have a 2004 sti engine that I am putting in my 914, and I have gotten rid of everything that doesnt connect to the engine as far as wiring is concerned, and i was interested in what parts you are keeping...cruise, gauges, etc? Cant wait to see how yours turns out...looks like you will be done a lot sooner than me, I got caught up in some rust repair..

Posted by: banksyinoz Sep 26 2006, 03:38 AM

cheers great work on the sti transplant we have an 04 with the six speed over here and it looks nuts,

q: are you bolting the engine bar directly to the block or using the suby mounts, just curious?????

hey your exhaust looks awesome but will it cause boost to be later? not that its a problem.

the wiring is definetly the best way to go, just quietly been lookin at the suby 3.0 six quad cam

great work keep it up

Posted by: GS Guy Sep 26 2006, 07:22 AM

Great looking conversion Scott.
I might be the person Small Car was talking about using their mounts? I bought a set of the side pieces for my Suby conversion, going onto a 914 trans (though not in a 914 vehicle) back earlier this year.
Comment - on the oil pan. As you know, the Small Car mounts severely restrict what kind of oil pan you can use. I went with Outback and they were very specific that I use their "mid-engine" version pan, which wasn't listed in their literature at the time. According to Outback, when you shorten the pan 1.5" and the pickup a corresponding amount, it moves the pickup head forward in the pan. This, in conjunction with the angled shape at the rear of the pan can cause starvation problems during hard acceleration - oil runs back away from the pickup and up the back of the pan. Their mid-engine pan locates the pickup more towards the rear and a small kick-out is boxed at the rear of the pan. Something to think about for your conversion - pic attached.

Question - can you tell me how far below the head exhaust surface the Outback primary tubes hang? I've got limited room below the heads for exhaust routing, couple of lower chassis tubes below the heads.
Great looking intercooler BTW!
Cheers, Jeff



Attached image(s)

Posted by: Amenson Sep 26 2006, 09:21 PM

Not much to report so I will first answer the questions.

-Harness: I am keeping everything that has a corresponding system in the 914. The list of things that will not go in is shorter and includes things like ABS, DCCD, power locks/doors and HVAC. Other than that, the car will think that it is an STi.

-The exhaust should not cause any lag. With smoother bends and merges, and slightly shorter routing (virtually no up-pipe) on the pre-turbo side and a 3", very short, only marginally muffled and cat-less post exhaust, spool up should be a bit sooner. Not that it really matters with the tiny stock turbo.

-Oil Pan: I have not yet decided. I am thinking about doing my own but am considering going with the small car pan+baffling to save a bit of fabrication. The Outback pan sticks down a bit to far for my liking.

-The headers are the Outback Mid-engine "shorty" headers. They stick down about an inch less than the Small Car motor mounts.

GS Guy...what are you building?

It has been over a month since my last update, here is what I have been up to...

-Trip to London, 10 days plus packing/recovery time really ate up garage time. Great fun though.
-Wiring my buddies soon to be 30 psi Audi 200 20v with a stand alone ECU. This ate up much of the last week but turned out great and was quite fun.
-Pulled apart and figured out how to modify and mount the Suby steering column.
-Cut up the shiny new intercooler to move the inlet and outlet to the ends of the end tanks.
-Replaced the alternator and troubleshot a rich condition in my daily driver (Galant VR4). Every time I turn up the boost something seems to go wrong.
-...and more weekend social events than I care to think about. Fun stuff but bad for progress.

So, not much progress. I hope to get back at it tomorrow.

Thanks for the kind words.

Scott

Posted by: eric914 Oct 2 2006, 07:02 AM

I have been in contace with Brian Steel at small car and they will sell the side pieces and hardware from the Van motor mount for $185. No point in paying for a piece you do not need.

Posted by: jsteele22 Oct 2 2006, 08:59 AM

Just stumbled across this thread. Very nice work. I like the engine mount idea a lot : small, simple, and easy for others to copy.

One thing I didn't quite follow. Where the stock 914 engine bar bolts to the chassis, is there some kind of motor mount (vibration damper) that you inserted ? If not, where are the front engine mounts ? If so, does this lower the bar ?

Sounds like you're on an ambitious schedule ! Keep up the good work !

Posted by: Amenson Oct 2 2006, 08:42 PM

jsteele22: The motor mounts are at the ends of the slightly modified stock engine bar. I gave an explanation in my (long winded) first post. You can see the mounts in most of the pictures.

iric914: Small Car worked out the same deal for me. They are a great supplier.

I made a bit of progress this weekend. The Suby steering column is installed.

Here is the modified shaft:



Here is the old and the new, notice that the stock u-joint fit the suby spline. The section I removed from the shaft is laying against the wall...it is about half as long as it started:



Installed, it is positioned very high in this picture...the comfortable position is much lower:



It adjusts up and down but also rotates around the adjuster so I need to make a pivot at the end of the column. Not a big deal just a little more work. As hoped the suby wheel is closer to the driver than the stock so the driving position should be much more comfortable for me.

I also spent some time on the exhaust but did not finish it so no pictures.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Oct 8 2006, 06:23 PM

Finally finished the pre-turbo exhaust. I think that it turned out pretty well. Still need to finish weld all of the seams.





I started to mount the muffler side of the exhaust only to find that the muffler does not fit behind the skirt very well. I will need to find a smaller one or modify the the one that I have. Now it will be even louder.

Probably will not make much more progress this month. I leave for a 2 week business trip to Japan on Friday.

Enjoy,
Scott

Posted by: zaphod750 Mar 11 2007, 06:20 PM

any news on the conversion??

inquiring minds want to know..

Posted by: Amenson Mar 14 2007, 09:33 PM

Unfortunately there has not been much progress. Due to considerable business and pleasure travel this winter/spring plus a move to a new house, I have not even seen the project much. The good news is that the new house has a big enough garage so that I can set up shop at home instead of using my buddies shop. This should allow me to make progress much more quickly.

I did accomplish a few things since the last post:

Finished welding the header




Modified the intercooler



Hopefully progress will start up again within 2 weeks. My friends have started planning for Power Tour 2007 at the beginning of June and I would really like to take the PorSTi.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jun 22 2007, 09:29 PM

Well, it's been a while since the last update. Have not stopped working on the project, just too busy to document it.

Moved the car to it's new home at the end of April. Yup, it is sitting next to a potential donor car, my girlfriends '05 Legacy.



Had the header ceramic coated. I went with the silver because it was supposed to be the most durable color. Not a huge fan of the chrome look though. Based on my buddies header with the same coating, after it heats up a few times it should dull a bit.



Decided to take the easy, although expensive route and order a shortened oilpan from Outback Motorsports. Shown next to the stock Suby oilpan.



Ordered an aluminum fuel cell from Summit Racing. Fits really well!






....

Posted by: Amenson Jun 22 2007, 09:42 PM

...

Modified the stock turbo flange for the 3" ss exhaust.



New oilpan, exhaust and turbo flange installed.



Mock-up of the exhaust. The outlet of the muffler will be in the stock location of the rear valance...maybe nobody will notice that it is a bit bigger than stock





...

Posted by: Amenson Jun 22 2007, 09:45 PM

...

Got engaged...in the nose of a B-17 "Flying Fortresses" flying up the Detroit River!!!





Finished a few more things but can not find the pictures right now. Will post again soon.

Scott

Posted by: scotty b Jun 22 2007, 09:46 PM

That's going to be one wicked ride ! What if anything will you be doing to the body? While I am generally in favor of body mods....keeping the stock appearance would be a killer sleeper

Posted by: neo914-6 Jun 22 2007, 10:20 PM

Great work! Makes me want to get back to my project...

That must've been fun to fly in a B-17, did you get in the turret?

Posted by: bigkensteele Jun 23 2007, 12:13 AM

Congratulations on your engagement! However, you will now need to finish the car asap. Free-time as you know it will cease to exist. There will be wedding planning, which is Hell on Earth if you have to be even remotely involved. After the ceremony, I found that my attendance was required to events that were once optional. We needed to spend more time together. I would rather work on my car than be with her. Yada, yada. Then we had kids, who are currently 5 and 1. While I love them with no bounds, they are not conducive to leisure time in the garage, unless you are married to a true saint.

Was that out loud? Sorry. I think that I might be a little jealous of your free-time and more importantly, your skills. Your project, and work is incredible.

Posted by: Blood red 914-6gt Jun 23 2007, 12:26 AM

Wow that is reat work. I wish I had the talent to do all the fab work you are doing. Keep it up.

PS. tat's cool that you got to fly in a B-17. My grandfather was a belly gunner.

Posted by: Amenson Jun 23 2007, 08:44 AM

Thanks to everybody for the kind words and congratulations.

-I am going to leave the body stock for now. Eventually it will need flares of some sort so that I can put some decent rubber on it.

-The only place on the plane that we could not go was the belly turret. I asked several different members of the ground and flight crews hoping that somebody would let me in.

-My free time should be safe until kids come into the picture, which will be a few years yet. My fiancee fully supports work on the 914...she came over and introduced herself for the first time while I was working on it!

-The plane was pretty darn loud. Not so loud though that I could not ask the question

Scott

Posted by: Blood red 914-6gt Jun 23 2007, 10:52 AM

That's awsome you found a good lady. My wife likes me making my 914 better. She wants me to win. Rather competitive woman;) Even when the kids come along I am sure you will have 914 time. You have to get away from the for sanity sake sometimes. I also have my 10 monthy old with me all day, and he likes making car noises.

On the belly, you have to be very folded up to sit in there. They had one at an air show near my house when I was 10, and when they found out my grandfather was killed in there they let my dad and I sit in it. I could fit as I was a little kid, but my dad was too tall at 5'6". I guess my grandfather was 5'6" as well but very thin. Sounds like a very creative way to propose. Nice work and congratulation.

Posted by: GS Guy Jun 25 2007, 07:34 PM

Man - you've got to get one of these to to finish off that awesome turbo exhaust!



PM me for details.
Conversion is looking good - can't wait to see how you plumb the intercooler.

Jeff

Posted by: Amenson Jun 25 2007, 08:32 PM

Very cool turbo outlet, I sent you a PM to find out where you got it.

I made a bit of progress this weekend. Finally got the turbo apart so that I could port the waste gate hole. It took a torch and a big soft hammer and then some very careful prying. The porting is necessary to avoid boost creep with a low back pressure exhaust.



Made a frame to mount the fuel cell. Still need to weld it in and make some straps to hold the cell down to it.



I have the engine out so that I can cut the engine shelf out of the engine bay and fix some rust. Could not resist to pose the PorSti engine with my daily driver...'05 STi II. Hopefully I do not make this one into a donor car also.



This pic shows the engine compartment w/o the engine shelf. I ordered some POR-15 and plan to seal everything up this week.



Scott

Posted by: mrdezyne Jun 27 2007, 04:50 PM

Excellent work! Love the mount, much easier than what I had planned and it looks like it provides plenty of room for exhaust. One quick question.... I think the Renegade mount raises the motor and moves it forward so you can use the stock Suby oil pan, if you had not notched the Small Car mount do you think it would have raised the motor enough to keep from cutting the oil pan? Difference might be using the 2.5 NA as opposed to the 2.0 STI turbo model. Any insight would be appreciated. At this point I'm looking for ways to cut my build time down and get mine rolling again. Your mount looks straight forward enough it should save a ton of time.

Posted by: Amenson Jun 27 2007, 07:09 PM

I mounted the engine so that the crank is parallel to the floor of the car, which turns out to be about as low as you can go and still use an oilpan. My STi engine is also an EJ25 although you may have a different oilpan as the late model engines have a different oil pan. Maybe your pan is shorter. It seams like you would have to raise the motor a whole lot to use the stock oil pan and not have it be the lowest part of the car. The Outback pan is only 4.25" deep and it is just barley above the bottom of the car.

This is the best picture that I could find that shows the position of the oilpan with respect to the cross bar and the bottom of the car. The cross bar is in the stock location.



Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jun 30 2007, 01:53 PM

Made some more progress cleaning up the engine compartment. Man, does it take a long time to cleanly remove all of the extra brackets, etc. I would probably be done with the conversion by now had I not decided to do some extra cleanup and restoration work at the same time. Tis' the right thing to do though.

I finally built up the guts to cut out the hell hole rust.



I also figured out how to hold down the fuel cell...use the stock fuel tank strap!!



I will need another one for the other side. Anybody have an extra one lying around?

Should make some serous progress this week because I took the entire week off of work Won't get to spend all 9 days off on the car, I will be going up to Mackinac Island next weekend for a quick vacation.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 2 2007, 08:58 PM

Made a couple patch panels today. I am really pleased with how they turned out. The large one fits better than it looks, I could not hold it in place and take the picture at the same time.



Will weld them in tomorrow.

I am going to Por15 the entire engine compartment tomorrow as well. Does anybody have any experience with por15 over paint. The instructions say that it is OK but warns that it adheres better to rough metal. I would prefer not to have to remove all of the paint but if the por15 is not going to stick I will have to.

Scott

Posted by: Blood red 914-6gt Jul 2 2007, 11:49 PM

Hey Scott

I would just rough up the paint. Paint adhears to a rough surface the best. Doesn't need to be barfe metal as long as it is rough.

Posted by: ChrisNPDrider Jul 3 2007, 12:44 AM

Nice photo of the side by side STIs
I also have a potential donor Suby as a daily driver. I really hope it never gets totaled, leaving me a free/salvaged EJ25 for my 80 HP 914

Posted by: RoninEclipse2G Jul 3 2007, 10:18 AM

Awesome work!

this thread really makes me want another teener to do a suby swap in, I love the handeling of the creamsicle but I also love the power the WRX gives me.

Posted by: TonyAKAVW Jul 3 2007, 11:05 AM

Your pictures of the engine bay look nearly identical to mine. I sanded mine down to almost the identical level of remaining paint. Instead of POR15 I used ZeroRust. I ahve used both ZeroRust and POR15 now and I definitely prefer the ZeroRust over POR15. When using POR15 I have always prepped the surface properly and still have adhesion problems after a year+. By and large the POR15 sticks but there are spots where I've had to retouch it. (this is for the interior primarily)

I sprayed the engine bay (with a paint gun) with two coats of ZeroRust. First coat was black, and the second coat was grey. I purposefully used two different colors because it allowed me to really make sure that I had the right thickness. So far (going on 10 months of continuous use, most of that with an engine bay radiator and its associated dirt, etc.) the paint is holding up perfectly. You can buy ZeroRust in spray cans as well.

-Tony

Posted by: Brian Mifsud Jul 3 2007, 01:12 PM

Scott,

This is really nice work. Are you a fabricator by trade? I am planning on getting a stainless exhaust system ceramic coated.



It appears you had the flex coupling ceramic coated. Will that crack and break down the coating for interfere with the "accordian" pleats inside? How about on the braided stainless. Is the coating "bridging" the weave, or is it adhearing to individual 'wires'?

This is part of my custom system for an non 914 vehicle, but the application is similar:

Posted by: GTeener Jul 3 2007, 03:59 PM

Attached image(s)

Posted by: JPB Jul 3 2007, 05:20 PM

You are one sick and twisted individual!!!! How can I be like you?

Posted by: Amenson Jul 3 2007, 08:54 PM

Nope, not a fabricator...I am electrical and mechanical engineer by training, currently managing software development for a living. I do almost all of the fab work, up to tacking parts together, myself and then have one of my friends do the finish welding. If you look closely at todays picture, you will see that my welding skills are not so great yet.

I made some more progress today (need to take more days off of work to work on the project!). The hell hole is repaired and part of the engine compartment is painted.



I did find some more rust by the driver's side jacking point. Will need to fix that...later. I have had enough rust repair for this week. The goal for tomorrow is to get the rest of the engine compartment painted and while that is drying, weld in the fuel cell bracket so that I can start working on the radiator mount.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 4 2007, 07:55 AM

Sorry, forgot to answer this question...

I am not sure how the coating on the flex joint is going to work out. The guys at the coating shop said that it will be OK...they have a very good reputation. For the most part each wire is coated and it still flexes fine. We will just have to wait and see.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 15 2007, 09:39 PM

Took a big item off of the to do list this afternoon. Pretty much finished the exhaust!!

Here is a picture of it on the ground:



Installed!!!!!



As always, I still need to have one of my buddies finish welding it.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 18 2007, 09:20 PM

I fit the engine cover on tonight to make sure that the intercooler fits beneath it...it does!!!





I am going to make a GT style, fully vented engine cover to allow the air to get through the intercooler a better. Is there a source (Grainger or somebody) for the expanded metal that matches the stock stuff?

Scott

Posted by: MrKona Jul 18 2007, 09:48 PM

Nice work, I'm really enjoying watching this thread. Maybe this topic from the classics by Eric Shea will help you with the GT-style lid.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=6167

Posted by: fat73 Jul 18 2007, 10:23 PM

Scott

Is this engine a "drive by wire" throttle body? Wondering why you swapped out the steering wheel? I'm building an '02 stock body also. Thinking of going twin turbo and moving the turbos back to the rear end similar to a 935.

Ed aka W9R1
'73 914 w/2003 WRX EJ20
'06 Subaru Forester 2.5 XT

Posted by: Crazyhippy Jul 18 2007, 10:31 PM

MUCH better off sticking w/ common Scooby stuff. You know it will work, what turbo works w/ what motor etc.

I'm waiting for my 8CM TD06-20G to show up along w/ a new intercooler. Should be over 350HP at the wheels, going to try for 400 on C-16

BJH

Posted by: Amenson Jul 19 2007, 11:36 AM

Ya, it is throttle by wire. Also, it has a security key so without the ignition cylinder and key the ecu will refuse to do much of anything.

Thanks for the GT lid link...that will help. Now I need to add another engine lid to my shopping list.

Scott

Posted by: fat73 Jul 19 2007, 10:26 PM

Precisely...but what about using one of the (much less expensive) twin turbo'd engines and just moving the turbos down and back to the rear (to avoid having to cut the trunk area), with stock ECU stuff?

By the way....that setup of yours should be crazy stupid fast.

Oy yeah...I'm going to the dupont registry magazine meet here in Clearwater this Saturday at 7am to what they call the Cars and Coffee meet.

They have some insane cars show up there from what I've seen on http://www.myspace.com/carsandcoffee

At least one of the other local 914ers is going too. I'll post pics.

Ed aka W9R1

Posted by: Amenson Jul 22 2007, 10:11 AM

Had a few buddies over to help yesterday and we made some really good progress. ...ok, and had a few beers also.

Made the Radiator support and welded in the fuel cell frame:



Installed:



Made the outlet of the exhaust and the rear intercooler support:



Going to try to get the fuel lines run and the rear brakes/prop valve plumbed today.

One month until Woodward Dream cruise...need to get this thing running so I can go up to Pontiac and show the hot rod guys how to make some smoke!

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 23 2007, 05:20 PM

Progress from Sunday:

Installed new brake lines in the rear:



Finally buttoned up the timing belt:



I think that the single most difficult part of the entire project was dealing with the damn cam pullies. Getting them off in the first place, especially the broken ones, and getting them torqued back down w/o the Subaru special tools has been a real pain in the butt. I ended up pushing the engine 2 blocks down to the Subaru dealership to use their tools. I can probably install the timing belt while sleeping now.

While checking the cam timing I rotated the engine and found that the starter is partially engagued. I have one of the recommended eBay high torque gear reduction starters. I am going to install my old starter to see if I have partial engagement with that one also.

Is a shim required to use this starter normally. Could my flywheel be the problem? I have a Renegade flywheel/adapter plate made for the engine/trans combination.

Scott

Posted by: ChrisNPDrider Jul 23 2007, 06:37 PM

Nice progress!
My mini-starter fit fine, but others have the same problem. One actually thrashed the flywheel due to the limited engagement. Use the *search* on the upper right link and try searching for "starter" in titles...there was a good discussion recently where mcMark talked about shimming the mount to match the starter gear on the flywheel teeth better - again, in some cases this problem exists but not all. Good luck

Posted by: RS22b Jul 23 2007, 07:23 PM

i must say, this has got to be one of the most complete STi conversions i have seen. Would love to do the same kinda thing someday. Not sure if it will come sooner than later, but would love for it to come sooner than later

Are you on nasioc as well?

As you can see by my sig im a subaru junkie as well, but the 914 was first.

cant wait to see the final product!
g/l

_billy

PS: dont throw any of that subaru stuff away! before you do, let me know

Posted by: Amenson Jul 23 2007, 10:30 PM

Thanks for the tip. I am a little less irritated by the situation now. Guess that I have to add one more thing to the "to make" list.

RS22b, I am on nasioc but I rarely read it and pretty much never post. I have sold almost all of the STi stuff already. All that is left are the struts, rocker covers, front subframe and a few other small odds and ends. Oh, center console and carpet also...but only because I had a non-paying idiot win those items on eBay.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 26 2007, 09:07 PM

Made a little more progress today. The intercooler no longer needs a board and roll of tape to hold it up. I flattened the ends and bent up some 3/8" SS fuel line. I think that it worked out well although do need to adjust the back of the intercooler up a bit as I can no longer remove the coolant cap.





The fuel lines are next on the list.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 30 2007, 09:29 PM

Got a bit more work done the last couple of days.

Made the through tunnel fuel lines. Also had the exhaust welded and installed the O2 bungs, as always it turned out great...this project would not be going so well without the help of my buddies:



Mocked up the turbo to intercooler piping...need to tack it into place and have it welded:





It looks like I am going to need to remove the engine lid latch to clear the IC tubing on the other side. I was really hoping to avoid doing this.

Somebody buy my 2.0L...I mean 1.7/1.8L http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=74560, the project fund is running low!

Scott

Posted by: charliew Aug 2 2007, 06:07 PM

Hi Scott, I'm pretty new to this forum but I'm lovin it. It's like a gold mine to me. Is the turbo going to drain oil back ok? I'm trying to use a twin turbo and am interested in the positioning of yours. Also are you aware that a light crank pulley creates harmonics that disturb the oil pump? I'm not positive on this but it's something I read on nasioc. You can take this with a grain of salt. I put my original pulley back on though. I will have plenty of power without the risk. Also we have found a better oil pump lately thats discussed on nasioc. Don't worry if your not going to be bouncing of the rev. limiter. Hope the tranny holds up. I really enjoy your thread.
Charlie

Posted by: Amenson Aug 3 2007, 11:05 AM

Charlie,
Thank you for the tip on the pulley, I will look into it. I still have my original but it was scuffed in the accident so I replace it. I don't think that I will get to use the full rev's all that much anyways.

As for the turbo oil drain, I am going to try to use the stock block return modified a bit to point in the correct direction. I also have a fitting for the oil pan if that does not look like it will work.

I hope the tranny hold up also!

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Aug 14 2007, 09:36 PM

Have not posted in a while because I have not made any interesting progress. I have been plugging way on a load of small projects:

Made the spacer for the starter
Made the flange for the blow off valve
Started removing the engine lit latch
Test fit the clutch cable
Modified the clutch pulley housing to lower the clutch cable under the exhaust
Started running the cooling lines. This was a bit of a set back. I purchased gates 75w marine type colling line. The specified bend radius was 12 inches. I figure that I could cheat it a little...I was wrong. It creases quite easily. Now I am going to have to put a few stainless steel bends where I need to make a tight direction change. I know, more places to leak but I do not have much of an option right now.

On the brighter side, I proved once again that good things do come from eBay!!! I got an '83 CS front suspension for $285 + shipping which was only $55 because the seller let me arrange shipping through my BAX account.





You can see one of the 4-pot billet calipers that I plan to use both front and rear in the above picture. As this is not a critical part of the project at this point I promptly disassembled the parts so that they would fit into bins and stored them away until winter.

So needless to say, with Woodward Dream Cruise coming up this weekend I will not be participating with the PorSTi. I will be having a party for it Saturday night. If anybody is planning to be in the area and wants to stop by for a beer and check out the project I am a block east of Woodward in Ferndale...just send me a PM and I will give you the details.

Scott

Posted by: Brando Aug 14 2007, 10:36 PM

Quick question...

Since this is a water-pumper, how will you be moving air through the engine bay (and the intercooler) when sitting at idle or at low speeds? Running big high-flow fans?

Posted by: pffft Aug 14 2007, 11:48 PM

Why would you need to? It won't be making any boost at idle and very little at low revs.
My sube intercooler draws air through a scoop, and I never thought about it needing
fan circulated air. Not saying it doesn't, but I always figured the intercooler was for cooling
the compressed air from the turbo, not the coolant.


patrick

Posted by: Brando Aug 15 2007, 04:15 AM

Even at low revs and idle you'll be pumping 'exhaust-heated' air through that intercooler. I thought the premise was to cool that air? Without airflow (or in a water to air intercooler, coolant flow) it's perpetuating higher intake temps. Not to mention, you'll be keeping warm/hot air in the engine bay.

Sure, you might not 'need' it, but I'm just taking a practical standpoint on the issue. If I were running a boosted car, I'd be doing what I could to keep that intake charge as cool as possible.

Posted by: fat73 Aug 15 2007, 08:34 AM

Speaking from 17,000 miles of experience with zero-zilch problems with the engine, here's my $.02. My intercooler is stock and is top mounted horizontally (Renegade setup) just to the right of the engine bay. I don't know anybody with this setup that has intake air cooling problems; although I'm sure more air flow across the intercooler would be better for performance. As is you can get 4.5 secs 0-60, and ~10 seconds 0-100. I did remove the engine lid drain pan on my car for clearance of the intercooler. In my opinion the engine bay doesn't get any hotter, if as hot, as the original air cooled engine.

Ed aka W9R1
1973 914/2003 EJ20 WRX engine
1972 914 Roller in process
community.webshots.com/user/fat73
youtube.com search for Porsche W9R1

Posted by: Amenson Aug 15 2007, 09:14 AM

From a practical standpoint I am significantly better than stock. On the STi (and all other Subies) the intercooler is mounted almost directly above above the turbo. At least now I have the relatively cool air coming off the engine going through the intercooler while stationary.

I intend to monitor intake air temps to see how the system works.

Scott

Posted by: charliew Aug 15 2007, 02:55 PM

Hey guys, my son has a sti and we put a front mount ic on it about a year ago. He ordered a water injection kit to add to it. After installing the ic I told him I had some thermocouple wire and a hand held temp guage for the wire and we ran a little check. We ran a wire under the silicon hose at the tb and another under the hose at the outlet of the turbo. It was about 99 degrees by a thermometer on the wall in the shade. In 2nd gear the turbo hit 340 degrees f. and 3rd about 350. We then used the wire to the tb and in second and 3rd we only saw 106 degrees. This was air coming off of asphalt on a 100 degree day. We decided we needed to check the guage so we boiled some water and the water boiled at about 217 degrees if I remember correctly. We are at about 770 ft elevation. My son is a mech. engineer so he is pretty thorough on his evaluations. Needless to say he has not gotten around to adding the water injection and he's now running about 22 lbs. boost. (with a different turbo) When we did the check he was still using the stock sti turbo and I think about only 18 lbs. of boost and I'm not sure if it held that much all the way to redline. On the 914 if you run headers with out wrap the nasioc boys claim you loose boost temperature and turbo performance when you no longer have the cast iron manifolds and insulated pipes.This would also lower the air temps at the turbo and increase lag time. Don't forget the turbo is also water cooled. The subie can be made to run at 180 degrees, I believe, and this also lowers the engine bay temps. Of course there is going to be heat soak when going slow or stopped. Don't plan on real power till you've gone a little ways. One hot evening when my son was first tuning( he was adding springs to the waste gate) he would run through 4th and come back and set with the air cond. on and study the data on his lap top. After several runs he said it wasn't running as good as it ran that morning going to work. I reminded him that we were inducing heat soak considerably enjoying the air. This was about 10pm at night but it was still hot. I am going to eliminate the water lines to the tb and iac valve on my subies. If it gets very cold here I should be hunting. One thing we don't have is the fans blowing air from a radiator over the motor as in a stock application. I still haven't decided for sure which way the air is moving through the engine compartment at speed on the 914. I think it's down but I'm not positive. My 75 has little rubber flaps on the belly in front of the engine bay. This would appear to enhance the downward air movement I would think. Probably a belly pan from the front of the tranny back to the rear valance would also help. I believe at 17 lbs. boost with 93 octane the ic in the engine bay is good enough till it gets above 120 degrees outside and if it's over 100 I'll be in the pool or on the web.

Charlie

Posted by: Crazyhippy Aug 15 2007, 09:34 PM

I've done similar thermocouple tests...

The hill next to my house (freeway, canejo grade) 4th gear @ 7000RPM had the turbo outlet @ 360* (stock turbo). The throttle body temp would slowly creep up and stabilize just under 200*. Now have a MUCH bigger turbo, and need to up size the intercooler to match.

Damn this HP adiction is never ending.

BJH

Posted by: ptb Sep 10 2007, 06:52 AM

Any updates?

Posted by: charliew Sep 10 2007, 04:37 PM

replying on the twin turbo comment. I bought a twin turbo complete setup but after considering all the parts that eventially will go bad and the fact that the ecu can't be reflashed and is setup to run on 98 octane fuel, I've decided to just run a vf39 with wrx style headers with the 20h heads and sti block maybe recammed and with solid lifters. I really wanted to make the tt setup work but there are too many challenges to deal with.

Charlie

Posted by: Amenson Sep 29 2007, 07:59 PM

It's been a while since a progress update, unfortunately not so much to report.

Worked a bit on the IC plumbing. Am waiting on some more tubing to arrive so that I can finish it off.



Mounted the throttle sensor this afternoon.





Still need to connect the pedal to the sensor. I will be using some tiny heim joints. Should work out quite well.

With the additional IC tubing on it's way is all of the bends I need to run the radiator lines and the rest of the fuel lines. Lot's-O-plumbing to do yet...

Scott

Posted by: Coneatr Oct 3 2007, 04:29 PM

wow! really nice work! I'm in the planning stages of an STI-914 swap myself, but I don't have near the fabrication skills you've demonstrated. Thanks for setting an example!
As for the steering column, is that necessary? I'm building mine as an autox/track day (not street legal) car, so turn signals and such are irrelevant, but I'll need the wipers working - is it possible to leave the porsche wiper controls as 'stand alone', if you will?
I'm also eagerly watching your pedal/drive-by-wire set up as that was a concern of mine.

PS - ever thought of fabbing up a couple more of those exhaust systems and selling them?? its beautiful! nicely done!

Posted by: Amenson Oct 4 2007, 07:57 AM

Thank you for the kind words. Building nice parts requires a little patience and the willingness to buy (or borrow) the correct tool for the job.

Lot's of interest in the steering column...It is not required but depending on the ECU you use, you may need to have the RF ID key transponder from the column. I believe that the '04's and earlier do not have that security feature. For the wipers, it would be a lot easier to stay with the stock column/switches. I am going to have to install the Subaru wiper motor into the 914 wiper assembly.

I don't think that anybody would be willing to pay what I would need to get in order for it to be worth my time to make another exhaust system. When I eventually upgrade transmissions and put a bigger turbo on the car I will put the current setup up for sale.



Scott

Posted by: Amenson Nov 4 2007, 09:29 AM

Work has been continuing at a slow although constant pace. The most interesting development was made yesterday when I connected the pedal to the sensor. Still need to clean up the brackets and make a pedal stop but...at least I know that I got the pedal ratio and feel right.






Worked on the filter/intake. I had to shorten the ebay silicone part quite a bit. Will make a better mount than a zip tie when the engine comes out next.




Had to take some time off from working on the car to make a birthday "candle" for my Grandmother's 90th birthday. The cake is actually a wood box that we frosted. Yes, there are 90 holes.





Scott

Posted by: Amenson Nov 4 2007, 09:33 AM

Also spent some time on the radiator plumbing.



and fuel filter/pump plumbing.



Scott

Posted by: fat73 Nov 5 2007, 11:04 AM

Scott....Very nice work.

What fuel pump are you using? Also, I see you're sing a fuel cell so it may not matter, but on my WRX conversion (stock tank) I had to tee both the outlet and the return line together into 1/2" fuel line to allow enough fuel flow to the fuel pump (928 Bosche), and weld a return bung into the tank. Just wondering....these engines require ALOT of fuel flow and I was told without the overkill I would get fuel starvation.

Ed aka W9R1

Posted by: Amenson Nov 5 2007, 11:30 AM

Ed,
I am using a Walbro 255 l/hr. It should be good for just over 500hp. With 3/8" lines to and from the engine, I should have plenty of fuel.

Also, a while back we were discussing alternator belts via PM. Did you ever find out what part number was for your alternator only belt accessory belt?

Scott

Posted by: charliew Nov 5 2007, 01:36 PM

Hi Scott, I don't know if it will help but I bought the alt. brkt and belt from outback and the belt measures about 12.625 if you squeeze it together and the part #s are AC Delco 5K275 and a longer # of 88932567, it's a 5 rib belt. Also on the fuel line thing I run a 350hp ram jet in a k5 blazer and it starves for fuel at 5k in high gear with 3/8 fuel lines I thought 3/8 was big enough but I wish now I would have gone with 1/2 it's a lot of work to do over.
Charliew

Posted by: budman5201 Nov 7 2007, 02:02 AM

HOLY COW!!! Man I like your system, because I live in Arizona and I have done it exactly the same way without even seeing your thread till today. I honestly thought I was the first to use Small Car Performance mounts with my own custom crossbar. I made my own so i could put the engine as low as possible than using the stock bar. (I have the older transmission in great shifting condition) Cool now i know its possible for the sideshift too!! I did unfortuneately buy the wrong shortened OIL pan from a sandrail, that was cut at just the wrong angle. Oh well, thats my next purchase. Intake throttle body had to be shortened so it could fit without cutting rear trunk area. Once done and using a turbo tight 90 degree silicone bend....fits Perfect!! Dude its kinda wierd!! I even have the exact same fuel pump and pre and after filters, bought them from Arizona TPI.

I have to tell you though, mine is a ej25 naturally aspirated NON-TURBO and its killer!! 165 stock, but mine is about 180 due to free flow intake and exhaust. I dont have it dynoed yet but lets just say I have a big problem having the rubber stick to the street. I can break them loose in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd around a corner. My first time out, i hit the gas coming out of a corner and the tires broke loose and I looked like Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift! Awesome drift!! Killer acceleration, LOVE IT. Yours is going to be killer. I cant imagine another 45 HP.

My setup bolts up just like yours and doesnt modify the car at all except the front for the radiator.

I am using the Link ECU at Linkecu.com The G3 is the model. Works Killer and total programamble with laptop, cant wait for the dyno to get a few more horses!!

Here are some pics of my car




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Posted by: budman5201 Nov 7 2007, 02:04 AM

engine bay


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Posted by: budman5201 Nov 7 2007, 02:05 AM

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Posted by: budman5201 Nov 7 2007, 02:06 AM

engine bay


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Posted by: budman5201 Nov 7 2007, 02:09 AM

underneath engine / custom bar that bolts right up to small car performance mounts with no mods to them


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Posted by: budman5201 Nov 7 2007, 02:11 AM

once again wrong oil pan ordered. Have to get outbacks special mid engine one.

Outback Headers stubs straight through to Patrick Motorsports Stainless cans in the back and Supertrapps tied on the ends of them so the neighbors dont get too irritated, and so that I can swap out the restriction when i need to. They are somewhat quiet with the 12 supetrap plates, and a little above normal with 6 plates. THe more backpressure, its crazy how much my torque goes up, and with the Link ECU i can program them for both setups so i am not running too rich or lean. Its as easy as pluggin in the laptop and selecting the other .pcl map file for the link ecu.


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Posted by: budman5201 Nov 7 2007, 02:19 AM

Front still not complete, hole works fine, just needs to be a little larger to look a little more put together... Oh Renegades radiator, nice setup, no brainer proven setup. Still fairly new....... Anyone have a little advice to get all the air out of the system. I have added water about 10 times so far and still finding air in system. guess it takes that long to work out the bubbles in the lines, etc.


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Posted by: charliew Nov 7 2007, 02:06 PM

Budman, You did a nice job on your conversion. I appreciate the pictures of your swap. I also am planning the turbo subie swap but with a subie tranny. Oh yeah the motor Scott is using is stock with 300 hp, thats 145 more hp. actually. With a little tuning and better intake and exhaust it's even more.
Charliew

Posted by: Amenson Nov 10 2007, 02:49 PM

Budman,
Great looking conversion! Do you have the engine solid mounted? How is the engine vibration? Any cracking issues? How much does it weigh?

Charliew,
Thanks for the belt info.

Scott

Posted by: budman5201 Nov 10 2007, 11:47 PM

Engine is solid bolted to engine bar and when driving just as much vibration as stock. Remember i am still running stock motor mounts on the sides and stock trans mounts (not solid).....Screams.

Posted by: Amenson Feb 10 2008, 04:41 PM

Phew, its been a while since I posted any progress, mostly because I have not made much. I have been away quite a bit since the beginning of December until now due to business and vacation travel.

I made a new steering column. This one is 2 inches shorter than the last which was desperately needed to make the driving position more comfortable. I also added another adjuster mechanism to help keep it from rotating. It works really well.







Have also been spending a lot of quality time with the wiring harness. I now have about 70% of the unneeded circuits out of the harness.



Scott

Posted by: Spoke Feb 10 2008, 05:51 PM

Nice harness. Shouldn't the red and green wires go together?

JK, your car looks good and your work superb. Can't wait to see the parking lot donut video when you're done.

Posted by: fat73 Feb 11 2008, 01:01 AM

Nice...What's the plan for gauges?

Ed aka W9R1

Posted by: Amenson Feb 11 2008, 09:16 PM

I don't think that donuts will be a problem. The engine in the car has already proven more than capable of doing donuts, with more than twice the tire....

http://www.digitaldash.org/images/Scott%20STI%20smoke%20show.mpg



Gauges..I have a working prototype LCD designed to display a high contrast monochrome version of this:



I am working on the PCB layout now. It is designed to plug directly into the 3 Subaru instrument cluster connectors.



Sorry for the poor resolution...I have a lot of time into the design and I do not want it stolen.

Scott

Posted by: ChrisNPDrider Feb 11 2008, 09:31 PM

Sweet!
If you sitck with KPH on the LCD it looks like you're going pretty fast

Posted by: fat73 Feb 12 2008, 09:39 AM

Now that's cool.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 30 2008, 07:12 PM

Well, I was poking around under the car getting ready to some conversion related work on the PorSTi when I found a gift from the PO!!! Apparently when the longs were off to replace them he decided that it would be sufficient to prime this nice area of rust.



After much cutting and grinding to find good metal, I was left with a substantial hole…and this does not even show all of it.



I had a few hours on an airplane flying to Japan for some meetings, so I was able to read a few metal working books. When I returned I picked up some 16 gage sheet metal and started working.



I had to make a total of 3 pieces. The one inside the long was a SOB to get shaped and fit properly and nearly broke my will to continue. But I managed to get it in.



Once that was done the rest was somewhat fun…

Posted by: Amenson Mar 30 2008, 07:22 PM

…I took to opportunity to try my new tig welder to make a form. (I know...I really need to build a welding table)



Clamped it in the vice, beat on it a bit and tada, a part!



Second piece tacked in.



More beating, banging and welding and the third piece is in.



...

Posted by: Amenson Mar 30 2008, 07:26 PM

And the inside. I am probably doing to make another piece for the inside to have double thickness where the jacking point goes.



Once I do a bit more grinding it should be hard to tell I did anything. Seems like a colossal waist of time.



Now hopefully I can get back to making it run.

Posted by: my928s4 Mar 30 2008, 08:23 PM

Nice work, wish I had a fraction of your welding skills !

Posted by: Amenson Apr 4 2008, 09:51 PM

I had a request a while back for some pictures of the IC routing. With the engine out I was able to get a couple good ones...





Nice and short...this thing should spool like mad. Ok, so most of the quick spool will be facilitated by the tiny turbo.

Posted by: Zaney Apr 5 2008, 11:38 AM

Looks awesome!
How much more is there to do? Looks almost ready to go!

What is the number on the stock turbo? I am looking for a quick spool up at lower RPM's for AX and zooming around onramps.

Again, looks beautiful!

Nate

Posted by: Amenson Apr 6 2008, 07:16 PM

Thanks for the positive feedback. I only wish it were almost ready to go. The next things on the list and the last major tasks are to weld in the Engman long reinforcement kit and then install the coolant lines in the longs. After these, there are a load of little things to take care of but it should be all down hill from there.

The turbo is the stock VF39.

And now for the progress from the weekend. I made and welded in the inner layer of the repair area.



Fits great but can I weld it in? Sure, but the welds in back are not the prettiest. I could barely get the torch back there.



I had to make the spot type welds from the outside to make sure that I could get to them. Oh well, just more grinding to do.



Finally all ground down...No more rust!!!! Still waiting for the corner triangles from AA. Hopefully they arrive this week.



Now back to improving the car...

Posted by: Amenson Apr 6 2008, 07:22 PM

...which I did by installing the Tangerine inner console reinforcements. This was fun!!! What a great product.





I was sick of grinding so I left the welds alone. They don't look too bad, maybe I will just paint them and call it good.

Posted by: SirAndy Apr 6 2008, 07:30 PM

where's your heater muffler ???
Andy




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Posted by: Amenson Apr 6 2008, 07:54 PM

I had to remove it so that I can get the radiator return tube through the long. I was hoping to run it through the heater muffler but the return tube is just a hair big. It is going to be a pain to support the tube w/o the muffler. The rad feed tube should just barely fit through the muffler on the other side...I hope.

Scott

Posted by: ipozestu Apr 15 2008, 10:13 AM

NIce work on getting this put together. Just a couple comments. The O2 sensor in the yellow jacket is completely useless. That particular sensor provides monitor of the exhaust gas after the CATS. It has no control function. Using the stock ECU this will throw a CEL. It can be bypassed by throwing a resistor in there or performing a mechanical fix. The sensor with the blue jacket on the other hand is critical to the ECU. This is a very expensive wide band O2 sensor. The readings this sensor sends to the ECU in combination with measurements from the MAF, IAT, ECT, determines your fuel trim, timing. It is very important that this sensor be placed pre-turbo. Huge amounts a heat energy are consumed in the turbo that will throw this critical sensor for a loop.

Posted by: Amenson Apr 15 2008, 12:13 PM

Ipozetsu,
Thank you for the comments. You are correct with most of them. The concern over the criticality of placing the wide band sensor after the turbo is a bit misplaced. The only issue it will cause is to delay the sensor heat up time after startup. This will delay operating in closed loop fuel control and is only an issue if I were to be concerned with startup emissions. The lack of a cat is clear indication that this is not a concern. Placing the wide band sensor after the turbo will make life a bit easier on it. There may be a small change to the transport time but nothing significant.

Scott

Posted by: charliew Apr 15 2008, 11:46 PM

Scott I forgot are you tuning with engenuity? I am also thinking the after turbo o2 is gonna be tough. It's gotta be way cooler there. I am anxious to see.
Charliew

Posted by: Amenson Apr 16 2008, 08:24 AM

Charliew,
You are correct that the turbo cools down the exhaust gas but as I replied to ipozestu, this only delays the sensor getting up to operating temperature. Once at operating temperature the lambda sensor will read the same before and after the turbo. The temperature difference before and after the turbo does not affect the composition of the exhaust gas.

I am not exactly sure what engenuity is but I am sure that it is a bit of a derogatory pun on my perceived design methodology. Please be assured that it is sound. I have been doing various types of controls design since I graduated in ’99 with my Electrical Engineering degree (and most of an ME). I am currently working for Bosch developing Electronic Stability Control as Lead Systems Engineer. How does my background help you trust that my feedback concerning engine control is correct? It does not, but it should help you understand that I am smart enough to identify what I do not know and ask somebody who does. Which is one of the great benefits of working in the in the controls side of the auto industry. I have several friends and many colleagues inside Bosch and at other suppliers and OEM’s that work in engine management development from R&D to production tuning. We discussed in depth about the placement of the wide band sensor while I was building the exhaust and established that it will not be a problem.

Keep the comments coming, I am open to feedback and very much enjoy friendly debate based on sound engineering principals and direct experience.

Posted by: jd74914 Apr 16 2008, 09:48 AM

He may have been talking about the open source code that some people have been using to "crack" the OE ECU.

Edit: I don't know if they are in existence anymore, but the description still on google is:

Enginuity is a free, open source application created for viewing, editing and tuning Engine Control Units (ECUs). Enginuity is written in Java and, as of version .20 alpha, uses XML to define ECU versions, meaning it is infinitely extensible and usable on any ECU you can retrieve an image from. Any information stored in your ECU (timing advance, fueling, boost, etc) may be altered, making your stock ECU nearly as powerful as expensive stand-alone units, better than piggy back units, and more functionality than commercial software costing in the thousands of dollars.

Posted by: Amenson Apr 16 2008, 02:32 PM

Hmmm, now wouldn't that be embarrassing. I was figuring that it was some combination of engineering and intuition, with the connotation that I was making design decisions based on what I feel should work. If this is not the case then I apologize for the pompous chest thumping in my previous post.

Posted by: charliew Apr 16 2008, 02:53 PM

What I meant by after the turbo is that it might take to long to adjust the maps that far from the exhaust port. As in if you go to wot it will take the o2 awhile to adjust the afr and timing. Of course wot I think goes open loop so maybe it won't matter. I'm just going by the fact that I don't see it placed there on the many different configurations that are done on nasioc.

I may have mispelled it but engenuity is a programming method used on subarus. My son uses it on his sti and I thought maybe you might be fluent in it but I guess you don't fool with tuning. He is hopefully going to help me with mine as he tunes his 04 sti with it. He also uses utec delta and zietronics data logging but now thinks maybe all I will need is a stock retune. I like the utec delta's switch that lets him pick different maps for different fuels.
Sorry you misunderstood engenuity.

Also the stock ecu has the ability to learn a neat feature the aftermarket standalones don't have.

Oh yeah my son is an Aggie ME who also graduated in 03. My oldest son has a assoc degree in EE but he doesn't do hot rods.

Also where will you come into the longs with the radiator tubes in the front? I am still studying this tubes to the front deal.

Charliew

Posted by: Amenson Apr 21 2008, 06:02 PM

I talked to a few more of my colleagues about the WB placement and after being analyzed to death nobody has presented any evidence that there could be an issue. They are looking for some non proprietary algorithms or data for transport time. If I get anything that I can post I will put it up.



Nope not familiar with that programming method. I looked briefly at a few tuning tools when I purchased my first STi in '05 but have not done any research since then. I am avoiding modifying my current daily driver STi and the PorSTi is going to be tire limited until I flare the thing. Then maybe I will start upping the boost.


Having known somebody who did development on throttle by wire and know what goes into the failsafe systems, I think that I will be sticking with the stock ECU with this engine.



I would really like to be able to post pictures of my radiator plumbing. Unfortunately I have been dealing with rustoration work the past month. Here is the best picture I have of the routing so far. Once past the fuel tank area, the cooling lines will follow the heater ducting into the engine compartment. I really wanted to run them through the center tunnel but was strongly advised not do it by a few people who tired.



I found a cooling fan that fits my radiator perfectly! Bought it here http://www.the-fan-man.com/shop/size-11dual-pull-part-2052-p-189.html?cPath=33



One last bit of progress before getting into the Rustoration. I welded in the corner piece and made more of the fuel lines.

Posted by: Travis Neff Apr 21 2008, 06:11 PM

Are you venting the radiator through the hood?

Posted by: Amenson Apr 21 2008, 06:15 PM

Now on to the rustoration. I think that the past two owners thought that primer, seam sealer, bondo and maybe even JB Weld were great rust encapsulation techniques. I found a few more "soft" spots wile repairing to install the Engman reinforcement kit.

Hmmm, that does not look quite right...



Nope, not right at all...



Get out the angle grinder again.



I know the hole on the right is really crooked. I made it soon after I realized the the lower half of the inner long is going to need to be completely replaced. The hole on the left is so that I can joint the SS bend to the tube.


....

Posted by: Amenson Apr 21 2008, 06:22 PM

....What in the hell is this?



In case it is so bazaar that you do not recognize it, that is the PO's exquisite use of angle iron to replace the seat belt nut plate.

Hmmm, that does not look good either.



Not much more I can say that will not get censored by the admins.

Posted by: cobra94563 Apr 21 2008, 06:35 PM

..."I would really like to be able to post pictures of my radiator plumbing. Unfortunately I have been dealing with rustoration work the past month. Here is the best picture I have of the routing so far. Once past the fuel tank area, the cooling lines will follow the heater ducting into the engine compartment. I really wanted to run them through the center tunnel but was strongly advised not do it by a few people who tired."

I'm interested in seeing you the run the lines thru the longs. I thought that would be a good way to go, but didn't have the patience to figure out how to do it.

I did run them thru the center tunnel. No problem yet. Excess heat is not a problem, now that engine temp is under control. But even inside the longs, you will be accumulating the radiant heat. It is tight in the center tunnel, but no interference with the other stuff. I have not run on a hot day yet.

Posted by: Amenson Apr 21 2008, 06:41 PM

But wait...that's not all!!!

This can't be good.



It is not!!

Posted by: Amenson Apr 21 2008, 06:43 PM

I actually tackled repairing the pedal area.





More work that should be invisible when I am finished.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Apr 21 2008, 06:49 PM

Yup, inspired by wbergtho's hood.



Will you post or send me some pictures of your installation.

Thanks
Scott

Posted by: Amenson May 5 2008, 08:51 AM

Saturday was the wedding shower and as expected we received a bunch of great gifts for domestic use. We (I;-) also received a couple of gifts for the garage. My future inlaws gave us a really nice cordless tool set with a reciprocating saw, 1/2" drill and cirular saw. I need to pick up some metal cutting blades for the saws and I will be ready for a parts car! My parents gave us a belt sander!



My parents and sister came in for the shower. Most of the weekend was spent entertaining but after we dropped my sister off at the airport on Sunday my parents spent some time helping in the garage. We cut out the lower portion of the inner passenger long. My Father insisted on doing all of the dirty work.






...

Posted by: Amenson May 5 2008, 08:58 AM

This is my Mother helping:



I still need to finish removing the chunk up in the front. I left it in place for now so that I can use it for measurements and a template.



Thank you to everyone for all of the great gifts and help in the garage!

Scott

Posted by: Amenson May 11 2008, 06:46 PM

Made some more progress on the restoration work this weekend. Started by tackling this:



Gone!



Working on the new piece. I practiced tig welding by tig'ing all of the shrinking seams. It took much longer than mig welding but I needed the practice and the results are much nicer. It makes me angry ever time I see the previous owner's attempt to fix this area.



In place with much grinding to do.

Posted by: Amenson May 11 2008, 06:58 PM

From the inside. Still need to weld the vertical piece in.



How did I remove the inch of crud that was caked between the firewalls???



Not sure why but I was particularly proud of myself for this simple contraption. Probably because I sat and stared at the crud in the hole for a while before I came up with it.



Hopefully by next weekend I will be done restoring and back to conversion work.

Posted by: McMark May 11 2008, 08:05 PM

Lookin good.

Steel pipe is a good idea. I also use various sizes of rubber tubing to get into nooks and crannies (like the center tunnel).

Posted by: Amenson May 11 2008, 09:25 PM

I used rubber and plastic tubes and compressed air on the other side and in the center tunnel...they worked ok. The wire brush at the tip really loosened up the crud.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson May 18 2008, 08:11 PM

I feel a lot better about the project after today. I mis-specified the size of the blanks for the passenger side inner long replacement panel so the ones my father brought would not work. It looked like I might not get to work on the most critical section of the repair work this weekend. I sent my Father the new dimensions and 2 days later new blanks show up. Thanks Pa!!! Today I made it fit, and did not need the extra one the he sent.

One end of the blank ready for cutting.



Cut and ready to go in:



Some adjustments required:

Posted by: Amenson May 18 2008, 08:17 PM

It fits but the top needs to be cut. I decided to cut high enough so that I would cut through the patch panel and the existing inner long metal. Theoretically everything would line up with a saw sized gap between the panels.



It worked!!



Bottom

Posted by: Amenson May 18 2008, 08:24 PM

Inside:



I must add a thank you to my fiancee. She has been very supportive of all of the time I have been spending in the garage trying to get the PorSti on the road. Today she even made me dinner and came out into the garage to eat with me and the PorSti in the makeshift dining room I set up.



Thanks Tara!!!

Posted by: jimkelly May 18 2008, 08:26 PM

the radiator and fuel cell sharing the same cramped space should result in a rise in fuel temp - could this be an issue or benefit ??

Posted by: Amenson May 18 2008, 08:31 PM

The duct I plan to make should shield the tank from direct contact from the heated radiator air. It still could be an issue though and is something that I intend to keep an eye on.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson May 23 2008, 07:51 PM

I picked up some 15x7 Phone Dials on ebay this week. I am not planning to do the 5-lug conversion anytime soon but got a smok'n deal that I could not pass up. Now I just need the 4th. They will be powder coated before going on the car.



I mocked the radiator plumbing for the passenger side before welding in repair panel. You can just barely see the rubber tube connecting to the SS tube at the front of the long. I will need to shorten the SS tube and pull the hose further forward.





Scott

Posted by: Jeff Hail May 24 2008, 12:26 AM

Parents helping? In the garage? Parents helping working on the car?
Your Dad rocks!!!!!!!!! My Dad on the otherhand ......well he's cool but his "bursitus" acts up when the very mention of tools, cars, hey Dad can you help with the..... you get the picture. He does supervise very well though.........

Posted by: Amenson May 26 2008, 10:37 PM

Ya, my parents are very good about helping with the car projects. When I was racing they would make a point to drive over once or so a season to crew for the weekend. I try to repay the favors as much as possible. Two christmas' ago my present to my Mother were the parts and labor to rebuild the front suspension on her E-Type. My father and I spent much of the holiday vacation in the garage.

I finally filled the gaping hole in the passenger side long. In order to make sure that everything is straight and that the reinforcement panel fits, I used it as a guide. I made three windows to the weld seam with a hole saw and clamped it down. The floor and pinch seam are already tacked in place at this point.



Decent gap...



Tacked



Ready to be welded shut



It was getting late so I put in a few more tacks just to make sure that everything was in place. Before calling it a night I decided that it would be ok to get into the car again. Seems silly but after working bent over the door supports for several days the idea of working from the inside again is something to look forward to. My lower back has been taking a beating.

Posted by: cobra94563 May 27 2008, 11:05 AM

very nice...what size piping is that for the cooling line? ARe you running one on either side?

Posted by: Amenson May 27 2008, 08:49 PM

I am running one on each side. The line to the radiator is 1.5 and the return is 1.75.

Finally...I have all of the rust out of the longs. It is like the last 2 months never happened.



Back to progress



Still a bit of welding to do and I need to install the seat belt mounting lug. I have not decided if I am going to run the plumbing through the passenger side before getting the driver side ready for plumbing. Probably should finish up the passenger side just in case there is an issue that requires changes that I could carry over to the driver side.

Scott

Posted by: championgt1 May 27 2008, 09:33 PM

Just read this thread for the first time. HOLY CRAP MAN. Nice work!!!
I wonder if my wife would let me use the 3.0, tiptronic trans and paddle shifters out of her 08 legacy. Just joking I have nowhere near the skills you have. Again very nice work.

Posted by: Zaney May 28 2008, 12:15 PM

What is this in the long?

Posted by: Amenson May 29 2008, 09:33 AM

Don't let skills (or the lack there of) get in the way of a good idea...I didn't! Just resolve to do it right. Take your time, do the research, throw out bad parts, buy the correct tools and seek assistance when necessary. I had the convenience of having friends who provided some key assistance (and tools) to get me started.

My fiancee's car is an '05 legacy GT with the lower spec version of the 2.5 STi engine. She did not think that it was funny when I called it a spare engine for the PorSti.




It is an access hole so that I can connect the SS bend to the Gates hose.

You can see the area here, just below the vertical locking pliers:



Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jun 10 2008, 10:28 PM

Ok...so here is how the passenger side cooling line will be run.

From the Radiator



Through the heater hole



Into the long



And into the engine compartment...boy is it dirty back there.

Posted by: Amenson Jun 10 2008, 10:35 PM

Finished welding in the passenger Engman reinforcement...put a few extra welds in for good measure and because I was enjoying welding.



Cleaned up the driver's side. No surprises here!!



Mmmm....if you live in the Michigan area and have access to Bell's beer, I highly recommend finding some HopSlam. It does not get any better than this.

Posted by: Amenson Jul 8 2008, 07:54 PM

I have not posted an update for a while but not because of the lack of effort or progress, just have not been doing anything that a dozen other people have not already posted a more novel or skillful implementation. So here are the end results...

Finished welding in the Engman reinforcement kit.



After a load of grinding.



Finished repairing the pedal area.



....

Posted by: Amenson Jul 8 2008, 08:10 PM

Installed the driver side cooling line support. Had to cut open the long to get it in.



Welded back up.



Worked on the engine plumbing a bit. Cleaned up the crank case vent hoses and rerouted the turbo cooling lines.



I have been spending hours practicing Tig welding Al. It is as challenging as everybody told me it would be. I am making strong welds but not quite as nice looking as I want considering the high profile locations I need to weld on the intercooler and the radiator. This is my creation from this weekend.



I am working on the new oil lines to the turbo and remote oil filter now. And the filter to intake plumbing, and the wiring harness and...

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 12 2008, 03:36 PM

Made bit more progress today. Made another mount for the fuel lines and a cover for the access hole into the center tunnel.





I think that next to the tig welder, nutserts are my second favorite tool. No more sheet metal screws for me!!

Scott

Posted by: Phoenix 914-6GT Jul 12 2008, 03:54 PM

What tool did you buy and where did you get it to use the nutserts?

Posted by: Amenson Jul 13 2008, 06:56 PM

This is my nutsert tool



Nutserts for the plate and fuel line mount



Another fuel line mount using a nutsert.



All of the fuel pump and filter brackets use nuserts. I started installing nutserts for the rear valance and will use them for the front valance as well.

Finally, the fuel lines are in for good.



I also reinstalled the passenger side door today. I finally appreciated the value of the chassis braces. The door opening was a bit tight and uneven before all of the work on the passenger side. I cranked open the gap until it met the measurements in the manual before welding in the new metal. I was able to remove the shim from the lower hinge which helped the gap at the front of the door. The gap at the back is more even now.

It feels really good to be installing things permanently.

Scott

Posted by: Phoenix 914-6GT Jul 13 2008, 07:07 PM

So where did you buy that handy tool. Looks like a great tool to have.

Nice work.

Posted by: Amenson Jul 13 2008, 08:06 PM

Picked it up at Grainger:

Edit:deleted bad link

Scott

Posted by: Phoenix 914-6GT Jul 13 2008, 08:49 PM

Thanks... Just ordered one.

Posted by: Amenson Jul 15 2008, 08:59 PM

A couple important things happened today.

I finally have the oil feed line for the turbo. Seems like it would not be such a big deal but the one end was female M12x1.0 and getting to it w/o a load of adapters was a major afare. Eventually I found a shop 4 miles away from my house to make one for me.



Temporarily installed



After a panicked search I have a matching seat to the Momo Start seat that I bought at the beginning of the project over 2 years ago. Momo has made 2 revisions since then and the old style was no longer available. I picked up the seat on the right from somebody who bought it a while ago and never used it! It just arrived today



The Puss has made the first seat his.

Scott

Posted by: DBCooper Jul 17 2008, 02:35 PM

Look how excited he is! That new seat's made him think he's getting a new little sister....

Posted by: Zaney Jul 17 2008, 07:10 PM

Are you going to install flares on your car? What size wheels/tires do you intend to run under all that torque?

Thanks,
Nate

Posted by: Amenson Jul 17 2008, 10:35 PM

205's...maybe 215's on 2.0 Fuchs, this is my trans preservation plan. I have a set of 7x15 phone dials for when I put in the 5 lug parts. Eventually I would like to do a Sheridan body so that it can have some proper rubber. Until then its nickname will be "The Smoke Machine".

Scott

Posted by: fat73 Jul 18 2008, 07:15 AM

My car has the 03 WRX engine with 295/35 Toyo Proxes on 18"x11" s and it will still light 'em up. When you start hard on one of these and get the tires spinning it's almost instant red-line banging off the rev-limiter. Hope you got a good tranny. Already broke one. It's a blast.

Ed aka W9R1

Posted by: Amenson Jul 20 2008, 07:55 PM

The 901 in the car is solid with a recent refresh. I just need to remind myself to be mindful when in 1st.

I made some progress this weekend.

Mounted the air filter, actually a one of my buddies came over and did this so that I could work on other things:



Made the tube from the turbo to the air filter silicone piece. This is the first "real" aluminum part that I welded. Notice the fairly tidy practice weld in the background. Now notice how not tidy the weld is on the part. Welding a odd shape with varying wall thickness and not perfect gaps is considerably more challenging then welding straight test tube. Oh well, not bad for my first part. It is strong and leak free. Hopefully I get better as the parts become more visible.



Fits perfectly!!



I also started plumbing the remote oil filter. I need to drill another hole in the engine mount for the remote filter housing but can't until I get the engine off of the cart. Eventually it will be straight.



Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 27 2008, 08:10 PM

Well, still not confident enough to weld the tubes to the intercooler yet so I spent much of the garage time this weekend making practice art.

This is a creation made of 3" diameter .065 aluminum tubing, the same stuff as the IC plumbing...almost ready to weld the real thing



Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 29 2008, 09:57 PM

Made another small step tonight. I finally removed the turbo oil return on the head. I could not find any good information on the Subaru sites to I slowly worked it loose with gradually larger tools.

This is what I wanted out:



This is what it looks like out:



The damn thing was press fit in with a ring of glue for good measure:



I feel fortunate to get it out without damaging anything. Now I get to modify it and put it back together so that it points toward the new turbo location.

Posted by: Amenson Jul 30 2008, 08:50 PM

Welded up the turbo drain tonight.

Pre-welding:


Post welding...steel is so much easier than AL!



Head side post welding:



Installed minus tube:



Good night........





Scott

Posted by: GS Guy Jul 31 2008, 04:59 PM

Looking good Scott!

I may use some of your ideas if my turbo oil drain is a bit off optimum angle.

Now I want to see your shift linkage solutions! Especially with the Small Car mount.

Jeff

Posted by: Amenson Jul 31 2008, 05:47 PM

Jeff,
Hopefully you do not have to remove the drain...what a huge pain in the ass.

As for the shift linkage, stock works just fine!





I had to dig through a load of old project pictures to find these. It reminded me how far I have come and renewed my sense of accomplishment. Makes the the first drive seem not so far off

Scott

Posted by: fat73 Jul 31 2008, 08:17 PM

Ahhhhh what a beautiful sight.....Makes you feel good don't it?

Great work...Ed aka W9R1

Posted by: GS Guy Aug 2 2008, 07:56 AM

Rats,
That stock shift rod does fit nice! No such luck on my build - I've got frame and suspension members in-line with the shift rod - almost as if they'd been designed to be in the way!

I've noticed other cooling line connections seemed to be "press fit" into the various engine components too - such as the little lines on the throttle body heater, the cockpit heater supply connection into the water crossover on top of the engine. How are you planning to seal that turbo drain back up? Locktite?

I may have to do someting similar to the turbo drain fittings? Haven't yet permanantly located the turbo - but the block connection "may" be OK. Still looking for a bolt-on NPT (or similar) adapter for the turbo drain - but may have to make something custom like yours. Not much room for pipe fittings under there - especially in the large sizes required for a good drain.
Car is lookig great Scott!
Jeff

Posted by: jimkelly Aug 2 2008, 08:21 AM

wow - awesome work - suby sterring column - sweet.

i love the friendly one ups-man-ship on this board - just when you think you've seen the most amazing work - someone else raises the bar.

for me - i am pretty proud for weeks - when i install a set of chrome caps on my wheels valve stems - but you guys - wtf!

Posted by: Amenson Aug 3 2008, 07:55 PM

I have not figured out what I will use to seal the oil return. I thought about Loctite but am concerned that it would never come apart again. The oil return is not pressurized so I may just put some high temp RTV type sealant there.

Do you have an update progress thread of your project anywhere? The yahoo link you sent a while ago is down.




Not so much one ups-man-ship...just the advantage of knowing how other people have done things so that you can see what worked and what did not.

Made some small progress yesterday. Mounted the crank case breather tube and boost control solenoid. Both are held in place with nutserts!



Probably will not have any updates for a couple of weeks. I am getting married next weekend and the Woodward Dream Cruise is the weekend following that.

Scott

Posted by: Zaney Aug 3 2008, 08:01 PM

Scott,
Congrats ahead of time for next weekend!

The car and workmanship is awesome as usual!

Cheers to you and the MRS.

Posted by: Amenson Aug 24 2008, 09:12 PM

Made it through the wedding!! Everything went well and nobody died on the hike in the mountains, ropes course, rafting trip or any of the late nights out

My beautiful bride and I, freshly married!!



Driving to the reception the '39 Rolls Royce



Celebrating with a nice Cab and a Cohiba. The Cohiba is from Cuba thanks to my brother in law from London. And my custom matte finish tungsten carbide ring.



Now back working on the PorSTi...

Posted by: Amenson Aug 24 2008, 09:12 PM

Filled in one of the heater control tube holes.



Removed a load of paint from the driver's compartment.





Welded in reinforcements for the shoulder Harness'.



Picked up a welding table and a spot welder.



Scott

Posted by: Slider Sep 2 2008, 05:30 PM

Cool.. you got hitched in Fort Collins?

Posted by: Amenson Sep 4 2008, 07:20 PM

Of course, where else??? My wife got her undergrad at Colorado State. I had never visited Colorado before meeting her...now I can't spend enough time there. Great State, great beer!!

Posted by: Amenson Sep 14 2008, 08:45 PM

Finally, enough free time for an update. I have been overly busy the past few weeks with events away from the house but have still managed to find time to work on the project...actually took Thursday off from work to spend in the garage gussying up the PorSTi for the party that I had yesterday. The goal is to get everything painted and the engine in for the final time. Several things needed to be done to meet this goal...

First on the to do list was to clean up all of the repairs around the longs and engine compartment so that I could seal them with Por15. While working away with the wire brush I found some more rust hiding under bondo/seam sealer.

Time to





No more hole...still need to fix the other problem. Decided to put that off for a bit as it will not keep me from finishing the inside of the longs so that I can run the cooling lines.



Next I needed to get the intercooler tubes and blow off valve tacked in place. First I had to convince myself that I could make pretty enough welds...several hours of practice later I think that I am ready.



Make the holes for the BOV mounting plate...



Attached without blowing any holes Still need to figure out how to get the BOV tube to run to the intake.



...

Posted by: fat73 Sep 14 2008, 08:47 PM

Why not just let the BOV vent into the atmosphere? Would save you the trouble.

Ed aka W9R1

Posted by: Amenson Sep 14 2008, 08:53 PM

...Next is to get the car out of the garage and give it a good cleaning to get rid 2 years of restoration residue. It has been a long time since it has seen natural light!!



After a good cleaning I installed the front shift rod and pulled the Gates tube through the longs. I somehow did not take any pictures of the cooling lines. Will get some next time I am in the garage. Time to get ready...



Stick it in there



Looks a little tight around the turbo intake tube.



Maybe there is some room on the other side.

...

Posted by: Amenson Sep 14 2008, 09:03 PM

...Nope. Going to have to remove the tube. One of the goals for the project was to be able to get the engine in/out without having to take any parts off of the engine. I guess taking one part off is not soo bad



Still Fits



Next on the to-do list is to finish painting the passenger compartment. A few more hours with the wire brush.



And a few more with the paint brush. Por15 is great stuff.





Ready for the party

Posted by: Amenson Sep 14 2008, 09:30 PM

Venting to the atmosphere will alter MAF calulation a bit and could cause some, likely small, drivability issues with a stock ECU. Although...it could lead to off throttle tailpipe flames Maybe I will reconsider.

Scott

Posted by: charliew Sep 14 2008, 11:10 PM

It will run way rich without the air going back into the intake after the maf. You can switch to speed density though.

Posted by: fat73 Sep 15 2008, 12:03 AM

Doesn't bother mine, with a stock ECU.

Ed aka W9R1
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2030710190076795939abxCLB?vhost=rides

Posted by: Wilhelm Sep 15 2008, 01:18 AM

"After a good cleaning I installed the front shift rod and pulled the Gates tube through the longs. I somehow did not take any pictures of the cooling lines. Will get some next time I am in the garage. Time to get ready..."

Few inquiries........
What size gates tubing did you use, its rating (temp/pressure) and supplier.
How did you shove it through the longs? Mine seems to get hung up about a foot in when shoved in from the engine compartment. I suspect its getting tangled in the tube insulation.
Are you going to exit the longs on the front vertically of horizontally?

Thanks, Wilhelm

Posted by: Amenson Sep 15 2008, 09:25 PM

Ed,
Ya, I am sure that it would be ok for me as well...I have it pretty much set up for recirc already so I am just going to finish it off.


Wilhelm,
I am using http://www.gates.com/brochure.cfm?brochure=5071&location_id=5216. The spec's are at the link. I purchased it through a local branch of Motion Industries.

If you look a few pages back there are some pictures of the full coolant plumbing. I replaced the heater mufflers (or whatever they are called) in the longs with aluminum tubes to avoid the hangups that you are having. The 1.5 pushed right through. It took a rope and a a little lube to pull the 1.75 through the bend.

Scott

Posted by: LarryR Sep 15 2008, 10:31 PM

Wow clean pans nice!

Posted by: Amenson Sep 20 2008, 05:41 PM

Made some progress today. I pulled out the engine mount so that I could make the second hole for the remote oil filter. I also plumbed the driver's side cooling line. The shift rod is pretty darn close to the oil filter. I think that the rubber cover might rub a bit. Will have to keep an eye on it.



While working down there I was reminded of one of the critical points when mounting the Suby engine the way that I am. The hump for the shift rod hole is very close to the driver's side coolant housing when the engine is mounted close to horizontal. In the picture below you can see that the hump is actually pinching the silicone adapter a bit.



Scott

Posted by: charliew Sep 21 2008, 12:09 AM

Scott you could make a new thermostat housing and go to the 1.75 od size aluminium tube and run the housing tube out past the hump and put the hose on it out there.

Posted by: Wilhelm Sep 21 2008, 04:01 AM

Thanks for the hose links! Looking at your pic of the 1.75" hose entering the air tube in the long, I am amazed you got that giant hose through there. Curious as to why you use such big coolant lines? It seems a lot of the V8 guys are running 1.25" to the radiator and back.

The floor cleaning with wire wheel seems quite meticulous. I tried this approach and got tired of getting wacked by bristles flying out of the wheel or nearly losing skin ever time I would catch an edge with wheel nearly ripping the grinder out of my hands. I ended up sandblasting which certainly has it downsides.

Your doing a great job.

Posted by: Amenson Sep 21 2008, 09:18 AM

The clearance really is not an issue, just something to keep in mind if doing a swap similar to this.



The stock Suby lines are 1.5" and I arbitrary matched the return line to the radiator that I purchased. Did not want to take any chances with cooling issues. A boosted 4 banger can get pretty hot.

I sand blasted part of the engine compartment. Afterwords when I was digging around fixing the longs, I found a lot of sand. I really enjoy sand blasting and will continue to do it but not for anything where the sand has a place to become trapped. Although picking wire slivers is not so much fun either.

Time to get back to the garage.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Sep 28 2008, 09:56 AM

Worked on the cooling system a bit yesterday. I did not like how the elbows were unsupported coming out of the longs so I took them back out and made some tabs.



Installed:



Really Installed



Passenger side, partially installed



I also installed the oil pan pickup yesterday. The project parts bins are starting to empty out

Scott

Posted by: pktzygt Oct 1 2008, 09:22 AM

I'm anxious for you. I can't wait for you to post driving impresions.

Posted by: Amenson Dec 14 2008, 04:54 PM

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. PorSTi has a new home that I hope to get up and running over the holiday. See details here:

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=90860&st=



Should be making progress again soon.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jan 4 2009, 05:21 PM

Finally, home enough to get things settled inside the house so that I could organize the garage. The Suby still has to live outside but there is plenty of room to work on the PorSTi:



The breezeway is considered part of the garage



First task to complete was to get some measurements that malaga_red75 has been wanting for quite some time:

The distance from the bottom of the engine to the bottom of the engine mount/top of the cross bar is 70mm. You can see where I took the measurement in this picture:



The distance from the engine to the vertical plane of the angle iron is 9mm. The bottom of the angle iron is 2 inches wide and the cross bar sits almost flush with the front edge. You can see where I took the measurement in this picture:



I also removed the passenger side seat mounts so that I can install the new seats.

Finally back to work.

Scott

Posted by: malaga_red75 Jan 4 2009, 07:29 PM

Scott,
First, thanks so much for getting these to me. I am still a little confused though. Does the bottom piece of the cross bar sit flush with the original bottom of the engine mount, or does it sit flush with the notches you made? Thanks.

-Peter

Posted by: Amenson Jan 4 2009, 08:26 PM

The cross bar sits flush with the notches. Here are a few pictures to clarify. The notch on the top is a mistake. The bottom notch on the passenger side has been made flush since these pictures.







Let me know if you need any more details.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Feb 22 2009, 04:29 PM

Wow, over a month since the last update. Is to be expected considering that I just finished the annual winter testing season at work. I did manage to accomplish a few things over the past 2 months.

I cut out the stock seat mounting points so that I can install the new seats as low as possible so that I can fit with a helmet on. I am only 5'7" but with a helmet on in the stock seats I hardly had any clearance between the helmet and roof. The passenger side will sit flat while the driver's side will be mounted at an angle, possibly adjustable because I tend to be quite picky about the seating position...



...which is why I just ordered a new pedal set. It is not possible for me to get the seat, steering wheel, shifter and pedals all where I would like them to be w/o moving the pedals. I have been considering this for the entire project but just found a set nice enough and cheap enough to get me to pull the trigger and order a set.



Unfortunately the http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=13604 that sells it does not ship to the US so I am having to order it to some family in London and then they will ship it to me. The hydraulic clutch master cylinder will of course require the installation of a hydraulic slave. Luckily, GS Guy has shared the details of his well thought out mount with me.




I also purchased a Rennshift and am considering moving it back a few inches to get it to where I want it.



I know that there have been 100's of pictures posted of this shifter but it is too nice of a piece not to post a couple in my thread.





I also made a replacement lug for the passenger side seat belt mount (a buddy actually made it for me), cleaned up the axles and some other random stuff.

My wife had arthroscopic knee surgery on Friday so I am taking care of her this weekend. If she is healed up enough to be reasonably independent next weekend I hope to jump back into the project full bore

Posted by: roadster fan Feb 23 2009, 03:29 AM

Hey Scott great progress!

I re-read your thread and was wondering if the Accelerator pedal sensor is a subaru part? What model did it come from, figuring STI but can you clarify?

Awesome build, keep the pics coming!

Jim

Posted by: dakotaewing Feb 23 2009, 09:11 AM

Scott -
Just an idea, and am sure you have thought of this, just not sure why you would
not do this -
If moving the shifter back is for optimum hand placement, why not just make the handle longer ?

Best -

Thom

Posted by: Amenson Feb 23 2009, 07:49 PM

Jim,
I am not sure that what I am making is progress but thanks for the kind words.

The sensor is from the stock Subaru accelerator pedal.



Thom
The steering wheel sits about 2" further back than the stock wheel. I purchased the longer shifter handle to try to compensate for this and it still does not sit right. If I make the shifter any longer the trow would be way too long. It is a bit too long for me now and I hope to be able to shorten the handle eventually.

I am going to mount the shifter in the stock location until I get the pedals and seat in place and so that I can really tell if/how much I need to move it.

I have considered making another (would be the third) steering column as I think that I can take another inch or so out of it.

What I really need to do is concentrate on the things still needed to get the thing to drive...

Scott

Posted by: dlo914 Feb 23 2009, 08:43 PM

Could i get some dimensions of the engine you created? Also what grade of steel was used? Great progress on your suby swap. Will definitely look toward your installation for guidance on our swap. http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=92942 Thanks!

Disregard my post up above...lol...i just went through all 11 pages of your build and found the necessary info. Also why route the water lines in the longs and not below the car attached to underside of the floor pans?

Posted by: Amenson Feb 24 2009, 11:42 AM

Looks like you have one heck of a project on your hands there. Hopefully you can work through the rusteration pretty quickly and get on to the fun conversion work.

Concerning the cooling lines...I really do not like the idea of having anything hanging below the car, especially something as critical as the cooling lines. I plan to do a fair number of track days with the car and from past experience (several seasons of SCCA racing in 2 different race cars, numerous track days and much closed course diving for work) I have a tendency to find myself on/over curbs and do not want to take the chance of scraping the cooling lines off during one of these excursions.

As an example, I'm the red car in front about to drop 2 wheels onto the grass and scrape the hell out of the belly pan...though this one was not my fault, really. The car to the right had just punted me as is evident from his broken nose



Many people say that they have had no problems and that the marine grade hose is quite abrasion resistant but I just don't want to find out. I really wanted to run the cooling lines through the center console but just could not find the room. The longs were the next best place.

Scott

Posted by: dlo914 Feb 24 2009, 09:20 PM

Good point made, and through the longs it's a cleaner setup as well, but then would require cutting up perfectly rust free longs. Also there's not that much rust to take care of other than the right rear corner right above the taillight bucket, small patching of hell hole, and the right side jack point is slightly rusted through. We should have more progress on the rust repairs this weekend, when we bust out the grinder/cut off and welding machine. Will be my first time welding, but luckily a third friend took a course and will give us a crash course on welding.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 15 2009, 07:12 PM

Pretty much back in the swing of regularly completing tasks on the PorSTi. Had a bit of a distraction last weekend because it was my birthday so my wife organized some events for me. First stop was Rahal Letterman Race shop. We got to go through the entire shop except for the shock room and see a load of cars in various stages of prep. The best part was the visit was to the area where they maintain/store the BMW Motorsports collection.

Here I am climbing into their McLarin F1



And into an Alpina Tii:



The guy responsible for all of the cars was really cool. When I walked in pretty much everything was covered and he was on the other side of the shop filling up one of the cars with fuel. He hollered over to go ahead and uncover whatever I wanted to see. Then he came over and told me to hop in whatever I wanted. It was like the christmas morning I had always dreamed of. There are too many pictures to post here and many more that I had wished I had taken.

As for my project. After the birthday festivities I spent Sunday working on the 914. Finally finished off the passenger seatbelt lug.



Welded:



Clamped in place:



Welded...with the TIG welder. The MIG that I had been using was one of my buddies but since I moved to OH I left it with him so I am without. I was pretty excited to try making a rose weld with the TIG welder but let me tell you, it is not the correct tool. I ended up making some good welds but it was not easy and it took forever. Need to dig into the car budget and and buy a MIG.



...

Posted by: Amenson Mar 15 2009, 07:31 PM

This weekend I started by working on the bandsaw that came with the house we are leasing. It is currently set up for cutting wood and has a blade speed 10x what it needs to be for metal. I have been thinking about how to lower the speed and make it adjustable. Stepping it down by pulleys would require adding an idler shaft to take it down in two steps and then would be cumbersome to change the speed. So I purchased a Variable Frequency Drive and a 3-phase motor off of eBay. The VFD will run the motor down to pretty much 0 rpm with decent efficiency. I used to use them when I was doing CNC controls for industrial automation. Way overkill for what I am using it for but it should work very well. The motor is not here yet but I decided to mount the drive and pull the old stuff out.



I then started to prepare to ream the dowel holes into the CV's...when I noted that they did not look like the old ones. Instead of having the step for the gasket there is a taper.





It seems to fit ok and I checked that the spline is correct. What in the heck did I purchase and will it work?



Then I cleaned and painted the axles and started fitting the clutch slave cylinder.



The pedals should arrive early this week.

Scott

Posted by: charliew Mar 15 2009, 09:29 PM

Scott this is ot but I just noticed your air tools and thought about mine. Here in TX. we have little bees that are not honey bees but they sorta look like them. They make nest in every hole they can find. I don't know if you have them up north but if you do here's my solution. I took a 2x6 and bored some small holes that the disconnect for the air would fit in and then bored a larger hole that the bottom of the tool would drop into to hold it snug. That keeps the bugs out.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 16 2009, 05:42 PM

I don't have problems with bees but your suggestion might be worth trying to keep dirt from making its way down the fittings.

Anybody have any comments on my CV's?

Scott

Posted by: Wilhelm Mar 23 2009, 01:28 AM

Enjoying reading your build. These aluminum elbows: Did you bend them, and if so which type aluminum and temper? Or do you have a source for pre made bends? Thanks. Looking back, it looks like you may have some stainless steel in your coolant lines. Are you concerned about electrolysis between the SS and the aluminum? : http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=93887

Posted by: Brett W Mar 23 2009, 11:25 AM

Those are stainless bends.

Posted by: charliew Mar 23 2009, 11:33 AM

Wilhelm fiero's use ss coolant lines, aluminum water pumps and radiators and cast iron motors. I have two 86's and one 88 and no problems with electrolysis. It might have something to do with the antifreeze additive or the grounding.

Scott the new cv's appear to be made for a stub that has a ring that the cv sets in. I have a 74 aluminum rear 911 assembly that uses that type of cv and also what I think is a 87? 944 assembly that can use 11inch rear wheels that uses that cv.

Posted by: Wilhelm Mar 23 2009, 04:47 PM

Knew if I searched this site long enough, I'd find what I want. A post by Mueller points in the right direction. http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=45894&hl=tube++bending http://www.burnsstainless.com/AluminumTube/aluminumtube.html

Posted by: Amenson Mar 23 2009, 07:02 PM

Wilhelm,
As Brett pointed out those bends, along with the rest of the metal in the cooling lines, are stainless. I buy them all pre-bent. Pretty much all of the tube I purchased for the project came from:

http://www.verociousmotorsports.com/

I ordered a few things that I could not find elsewhere from Burns but generally they are significantly more expensive. Their collectors and other fabricated parts are works of art.

I had not considered the possibility of having issues by using SS in my cooling system with the aluminum engine. Do you have any articles, links, books...etc that you can point me to so that I can look into this this concern?

Thanks
Scott

Posted by: Wilhelm Mar 23 2009, 07:58 PM

Thanks for another source of tubes. Regarding the stainless issue:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770010255_1977010255.pdf

Also was raised when I asked others on 914world about mixing different metals in my cooling system.

Posted by: Wilhelm Mar 23 2009, 11:51 PM

Just found a cheaper source of aluminum Mandrel Bends, close to PDX. http://www.mandrel-bends.com/catalog/mandrel-bends-34/6061-aluminum-16-gauge-54/

Posted by: Brett W Mar 24 2009, 07:06 AM

I know the Toyota MR2 uses stainless coolant lines, an aluminum head, and cast iron block. Never seen one with problems.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 24 2009, 07:21 PM

Thank you for the link to the NASA paper. I read it and then went searching for more information on cooling system corrosion. I have not been able to find any information indicating that by adding some SS to the cooling system, I am creating issues that did not already exist in the vehicle that the engine came from. That being said, my research did reinforce the importance of using a coolant with the best possible anti-corrosion properties. For these reasons I will probably stick with the stock Subaru coolant in the PorSTi.

Thanks
Scott

Posted by: charliew Mar 24 2009, 09:52 PM

When I was modding my son's ic lines for his sti I got my bends from
http://www.stainlessworks.net

They are not cheap but the stuff is good.

Another solution is to buy knock off stuff on ebay and cut it up for the bends. I bought a sti downpipe that goes from the turbo to the muffler, about 5 feet long 3.0 od polished for not much I really don't remember but it will make most of the rear exhaust for the suby. The polished ss muffler with 3.0 od inlet and outlet was a different story.

Posted by: GS Guy Mar 25 2009, 02:25 PM

Best "coolant materials" article I know of.

http://www.rjes.com/html/material_choice.html

According to this, a mix of steel (iron) and aluminum is OK, more noble materials like brass, copper and stainless steel to be avoided except in very small amounts.

Another source for SS elbows, seems to be a good compromise for quality (304 available) and price (much less than Burns). Custom bends too!

http://www.mandrelbendingsolutions.com/servlet/StoreFront

Jeff

Posted by: Amenson Mar 25 2009, 08:16 PM

Now those are some compelling articles. I am going to have to strongly consider going to aluminum.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jun 8 2009, 09:10 PM

I figured that it was time for another post and looking back at my pictures, one is long overdue.

One of the things distracting me from the forum is my new RC heli. This is my 4th bird and by far the best. It is an Align Trex 250. Not really relivant to my PorSti build thread but I did build it .

Started like this...


...and ended up like this.


Now on to the real stuff. I finally have my new axles assembled.

Mmmm, pretty


Probably not a new technique but it was novel to me. I used the old CV boots and a little plastic to make covers so that the packed CV's would not get nasty grease all over the place.


With the help of my Father I now have a battery box for the new tiny battery. I drew up the pattern, he had one of the guys at his work bend it from SS and I tig'ed it together.

...

Posted by: Amenson Jun 8 2009, 09:24 PM

...
Bottom View (just to show the nice welds )


My Mother took a cool picture of me welding while they visited. Not making a car part though...I needed a banzai tray so I fabbed one up.



In the car.



The next task was to install the new pedals but I need a new MIG before I could get started. After months of searching I found the right machine at the right price. The guy I purchased it from said that he had waxed it a few times, I did not belive him until I pulled the covers off and found wax residue stuck in the seams.



Pedals Set in place with the new base plate before cutting/welding.





...

Posted by: Amenson Jun 8 2009, 09:32 PM

...
I welded an edge to support the back corner in the dip where the stock pedals mount.



Tacked in place from the top:



Tacked in place from the bottom:



Back corner support after welding:



After getting the mount in place it was time to fab up the switch/sensor mounts.

Finished throttle sensor mount:


Linkage:

...

Posted by: Amenson Jun 8 2009, 09:46 PM

...

Clutch switch/pedal stop (Can you spot the TIG weld that I buggered up so badly that I had to grind it. Just when I think that I am getting good I really mess something up):



You can see the BLS between the two brake master cylinder rods.



Side shot:





Modified the throttle pedal to use the pivoting Suby pedal. Still need to add two set screws to the assembly to hold the shaft in the tube.



Will take some pictures of the box installed once it is finished. I am going to have to shift the clutch pedal away from the brake as things are a bit tight with normal shoes.

...

Posted by: Amenson Jun 8 2009, 09:52 PM

...

I also started making room for the new seats/sliders to fit. Still a lot of work to be done here.



Next up was the radiator fan mount. This took a lot of time to get right but I am very happy how it turned out.

Top mount prior to welding:



Both mounts welded in place:



Bolted up:



Next will be to fab up the hold downs. Am going to try to get that stared in the evenings this week.

That's all for now.

Scott

Posted by: Zaney Jun 9 2009, 01:13 PM

Scott, as usual. Top Notch work!

Thanks for the update!

Nate

Posted by: Amenson Jul 12 2009, 09:52 PM

Still making progress, took a week off from work and the garage to tour the Finger Lakes region of New York. Apparently the lakes and hills in the region make it suitable for grape cultivation so there are a ton of wineries in the area. Probably tasted a bit over 200 wines. Not all of them were good but we found 6 cases worth that we liked

Made the hold downs for the radiator:

Starting point:


Ready to go on the rad:


Installed, still need to weld the sides:


Spent a load of time getting the chassis ready for the seat.


Bolted in, and the center storage still fits. I am going to need to recline the seat ~10deg to get the driving position right.


...

Posted by: Amenson Jul 12 2009, 10:10 PM

...
Painted the pedal box parts.


Ready for assembly.


Had a bit of beer left after cleaning up for the night so I started assembly.


My wife gave me a trip to the local winery to make a couple batches of custom wine for my birthday. We bottled it the other week. I made the label for the red to commemorate what should be the year of the first drive of the PorSTi.


Not too far left to go...

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 19 2009, 09:12 PM

Lots of progress this week.

I finished assembling the pedal box only to find that the balance bar interferes with the throttle pedal. I really do not have the time to fix stupid mistakes like this.



The aluminum tubes arrived to replace the SS parts of the cooling system. Ordered them from http://www.globaltecheng.com/default.asp. Good quality stuff at a great price. Fast shipping as well.





Made the clutch slave cylinder mount per GS Guy's directions. Still need to clearance the shifter fork so that the heim joint fits properly. Looks like it should work really well.



...

Posted by: Amenson Jul 19 2009, 09:49 PM

Mid way through fabbing the cooling line that crosses over. While I was fitting everything up I decided to redo the radiator exit stub. The one that came on the rad was at a very strange angle and would have interfered with the ducting. The new one looks much better too.



Everything fit together, ready for for the two halfs to be tacked together. I found that a piece of angle and a couple of hose clamps really helps with fitting and keeps everything straight and aligned while tacking.



All welded


Worked on plumbing the new pedal box..

"T" in the front.


No more adjustable prop valve in the back. Also notice the line coming out of the clutch tube. I ran the hydraulic line where the cable used to to live. Still need to trim and flare it.


Clutch and front master cylinders pretty much done. Still need to tweak them a bit. I messed up a few tubes so I ran out before I could finish the rear. There are no original brake lines left on the car. You can also see the lines to the brake fluid reservoir. Need to pick up some rubber grommets.


...

Posted by: Amenson Jul 19 2009, 09:57 PM

After searching to the end of the internet I finally found a singe reservoir that woudl feed all three master cylinder and would fit where I wanted. Turns out that I had one in the garage for my other project car, a BMW 2002. It is getting full down there.



I am in full thrash mode to get the car done for the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit on August 15th. Starting last week I am taking every Friday off until Woodward. I did not quite get everything I needed finished this weekend, if I can't make up for it next week I may have to burn more vacation

Posted by: FourBlades Jul 20 2009, 09:39 AM

Wow, that is some beautiful work. Love the pedals.

Did you make the fuel cell?

John

Posted by: Amenson Jul 20 2009, 11:24 AM

The fuel cell came from http://www.summitracing.com/. I do not have the confidence to build something to contain gallons of flammable liquid quite yet.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 22 2009, 09:43 PM

Made some parts the last couple of nights.

I started fitting the passenger seat and found that the right side needs to be directly above the reinforcing rib for the original seat mount in order for my wife to be comfortable with the seating position. Nice and strong location but I had to shorten the mount.

Cut out the middle.


Welded back together.


Made the final tube of the cooling system.


Installed, from above


From passenger side


I could fill it with water if I wanted to now. I should be excited but the looming deadline is is really weighing on me. That and all of the hoops to jump through trying to close on a house at the end of the month. The worst part of it is that by buying the house I am probably going to lose the band saw that is in the basement. The owner of the saw seems to be unwilling to sell it for a reasonable price.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 25 2009, 09:26 PM

Still plugging away...

I managed to install the passenger seat. While this may not seem like such a huge feat, because the threaded inserts in the Momo seat were no where near where they belonged (based on the other seat), it was a huge pain in the ass. I wish I would have realized this when I first purchased the seats, I would have returned it. Now they do not make this style any more so I am stuck. Oh well, I made it work.

With the passenger seat in place I was able to mark the harness shoulder mounts. Took the seats out and installed the mounts.



After remaking a few lines, the pedal box plumbing is finished...



...so I took everything back out and repainted the floor for the third, and hopefully last time. No more bare metal, can hardy tell I did anything down there.



Tomorrow the engine/trans come out so that I can button everything up. There are a number of fittings and hoses that need crush washers and clamps installed/tightened.

Scott

Posted by: my928s4 Jul 26 2009, 08:05 AM

Looking great, still love looking at those welds. Good luck with the deadline !

Posted by: Amenson Jul 27 2009, 09:37 PM

Lots more progress.

Pedals are back in, hopefully for good.



Painted the front trunk. I did not intend to paint the entire bottom but dripped paint when covering the bare metal. I figured that it would happen so I prepped it proactively. Also installed the isolating rubber. The stuff below the fuel cell is black. The high temp stuff for the radiator is red.



Back in, I decided to take a few minutes to paint the hold down straps as well.



Out comes the drive-train. I tried leaving the trans mounts in place and just remove the nuts from the mounting ears...unfortunately the intercooler is in the way and I still ended up removing the mounts. I just realized that I could invert the mounting bolts so that the nuts are on top and could leave the mounts in. Any reason that this would be a bad idea?



I also realised today that I did not make the exhaust so that I could remove the trans w/o dropping the header. Damn Put that on the list for REV2.



I pulled the trans so that I could clearance the clutch fork for the slave cylinder heim joint. Unfortunately I did not get a very good picture of it.



...

Posted by: geniusanthony Jul 27 2009, 09:55 PM

I kinda wanna see the bonzai that you made the tray for, Is that doable? I mean since you made it it kinda counts to the thread. You're doin great work though.

Posted by: Amenson Jul 27 2009, 10:01 PM

...
Detached Trans.



Slave cylinder attached at both ends for the first time.





I have a bit of welding to do. Unfortunately I found that it takes more than the 30amps that I am currently fused at to weld the BOV mount. Home Depot does not carry the size fuse that I need so I am stalled until I find an industrial electrical supply shop.



The engine after a day's work. See the difference? Didn't think so, neither can I. What is different is my confidence that nothing is going to fall off or leak once I start the thing up. I also cleaned up the intercooler mounts and a few other parts that I made before I had the belt sander.



I spent the evening yesterday and this morning assisting/monitoring the owner dissemble/remove the equipment that is in the house that I should own by the end of this week. Fortunately the band saw is still here We could not come to an agreement on the price but the guy decided that he would leave it until we worked out a price or he sells it to somebody else. Based on what he is asking for it, I do not see it leaving.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jul 27 2009, 10:24 PM

No problem. I am just starting with the bonsai hobby so I harvested a sapling silver maple from my back yard that had a really nice start on some interest roots/trunk to use as a trainer tree. The little guy is a 15 year old kingsville boxwood that I picked up at the local arboretum.




The poor thing has has had a rough life. Apart from me uprooting it during the summer dormant period, one of the deer in my backyard decided that it looked tasty. He ate half of it and threw the rest on the ground.



I repotted it and it is still hanging in there. The deer gave me an excuse to experiment with a partial defoliation to promote smaller leaf and internode length. If I can keep it alive it should be a great tree with really good character in 15 years.

Scott

Posted by: GS Guy Jul 28 2009, 07:45 PM

Looking good Scott - that clutch set-up looks very familiar!

I like it as it puts the bleeder up high, and keeps any side loads off the clutch fork. Looks a little close to the exhaust? Might need a shield of some sorts?
I decided to fit a couple of springs onto mine as well - one to keep the fork compressed against the pivot bolt, and a return spring pulling the fork towards the engine (hopefully keeping any unnecessary loads off the throughout bearing?).

Couple of questions:
Any concerns about the post-turbo exhaust being bolted tightly to the trans (with no flexibility for expansion)?
Also - what kind of coupler did you find that will fit the turbo compressor inlet? Mine measures 2.2" OD - a little too big for a 2" and little too small for 2.25" connector.

Keep up the nice work!
Jeff

Posted by: Amenson Jul 28 2009, 10:01 PM

I am considering what to do about heat management. I may end up wrapping the whole left side of the exhaust to the "Y" to keep the trans and save cylinder cool. I am pretty sure that I am going to need to shield the passenger damper from the turbo as well.


We (my buddies and I) discussed putting in a flex section when I was making that part of the exhaust and decided that it probably would be ok. Will be able to tell pretty easily if it needs one or not by loosening mounting bolts on the end of the trans after a couple hard heat cycles.


I remember having a similar dilemma. I think that I used a 2.25. I will see if I can find what I bought tomorrow.

I just finished welding the intercooler. Did not go too badly considering all of the crazy angles and vastly different material thicknesses that I had to deal with. It got a bit goobery in a couple of places but I did not blow any holes and it should be leak free and crack resistant. I made the whole thing hot enough that when I blew compressed air in one side, the air coming out the other was too hot to hold my hand in front of more than a couple of seconds.



When I was shutting down the garage for the night I found myself standing and admiring the drivetrain from this angle. May just be a father's pride but damn is it purty.



Scott

Posted by: McMark Jul 28 2009, 11:40 PM

It is beautiful.

Loving the progress.

Why not use the internal wastegate?

Posted by: Amenson Jul 29 2009, 11:07 AM

I may not quite understand the question. I am using the internal wastegate on the turbo. Maybe you are thinking about the recirculating blow off valve on the side of the intercooler?

Scott

Posted by: kwales Jul 29 2009, 11:15 AM

Nice work!

Maybe this is the wrong time to ask, but how do you expect change the oil and plugs on that engine?

Posted by: Amenson Jul 29 2009, 04:57 PM

Changing the oil is very easy. I ordered the oil pan with the drain in the middle of the front so when I jack up the rear of the car the oil comes right out. The oil filter is easily acessable at the front of the engine as well.

The plugs will not be so bad to change. I will have to remove the AL tube feeding the turbo but other than that there is nothing really in the way. It will be much easier than changing the plugs with that engine in the Suby, that is a pain in the ass

Scott

Posted by: kwales Jul 29 2009, 06:55 PM

Glad you thought it out.

I had visions of that engine being serviced a la Boxter- ie- everything is accessed from the bottom...

Posted by: McMark Jul 30 2009, 12:04 PM

Nope, I was confused. I understand now.

Posted by: Amenson Aug 2 2009, 09:39 PM

Lots has happened since my last post.

My wife and I purchased our first house on Friday! Thankfully it is the house that we are currently living in so the move will not be so bad...already done Now that we own it the house projects will start ramping up, yet another good reason to get the car on the road in the next 2 weeks.



Suby wires touched the car for the first time. Had to make the mount for the main fuse box before the engine went back in. The harness was quickly returned to the basement for further modification.



While going through the parts bins I realized that I forgot to install the gaskets for the timing belt covers, so off those came. While I was in the area I helicoiled the alternator/PS bracket bolt that the dealership stripped when I brought the donor car to them for a new power steering pump.



Hopefully the last picture of the firewall like this for a while. I went through and tightened everything while I had easy access.



...

Posted by: Amenson Aug 2 2009, 09:47 PM

...
A gratuitous glamor shot on the way back home.



Home again.



Made and mounted the line for the slave cylinder. Can't hook it up because my SnapOn inverted flare took broke. This is the first really crappy tool that I have purchased from them.



Shift linkage is in.





...

Posted by: Amenson Aug 2 2009, 09:58 PM

...
Also installed the drivers seat and shifter. I was going to leave the seat out until the last minute to keep it from getting scuffed up but decided that it would probably be a good idea to give my wife someplace to sit when she is helping me bleed the brakes. Plus it makes the car seem more drivable



I still have some mechanical stuff to finish up but am going to start spending the majority of the time working on the wiring. Less than 2 weeks until Woodward, must stay focused.

Scott

Posted by: pktzygt Aug 3 2009, 03:27 PM

I'm really jealous. I'm still in the staring at the motor in the car and wondering how to reconnect all the loose vacuum lines and plugs. Then I still need to figure out how to get an intercooler to stay put in there.

Posted by: Amenson Aug 3 2009, 05:10 PM

You would not be jealous if you knew how much time it has taken to get this point.

I would recommend going to the Subaru technical website and download the factory manual for the engine"s donor car. Very useful stuff.

Oh, and it really helps to have the same car that the engine came from in your driveway to look at when you get stuck

Keep at it,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Aug 5 2009, 09:42 PM

Still plugging away.

My new flare tool came in so I finished the clutch plumbing.


Figured I should give it a try so I bled all three new hydraulic circuits. Takes a while to fill all those lines but got it done with the help of my wife. The clutch seems to work very well. The brakes are, well...stiff, to put it mildly. The master cylinders are sized for the new calipers, not the ones on there now.

First fluid in the car!!!


Looks so sad up on the stands w/o wheels.



I also installed all of the intake plumbing clamps. Bought a boatload of T-clamps and it was so tight in places that I had to resort back to regular old hose clamps.



And installed the driver's harness. Unfortunatly it might not work very well because I am probably going to run out of adjustment. The belts are made to be installed in normal sedans with a much larger gap between the mounting point and the seat.



Did a bunch of other things not picture worthy like install the rubber strip under the fuel cell straps and tighten everything up, ran the soft part of the return line, set all of the steering coupler positions and tightened everything down, and worked on the wiring harness.

Still more to go but the end is in sight.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Aug 7 2009, 09:07 PM

Today was harness day, and what a day it was.

Apparently this is what I look like after 10, nearly continuous, hours of working on the harness. Not pretty



This is what I removed.



This is what is left.



I can't seem to find the main cruise control switch, rear blinkers, or brake lights. Other than that, everything that I need is there and labled. There are a few things that I have not identified yet. Hopefully get these things figured out first thing tomorrow morning so that I can wrap it up a bit and lay it in the car to see where things will mount and how much I will need to extend parts of the harness to get to the front of the car. I know that the harness in the back could be shortened up a bit but that will be a winter project. Now I just need to do what is necessary to get it running.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Aug 9 2009, 10:35 PM

Still not running. It seems like the to do list is infinite, just when I think that it is getting shorter I find new things to add. I was really hoping to have it running today. Not going to happen. I did take tomorrow off from work so I should be able to get it to fire tomorrow.

Here is the harness pretty much ready to go for initial fitting.


Subaru made the main chunk of the harness in two parts that seperate by a load of connectors. Here is the left half.


In the car. The loose wires dangling below the fuse box are the radiator fan and headlight circuits. They will be extended to the front and then wrapped.


I decided that in order to reduce the potential bugs, I would start the engine before I start lengthening the harness to the front. This means that all of the switches, sensor, etc will be in the trunk for startup. Once everything is working as expected I will start cutting/splicing.

Finished the top to the coolant filler tank. It was nice to pick up the torch again after staring at wires for 3 days straight.


Filled it with trans fluid and oil.


Also wrapped the exhaust going under the trans and tidied up/tightened a load of other things. It is going to be very tight getting it ready for next weekend but there is still a real chance. Tomorrow will tell.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Aug 10 2009, 10:17 PM

Running!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kembTjP-4ao

It would have started on the first turn of the key had I remembered that the clutch needs to be pressed. The ecu is not entirly happy and then there is the small matter that everything is still in the trunk. Oh, and based on the valve noise I did not quite get the valve clearances quite right.

Much more to do and not much time before Woodward. I have had it for today, time for bed.

Scott

Posted by: championgt1 Aug 10 2009, 10:34 PM

Congrats! Just the fact that it runs has to be a huge success. What a cool project.

Posted by: VOX Aug 11 2009, 12:51 AM

whoo congratulations!

Posted by: Zaney Aug 11 2009, 09:23 AM

Great Job Scott!!!!
The attention to detail is simply awesome! This thread shows that it can be done!!

(now it is time for a WRX tranny! )

Good luck for the Cruise!


Nate

Posted by: Amenson Aug 11 2009, 11:01 AM

Thanks the positive feedback guys The accomplishment feels a little better today after a good night sleep. I was a bit exhausted and overwhelmed by the thought of the work required over the next few days to enjoy the moment.

Just ordered an AccessPort to help work through debug...and no, I will not change to the stage 2 map.

I will go through a couple 901's before I switch to a WRX tranny, hopefully by then someone will have a really nice shift linkage worked out.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: charliew Aug 11 2009, 06:49 PM

Nice work, I'm sure the wiring is tough. Disabling the cells will be a trick. My son's subaru mag says that subaru now has a 6 spd the same size as a 5 spd although I don't know what ft lbs it will handle or if it will convert to the front wd like the 5 spd. They also have a cv tranny but it's not in the turbo cars.

Bummer about the valve lash though.

This winter you might want to check out romraider for your tuning although the drive by wire makes it really complicated.

Posted by: roadster fan Aug 12 2009, 03:46 PM

Keep it up, it will be drivable in no time. Awesome!

Jim

Posted by: Amenson Aug 29 2009, 09:48 PM

About time for another update. I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to find a reason not to open the engine up again. Checked the valve clearance...3 times, all ok. Compression check, fine. Leakdown...better than perfect. Fire up the engine, still clacking. WTF. Finally decided to open her up.

Where did all of this crap come from?


Oh, from here.


What is wrong in there?


Nothing obvious here.


Is this one straight?


A spin in the drill says yes.

...

Posted by: Amenson Aug 29 2009, 09:52 PM

...

Six of the first six show straight as well. I am starting to get concerned that I my prognosis of bent valves was incorrect. The last two did not disappoint. This is not an optical illusion.



A few calls to the regional Subaru dealerships and I have 2 new valves and some gaskets. Time to put it back together...it really looks pitiful.



Valves are back in.



Put it it back together.



...

Posted by: Amenson Aug 29 2009, 09:57 PM

...

Starting to look like an engine again.



Button it up and stick it in.



Home again.



I will connect and start it up tomorrow. Man I hope that it is ok now.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Aug 30 2009, 11:51 AM

Back in business. The only noise it is making now is the sweet, sweet music of a boosted flat 4.

Scott

Posted by: charliew Aug 30 2009, 05:39 PM

When did the valves get bent? If they touched the piston there is a chance the rod inserts got mashed. I guess only time will tell at this point. You can check for bent valves by putting some naptha or mineral spirits in the combustion chamber with the head setting level, if it doesn't leak past the valves they are good. How can a bent valve pass the leakdown test? Also a bent valve would cause more bucket clearance than normal because the valve is not completely on the seat.

It's great that it is now quiet.

Posted by: Amenson Aug 30 2009, 06:57 PM

The valves probably got tweaked in the accident or I could have twisted the cam when I was not supposed to when I was reassembling the engine for the first time.

The valves would seat fine. They were bent just enough to come into the seat out of alignment and then snap into place...noisily. With the valve springs out I could get them into the seat with only a very small amount of force with my hand. So, it is possible to have good leakdown and valve clearance readings with a bent valve. I would assume that my engine would have passed your mineral spirits test as well.

I learned many valuable lessons with this fiasco.

Scott

Posted by: budman5201 Aug 30 2009, 08:00 PM

Hey Scott,
My engine was noisey too when i first started it up. I think mine was sitting in a japanese junkyard for years before i got my hands on it. Not until about and hour running and a quick first oil change did it quiet down. Oh yeah by the way, the more on tune my engine got (aftermarket computer) the quieter it got. Purrs likes yours does now.

Now if it wasnt for that pesky A/C compressor thats going out it'd be quiet again....Next item to fix!

Posted by: charliew Sep 8 2009, 05:17 PM

The early tt dohc motors (96) had hydraulic lifters and they are notorious about being gummy and noisy. Sometimes they need to be removed and cleaned to get to run quiet.

Posted by: Amenson Sep 12 2009, 04:47 PM

It had been a while since I have had a sense of accomplishment so I decided to make the front filler tank today.

I was planning to order all of the fittings and material and making one from scratch until I found this one at Speedway Motors for nearly the same price as the parts I needed. Of course it did not come pre-cut.


Down to size:





Installed, forgot to order the barb fittings so I can not hook it up yet.



I think that I will install the axles next and then start pulling more wires.

Scott

Posted by: Zaney Feb 18 2010, 10:35 PM

Scott,

We are Jonesing for an UPDATE

Hope all is well!

Nate

Posted by: Amenson Feb 23 2010, 11:23 AM

All is well, although I have been slacking on the car a bit...sort of. I have taken care of a load of piddly uninteresting things. Also finished the plumbing for the radiator expansion tank which really helped purge the air from the cooling system. I can now idle the car indefinitely w/o the temperature threatening to leave the normal range without fans.



Over Thanksgiving my father and I installed the front air dam. I am thoroughly unimpressed with the fit of this part. Somewhere on the passenger side it is over 1/2" short. Not sure what I am going to do about it. I am really not in the mood to cut it apart and glass it back together but it bothers me every time I look at the car.



...

Posted by: Amenson Feb 23 2010, 11:43 AM

My parents bought us a new heater for the garage as a house warming present! 60,000 btu...much nicer to work in the garage now!



While I was winter test for 17 days earlier this month I decided to modify the aftermarket electronic spedo sender that attaches to the angle drive so that I could get rid of the angle drive.

Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the part that I made but essentially I remade the brass piece on the right so that I could use the bolt from the angle drive. It is pressed into the housing and the bushing is pressed into it.




Finished product with extra parts:



Guts:


Installed:



I made a detailed 3D drawing in Google Sketchup if anybody is interested in doing this to their sender.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Feb 24 2010, 09:11 AM

Here is the drawing of the bushing:




Scott

Posted by: fat73 Feb 24 2010, 09:14 AM

The talent on this forum continues to amaze me. Awesome work.
Ed

Posted by: GS Guy Feb 24 2010, 07:39 PM

That's a pretty trick modification to the electronic speedo adapter Scott! I'm going to have to look into doing that to mine. The angle drive serves no real purpose with the electronic sensor, except to adapt it to the trans!

It looks like you cannibalized some parts from the angle drive - obviously the nut, but what else? Sounds like some internal portion that presses into your custom bushing?

Material of the new bushing? What kind of press fits did you use - couple of thousandths?

Is the end product just the 3 new parts added to the sensor housing - the new bushing, piece pressed into the inside and nut on the outside - all this simply pressed into the sensor housing?

I like it!

Jeff

Posted by: Amenson Feb 24 2010, 09:09 PM

I only used the nut from the angle drive. The piece in the drawing is the only part that I made. The original was brass but I did not have any in the shop at work so I used aluminum. I reused the pressed in brass bushing from the original speedo piece.

The press fits were ~3-4 thou...a bit tight but matched the original parts. The brass bushing presses into the aluminum piece that I made and that presses into the speedo housing. If you want the Sketchup, file let me know and I can email it to you.

Oh, I had to drill out the rivets that hold it together. I replaced them with 3x20 mm hardware.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Mar 13 2010, 09:07 PM

Well, it is time to dig back into the wiring harness. I started by troubleshooting the only non-functioning part of the electrical system...the alternator. Of course I assumed that I messed up something in the initial harness modification so I spent much longer than normal coming to accept the reality that the alternator is dead. In order to pull the alternator the intercooler had to come out and in order to remove the intercooler the rear trunk had to come off.



With that resolved I started in on the wiring. The task is to separate the stuff that needs to be in the dashboard area and the stuff that does not. When I first started back on the wiring I had the distinct feeling of being overwhelmed again. After an hour or so I regained my familiarity with the schematic and it was full steam ahead.





A few more long days like this and I may be able to start it from the driver's seat finally!

Scott

Posted by: GS Guy Mar 14 2010, 09:19 AM

Hey Scott - I completed the same modification to my speedo sensor yesterday and it seems to work perfectly for mechanical fit. The only thing I found I needed beyond your description was running a 1/4" reamer through both rotor bushings while the unit was assembled (without the rotor installed) to correct a very slight mis-alignment between top and bottom bushings. I was getting some stiffness in turning the rotor after assembly, kissing it with the reamer cleaned it up perfectly.

Now about that spaghetti... sure that engine doesn't have some Italian blood?

Jeff

Posted by: ruby914 Aug 3 2010, 09:55 AM

Scott,
Nice work.
Seems you are taking a break from all the wires.
I know the feeling.
I saw what you were doing with your steering column and was inspired to follow. I will try to incorporate the instrument cluster and fabricate a new dash around it also.
I have all I need but the WRX steering wheel. I already started cutting but I am thinking it is still too long?
I see you cut it down "two more inches" so I know you have been there.
I don't have the Subaru wheel yet so I wonder if the depth between the grip and shaft is shorter on the Subaru wheel?
I measure about 7.5" outboard and 8.5" inboard from the stock 914 wheel to flat dash face. What did you finally come up with, from the dash, with the Subaru wheel?

Posted by: Amenson Aug 4 2010, 10:50 AM

Ruby914,
Thanks for the feedback. Glad you could find some of my experiences useful . Although, the steering wheel adaptation is one area where my current implementation can be improved.

Currently the steering wheel sticks too far away from the dash. I do not have the stock IC installed so I measured from the back of the steering wheel to the vertical face of the dash along the steering column and the wheel is 10" away. This will be difficult to change and there is not so much room if you intend to use the Subaru plastic column cover. For me it is not much of a problem because I am short and made my pedal box position adjustable. I will have to recline my seat yet to get the perfect seating position.

There is also a problem on the back side. The shaft sticks out a bit too far and it required that I shorten parts of the intermediate shaft so that I could slide the knuckles as far over the splines as possible to avoid exceeding the max working angle of the knuckles. Before I did this I had a bit of binding. I would recommend shortening the back side even more than I did so that the shaft ends up in the same place as stock. This will require a modified/different mounting method.

Eventually I will do it again, maybe this winter. Hopefully you can refine the design so that I can copy you!

As for the wires...I have actually started to revisit them again the past couple of weeks. I have not posted any pictures because a bundle of wires looks like a bundle of wires no matter how much time I put into them. I did have a bit of a breakthrough...maybe more accurately, a reason to redo a whold bunch of work.

After much measuring and many mental iterations of wire routing, I think that I have figured out a very clean way to run the wires with a minimal amount of harness stretching. In some areas I may eventually get to shorten a few sections. If I move the main fuse box to the front where the old master cylinder reservoir was located and move the ECU to the center tunnel just in front of the rear access panel, I should be able to mount the secondary fuse box and relays under the dash or mabye under the front hood someplace. This will put all of the connectors for the Instrument cluster, switches, IG, ...etc in the proper place.

In order to do this though, it required pulling the pins for most of the wires so that I can separate the right and left engine bundles from each other and from the wires that go to the dash area. This is a very tedious process of getting the pins out of the connectors, fishing the wires out of the bundle running it back with the other wires for the same location and then getting the pin back in the correct place in the original connector. So far there have been ~10 wires that take short cuts that I have had to mark, cut and eventually extend. I have a few more hours of reorganizing before I can lay the harness in the car to confirm if my plan will work. Stay tuned.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: ruby914 Aug 12 2010, 10:29 AM

Scott,
I did some more cutting as seen in this photo and cut 1/4" off of each end of the intermediate shaft.
I drilled a new hole about 7/8' AFT of the original mount hole so all this gained me an extra 7/8", if I don't get a bind.
I also trimmed the cover until I got to where the back cover snaps together. This just fit but it may be better to trim the dash so the cover fits inside. I may still need to do that.
Were you trying to keep the tilt feature?
I really want to keep that but I think I will have to weld on a bar to mock a longer steering column and have that pivot around the first U-joints.
That will be a hard fit but other wise it seems to rotate too easy when locked and I think it will bind at any other pivot location.

I put my ECU behind the passenger seat you can see how that fit here http://z8.invisionfree.com/ClubNARP/index.php?showtopic=5431


Attached image(s)

Posted by: Amenson Aug 15 2010, 07:52 AM

Ruby914,
I checked out your thread on ClubNARP, amazing composite work. If you work out a new dash that fits the Suby cluster I would likely be interested in a copy.

I did keep my steering column adjustable, if for no other reason that I could not decide where to put it permanently. There is a picture of my mount back a few pages.

I moved the harness back into the car to see how everything fits. Pretty much the only place where I can get the passenger side of the engine connected at the same time as the dash stuff is with the ECU on the center tunnel. I should be able to modify the stock between the seat storage box to hide it and still have some storage.


I mounted the main fuse box down where I have the battery.



The secondary fuse box and relays seems to fit where the stock fuse box was. Although I have not figured out how to mount it. Maybe I can get that done yet this morning.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: ruby914 Aug 20 2010, 09:45 AM

Scott,
Thanks for the compliments on the dash.
Actually, you were one of the first I thought would possibly need the dash.
But when I saw you were working on a custom, printed circuit board, LED instrument panel, I figured you would not need it.
I don't think I would be going this direction if I had not read your thread and I would be happy to help your project come together.
With your interest, I have swayed back to a more robust mold and will see what I can do to accommodate you.
I will get an e-mail back to you shortly.

Posted by: ruby914 Sep 23 2010, 10:06 AM

Scott,
I checked the resistance between the WRX and 914 fuel sending units and added a 250 ohm resister in parallel from the green to brown 914 wires.
The resisters were from radio shack and only 1/2 W so I don't know what it should be or if that will last. This seems to work using the 914 sender unit for now.
You are a lot more knowledgeable than i with electronics, if you see any problem let me know.
I got my blinkers, and high beam lights working off the Suby column switch also but I have no 2002 Daytime running lights resister.
So I still have no low beams.
PN. 84057FE010 $69 - $45 is the cheapest I have found. I have been hunting around for the ohms and wattage of this part if you have an 02 maybe you could check yours for me?
I also tend to wonder if the 914 lights would need a different ohms value?

Edit:
I got high and low working.
I still don't understand the DRLs 100% but it is looking like I don't need the resister or any part of this circut.

Posted by: Root_Werks Sep 23 2010, 10:09 AM

Oh man, I stared too long at all those wires.

Seriously, amazing work! I couldn't even begin to think I could keep track of all that. What a cool project!

Posted by: Amenson Sep 29 2010, 06:26 PM

Mike,
Good to hear that you found a solution for the fuel sending unit. The sender in my tank has the opposite resistance to the suby unit. Not sure what to do with that yet.

My harness is out of an 05, I do not have running lights. Can't help with your issue but resistors are pretty cheap if you order one from someplace like http://digikey.com.
One thing that I have been thinking about is how to get the headlights to flip up from the Suby column. The 914 switch has a few extra contacts to work with the headlight motor. I am pretty sure that I can work it out with a relay, maybe two, but have not drawn the circuit yet. What did you come up with?

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Sep 29 2010, 06:31 PM

They are all color coded

Posted by: Amenson Sep 29 2010, 08:05 PM

I thought a little bit more about the daytime running lights. Is there a relay or set of contacts that switches the resistor into the headlight circuit for DLR's?

In the end I don't think that it makes much sense having daytime running lights with flip up headlights. Unless you wanted to run your fog lights as DLR's

Scott

Posted by: AZ914 Sep 30 2010, 11:27 AM

I know a few guys that have their FOGS wired to be hot on ignition (switched on) instead of with the parking lights. They use them for DRLs but you can always turn them off. Works great.

Posted by: ruby914 Oct 1 2010, 12:38 AM

I spent all this time and effort to get my low beams working thinking it was the ground that I didn't have the resister for.
I just wanted low beams, didn't even know what DRL's were for. I didn't have the DRL module and found people were taking them out of there cars, so I didn't need one.
Someone told me the resister was to lower the intensity of the lights, I didn't see a need for that.
I connected the DRL solenoid to ground with no resister. lights still didn't work. I was rotating the switch thinking first click was low, 2nd was high.
Finally found that the high beam is push forward and pull. But at this point the ground was not connected?
I looked at the circuit again. Seems I don't need the DRL module, diode and if I remove the DRL solenoid and connect the YG and YR wires that is all that is needed?
I am still not sure what the first rotation of the light switch should do? I am thinking it will operate the headlight motors through the unused DRL solenoid?
Again Scott, your far better with the electronics than I. Am I missing anything?

Quick update: I now have all the outer lights working, the tail / running lights were last. I put a diagram on my build thread at NARP.

Posted by: Britain Smith Nov 4 2010, 12:23 AM

Which remote oil filter kit is this?



-Britain

Posted by: GS Guy Nov 4 2010, 03:35 PM

Looks like Scott's running Canton hardware for the oil system? They make some nice stuff!

Posted by: Amenson Nov 6 2010, 12:49 PM

Yup, they are Canton parts. I think that I ordered them directly from Canton.

Cheers
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jan 16 2011, 06:43 PM

OK, so I made some decent progress recently, mostly thanks to ruby914. He made me a copy of his Subaru instrument cluster adapted dash. There is a link to his build thread a few posts back and if you have not already visited it, please do. He has made some really nice parts for his car.

So back to the dash, the part is amazing.


If you have removed the dash from your car, you will definitely appreciate what I have to say. If not, go out and remove it and then reinstall it before you continue reading.

He built all of the mounting lugs into his part. Yes, all 8 of them.


When removing the stock dash I was not sure that it would actually come out because the bolts stick through the vertical and horizontal faces of the sub dash. You have to lift and pull at the same time but there it only moves a short distance before the bolts in the other plane start binding. Anyways, after talking to ruby914 and seeing pictures of his work I was pretty sure that the part would fit but even with his skill I anticipated a bit of wrestling to get it in just because the fit is so stink'n tight. Not the case at all. I put the part in place checked a few holes for alignment, wiggled it a bit and it popped right in place.

I had to do some modifications to the sub dash to get the bottom ears of the instrument cluster to fit but the directions in his build thread made it very straight forward.

Isn't it cool!!




I also did quite a bit of very uninteresting stuff. Mostly organizing wires and mounting relays, switches and other random harness components. I am getting closer to being able to take the harness out again to lengthen and reconnect the wires that I have been cutting to get the harness to match the position of the components.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jan 17 2011, 11:24 AM

While I was sitting in the driver's seat admiring my new dash and making engine noises I happened to decide to row through the gears. Much to my dismay, I was really disappointed by the sloppiness of the shift linkage. I have a RennShift and when I first installed it I was blown away by how much it improved the feeling over the short shift kit I already had. I soon found myself disappointed with that so I upgraded the new rear shift bushing with a Patrick brass bushing. That made an improvement in the feel also but I guess the incremental improvements have warn off and now I need something better.

So I ordered the JWest Shift linkage based mostly on the review SirAndy did a while back...if this is as good as it get's then I need one.

I did a search and read through his installation threads and the JWest instructions but have yet to find a picture of what it looks like installed on a stock 4 cyl side shifter. If you have a picture, will you please post one here. I would really like to see the position of the front joint on the crooked rear shaft.

Cheers
Scott

Posted by: SirAndy Jan 17 2011, 11:56 AM

I could probably crawl under the car and take a picture, but i'm using a straight shift rod on the /6 so that might not help you much ...

One thing to note, when you cut and weld the shift rod, make sure both ends are exactly in the same plane!
Meaning, the part that slides into the front coupler needs to be in the same 3D plane as the part that slides into the transmission console.
If you don't get that right, you will get some binding in certain positions ...

I am very happy with my JWest setup. I think as far as shift rods go, this is probably the best shifting you will ever get for a 914.


The only thing better would probably be to ditch the rod setup completely and go with a good cable shifter solution ...

Posted by: Amenson Jan 17 2011, 05:37 PM

There are already some really nice pictures in your instillation thread. Very good writeup, thanks for taking the time to make it.


This is exactly why I want to see a picture. Taking some very quick measurements of my spare rear bar based on the JWest instructions, the front u-joint would end up almost in the same place as the first bend in the bar. This makes the front splined stub significantly un-parallel to the rear splined stub. I must have messed up the measurements but want to see a picture to prove it.

Cheers
Scott

Posted by: ruby914 Feb 16 2011, 01:40 PM

Scott,
I'm glad you're happy with the dash and thank you for the kind words.
It is nice to help and see your project come together.
I like your STI instrument cluster, it's going to look great all lit up.

I don't know how many time I have pulled my dash and wires out. I still have little unsolved problems like the dimmer circuit not dimming, thinking about putting a map light in the dash just above the radio. Maybe satellite tweeters at the end of the dash and my last and final clean up of all wires will have me pulling it all out at least one more time.

I was looking back at your great VSS set up. I like that better then the one I mounted to my CV. Do you recall the brand?

As for shifting, I used a cable shift but still think the Porsche transaxle is the biggest problem. I already had my KEP adapter and wanted to get on the road. So, I let the guys work out the bugs on the Subie trans. Maybe a little late but in the end the path has been cleared and I expect that is the way to go.

Posted by: Amenson Feb 10 2012, 12:38 PM

It was just pointed out to me that it was basically a year since the last update. Sadly I have not make enough progress to actually drive the car.

I have been slogging through the harness and am just about to the point that I can pull it back out and start reconnecting all of the wires after the latest re-org of the component locations.

I also worked on the radiator ducting a bit and will have to suck it up and cut the hole in the hood.

I finally got around to purchasing a new shift linkage. I missed the opportunity to pick up a J-west setup before they discontinued it so I ended up getting the kit from http://www.tangerineracing.com/transmission.htm. After fussing a bit to make sure that I got the holes in the shift console in the correct place the kit bolted right in and is nice and precise. The the supplied metal hole location template made the process very straight forward.




Having now eliminated all of the slop between the top of the shifter to the input shaft on the transmission I am still not overly impressed with the shift feeling. I know it is a 30 year old transmission design but with my BMW 2002 transmission, when all of the bushings are replaces with brass, it feels like you have your hand inside the transmission directly moving the shift forks.

I was hoping for a similar feel with my 901, but when when in gear there is quite a bit of movement in the shift lever shaft both in rotation and in/out.

Is something wrong with my transaxle or is that how they all are?
How much movement should I expect to get with "healthy" 901 in gear?

Regards
Scott

Posted by: dian Sep 16 2012, 11:26 AM

how come this thread is inactive? so much to learn.

Posted by: ruby914 Nov 9 2012, 12:01 PM

Scott, Its that time again.
Your yearly

Posted by: Amenson Nov 29 2012, 06:19 PM

Hi All,
Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been a little busy lately. I know, you are probably expecting the same old story, bla, bla bla, work, family, money, bla, bla, bla. Not this time!

I am finally building my dream garage. Spent the last year designing it and broke ground at the end of October. We (myself, wife, father-in-law and other misc friends/family) are building it ourselves. The only thing that we contracted was the foundation and concrete work.



The new garage shop is 1300 sq.Ft. Daily drivers will live in the two car garage. We are also finishing/expanding the breezeway so that we have an office, laundry room, half bath and mud room.


Fish-eye shot of the new space. Ceiling over the parking are is 11.5ft for lift room.


I built in a half lift that I found on Craigslist a few months ago, still need to refinish it.



Part of the project was to buy a "work" truck. Picked up a '70 C10 with a modded 350. Total burnout monster...also good for hauling 800 lbs of steel siding to the scrap yard. Already installed power steering/brakes and harvested an 80's C10 front suspension to convert to disk brakes and front anti roll bar. Will be lowering it soon to make it easier to load.


It will definitely be a few months until I get back to the Porsti project. I can't even move it into the new shop because the concrete is still curing so I can not apply the stain/sealer.


Need to get it done before I get my '72 2002 back home.

Stay tuned!
Cheers
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jan 6 2013, 08:48 AM

Well, still no progress on getting the PorSti closer to driving but the weather has kept us from working on the exterior of the construction project so we were able to move some stuff to the new garage. The 914 included



It is really motivating to see it off of the jack stands.



I am not able to install the coating on the garage floor until spring so I can only setup a temporary workspace. Should be just enough to make some progress this winter.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: tscrihfield Jan 6 2013, 11:16 AM

Man, that looks like a real nice place to wrench! Turns out your only an hour and a half from me...

Thomas

Posted by: tscrihfield Jan 6 2013, 11:17 AM

I have no idea why it quoted rob above?

Posted by: ruby914 Jan 6 2013, 11:27 AM

Wow, nice. Heat and all.
Wish my house has that big.

Posted by: Amenson Jan 6 2013, 02:45 PM

Let me know if you get over my way and want to stop in sometime.


Without a ceiling the main forced air heater mostly just warms the attic area. The induction heater directly over the car helps a bit more but only in a very small area. Better than nothing but far from efficient.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: tscrihfield Jan 6 2013, 03:50 PM

Will do! I'm in Columbus area quite frequent.

I know Ross wanted to plan a get together in the cinci area, maybe we could have you join?

Thomas

Posted by: Dasnowman Jan 6 2013, 05:37 PM

lol I was thinking the same thing about what I might be into if and when I do a Suby swap.

I was wondering if you could steal HID adjuster motor switch from a STi and use that, you might even be able to have it open just a 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and all the way?

But I might be just talking out my ass, just know some of the Nasioc guys have done retro fits on non HID cars.

Posted by: ruby914 Jan 7 2013, 01:19 AM

Sounds like all you need now is a good ceiling fan. or 4

Posted by: Amenson Jan 7 2013, 06:00 PM

Let me know when you start making plans.


It might be possible. The motor on the adjustable low beams is pretty small though.
I should have a spare headlight to tinker with thanks to an inattentive driver that smashed the front of my daily driver STi.


I can't install ceiling fans until I get power installed...which is on hold until the budget has a few months to recover.

Posted by: tornik550 Jan 7 2013, 06:09 PM

im up for a get together in the columbus area.

Posted by: tscrihfield Jan 7 2013, 09:36 PM

[quote name='tornik550' date='Jan 7 2013, 07:09 PM' post='1798360']
[quote name='tscrihfield' post='1797711' date='Jan 6 2013, 04:50 PM']

[/quote]

Will do! I'm in Columbus area quite frequent.

I know Ross wanted to plan a get together in the cinci area, maybe we could have you join?

Thomas
[/quote]

im up for a get together in the columbus area.
[/quote]

That's a possibility for a garage opening/finishing celebration?
I know there are a few teeners around columbus....

Posted by: edwin Jan 8 2013, 08:11 AM

What are you doing for a floor coating?
2pac I assume?
Dad insisted on it in our shed and we are both a little upset with how it turned out.
I was hesitant after seeing a few workshops with lots of marks and ours is no different.
Welding means putting a mat down now.
Much prefer the idea of pvc tiles or something similar if a coating is needed
Just a thought
Edwin

Posted by: Amenson Jan 8 2013, 12:31 PM

I would be open to having a 914 gathering in the new garage, might motivate me to get the thing running. My work travel schedule for the rest of Jan and Feb is all jacked up so I wont be able to commit to a date for a week or so. Feel free to make recommendations.


Ahh the floor coating dilemma. After months and months of research, quotes, soul searching I have decided to install it myself using contractor grade products. I will be using a non acid stain and two coats of either polyaspartic or polyurthane. Surface will be diamond ground to to the proper roughness for the products.
Is it the best way? No, but given my budget and intended use of the area, it should be more than adequate.

Cheers
Scott

Posted by: charliew Jan 8 2013, 04:12 PM

Scott good to see you are getting a nice place to work. I am 68 and have been working on cars since I was 15. My tools and workplace has changed a lot over the years. I'm sorry but I have never placed an importance on a concrete floor finish that I will be welding, beating on metal, dropping heavy objects on, painting on, spilling or dripping many different solutions on and so forth. I do try to not damage the floor but stuff happens. I always wipe up spills but the floor does have stains on it. I have a friend who's shop looks like a display room but he mostly tinkers with stuff. I would be more concerned with insulation and trying to keep the utilities down as electricity will only go up in cost.
Good luck any way you go though. I see the little person has his hotrod in the shop.

Posted by: tscrihfield Jan 8 2013, 07:59 PM

I know how you feel! I'll have enough frequent flyer miles by June to fly to Munich and back 2 or 3 times.. (not sure if itll really be that much)... But Ill be free the later part of January and February. Where you headed? I'll be in Minneapolis next week....

Thomas

Posted by: Amenson Jan 9 2013, 03:26 PM

Ahhh....I don't have any little people in my family
All of the hotrods in that garage are mine!



I have to spend a couple of weeks in Baudette, MN (I can't exactly say why I am going there but if you look at the Google satellite view of the airport you might be able to figure it out). Then I have a week in Japan for some meetings.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Runman07 Aug 5 2013, 12:18 AM

Any updates on this?? This thing is a beast! Hope to maybe see this in person one day as I live in the Dayton area...

Posted by: AfricanHijinx Aug 14 2013, 10:48 AM

Is this thing on the road yet?

Posted by: Amenson Feb 12 2014, 06:26 PM

Here we go again….recovering from a long period of project dormancy.

You might notice that Porsti is proudly perched on top of a fully restored lift, in a nice new shop. The shop while not finished inside, is completely functional. I still need to put up more lights, more outlets, run the compressed air system and insulate and cover the walls/ceiling. That can wait…it is time to get the Porsti running.

But first I must digress…
While building the garage I also found myself working on the ’70 C10 that we purchased so that we could haul lumber. Even in the middle of building an extensive shop and adding several new rooms to the house, which was essentially a second 50hour/week job, I was able make time to install power brakes, power steering, and a few other updates to a crappy old truck and have a great time doing it.

What does this have to do with anything?
The Porsti project has been stalled for quite some time, even before construction started on the new shop. Sure there were other priorities and distractions along the way but why could I enjoy making mundane upgrades to a $2000 truck during a huge construction project while the Porsti, with almost 10x the money and 100’s of hours of effort already invested, sat ignored so close to completion?

The remaining work in the Porsti project is adapting the complete wiring harness from the Subaru to the 914. This includes not only getting the Suby engine running (which I did Aug. ’09 with the entire wiring harness in the trunk) but also get the lights (including popup functionality), instrument cluster, windshield wipers (intermittent with the Subaru motor on the 914 linkage), radiator fans, new fuel level sender, new vehicle speed sender ….etc, etc, etc all complete and installed to my somewhat neurotic level of refinement. The approach I was taking was that the wiring was a single task like building the exhaust or cooling system or installing power steering on the C10. The goal for the wiring is that once complete, a turn of the key would result in a running engine with no faults and all other systems working and installed to a near OEM level. I spent hours, day after day, working on the wiring and at the end of each day all I had a mess of slightly less jumbled wires with no way to experience the satisfaction of completion. The task of installing the wiring is simply too large to be viewed as a single goal. The reward of completion was gone and with it the incentive to dedicate precious spare hours to the project. What is needed is a change of mindset.

Even though the car is a mess of jumbled wires, I am going to get it running. There are a few connections that that I need to make in order to achieve this and if I have to splice in a random colored wire because I don’t have the correct pins or colored wire, so be it. Just make a note of what needs to be cleaned up in the future and move on. Once it is running I should be able to drive it out of the garage and smoke the rear tires off of the rims. Then I can pull it back into the garage with a smile on my face get back to the task of getting all of the other systems working, one by one with a feeling of achievement at the end of each project. Once everything is working and the car is fully functional I can worry about cleaning up any esthetic compromises that I made getting it running.

Time to make some progress...incrementally!

Sorry for the non technical, somewhat philosophical and rambling post but I thought that it could help others with stalled projects figure out how break through the progress block.
It also helped me organize my thoughts and clarify my way forward.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: CptTripps Feb 12 2014, 07:03 PM

Happens to the best projects sometimes. I can appreciate the level of effort you have put in already, and needing to take time off from it!

Posted by: 76-914 Feb 12 2014, 10:02 PM

Alright, another Suby player.

Posted by: wobbletop Feb 13 2014, 09:20 AM

What did you use to design the garage?

Posted by: Amenson Feb 13 2014, 09:46 AM

Google Sketchup...great (free) program, very easy to use.

Posted by: CptTripps Feb 13 2014, 09:53 AM

Sketchup is one of my favorite programs!

Tip: Try to find an older version. Google sold Sketchup about a year ago, and the newer versions push you (often) to purchase the $600 version of the software.

Posted by: ruby914 Feb 13 2014, 01:54 PM

Scott,
Good to see you back.

I can fully understand your stall. I remember thinking you were operating over my pay grade on the wiring. It may have been your planed ECU location? I would have go back and read up.
Anyway, I followed your lead but tried to stay out of the big bumps that you were tackling.
I used all the colored wires I could find from AT harness, etc... to extend the instrument cluster 3' but came up very short. So, like Porsche do it on the 914 ECU I used all the same color where I couldn't find the correct size and color. That's all in a single loom and you can still keep the correct pins.
My ECU wire loom is still a foot or more too long for my ECU location but I was afraid to cut it down. It just loops under the seat. That's not so bad. Fuse box's behind my seat and between the seats is livable as well.
I still have all my extra wires if you want them. It's still about a kitchen trash can worth and I did pick out many but some may useful.

Posted by: Amenson Feb 16 2014, 09:36 PM

Thanks Mike,
Great to be back on it. Appreciate the offer for the wires if we were closer I would take you up on it.


Throughout the week I studied the wiring schematic and got reacquainted with the component locations in the car. Spend a good part of Saturday under the front hood sorting out the power distribution from the main fuse box/battery. I also rework twin two speed fan control do work with the twin singe speed fans in the car now.



Could only spend a few hours on Sunday but I was able to get a good start reconnecting all of the cut wires. Luckily I took the time to label both sides of the cut as I made them. Now it is just a matter of finding both ends and reconnecting them. I got sick of playing "Concentration" against myself (and losing) so I made a map to record the wire number and color.


Underline means that both ends are on the map and crossed out ones have been connected.

I was kind of disappointed that I did not get far enough to try to turn the key but decided to be happy that I had a very productive weekend and had a great time doing it.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Feb 22 2014, 04:32 PM

PorSTI started again today. For the first time ever I was able to rev the Suby engine from the driver's seat. I had 15 minutes of terror when it would turn over but not start. I was confident that I had reconnected all of the cut wires properly and the faults I was getting did not make sense with that assumption. I eventually found the main connector going to the driver side of the engine disconnected. Plugged it in and it started right up.

Tomorrow I have a buddy coming over to help me do a thorough check to make sure that everything is tight (to avoid loose connector type issues with something safety critical ) and hopefully it will pull out of the garage under it's own power for the first time in, well, forever.

Will post video if successful.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: CptTripps Feb 22 2014, 05:59 PM

That sounds awesome.

I'm nervous about that happening to me too. Spending all this time/money/energy and having something real simple stump me.

Can't wait to hear the success story!

Posted by: ruby914 Feb 22 2014, 06:05 PM

Wow, that was a fast rebirth.

Posted by: Amenson Feb 23 2014, 07:27 PM

So, not quite the video I was planning to post but it will have to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gooqcFg4dmA



We went through all of the fasteners on the back half of the car, adjusted the shift linkage and tidied up a few things in hope of making the maiden voyage out of the garage but the clutch will not disengage. I am not sure if my custom hydraulic clutch setup is not stroking far enough or if there is some other issue. I remember reading that the Kennedy flywheel/clutch setup sometimes having this issue if everything is not perfect but I can't recall the details.

If anybody has any suggestions, I am looking for answers. If someone can measure how much the clutch fork moves on a functioning setup that would be extremely helpful.

Cheers.
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Feb 23 2014, 08:11 PM

The Kennedy parts are the Subaru 2.5 adapter to 228mm Clutch disk with stage III pressure plate. Invoice says Porsche trow out bearing.

Any ideas?

Posted by: ruby914 Feb 23 2014, 09:02 PM

The kit I got from KEP had a problem with the pressure plate. For 2 weeks, I thought it was my linkage or that ball pivot. But no, a spring was broken on the pressure plate. They sent me a new one.

Posted by: Amenson Feb 24 2014, 02:22 PM

I called KEP to ask about the travel required at the TOB to to disengage the clutch and they said about 3/16". He recommended 1/8" of slop at rest before the TOB touches the pressure plate. I am pretty sure that I am over that, maybe too far.

I measured some pictures of a clutch fork and it appears to be about a 2.6 motion ratio. If this is the case and I am stroking the fork ~1" on the outboard side, the TOB should be moving .38", almost perfect if I have the proper slop. If I am fully stroking the slave to the max 1.375" the TOB moves .53"...maybe far enough to crack a spring?

I need to measure the actual slave stroke and confirm the motion ration to know for sure. Does anybody have a clutch fork laying around to measure the dimensions from both ends to the center of the pivot cup.

I have been considering that the clutch disk could be rusted to the flywheel due to the obscenely long time that the project has been sitting. I mentioned this idea to KEP but they said that the disk I likely have is mostly organic and probably not the problem. I will still try to pop it free as a last resort before pulling the trans.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: GS Guy Feb 24 2014, 04:13 PM

Scott,
Had my trans with installed clutch TO-arm and Kennedy TOB installed sitting in the basement and took some quick measurements. This is maximum throw of the arm, only limited by the physical opening in the bellhousing. Slave is not installed. My set-up also uses the 9" clutch/flywheel but just a stage II PP.

At the TOB face and outer slave pivot point I got:
TOB movement: 11/16" (0.6875)
Outer pivot movement: 1-5/8" (1.625)

1.625/0.6875 = 2.364 motion ratio

To get 3/16" movement at the TOB, should require 0.443" at the outer fork (slave) attachment pivot, less than 1/2"! My Wilwood slave has 1-5/16" total travel, waaay more than enough, at least on paper.

Hummm... I've got a 3/4" MC and the slave is also 3/4, easy 1:1. My Wilwood pedal ratio is 6:1 so that should be 2.66" of pedal movement for 3/16" at the TOB. That's good because I only have about 3" of total pedal travel available in my set-up!

Cheers,
Jeff

Posted by: Amenson Feb 25 2014, 08:37 AM

Jeff,
Thanks for the details, this is exactly what I needed.
I did a really quick measurement and my slave is moving 1", maybe a hair under. This makes my TOB displacement ~.42". Plenty of movement to release the clutch and should not be too much to have broken a spring. Sounds like your setup will work also.

So why isn't my damn clutch releasing? At this point I have convinced myself that the disk is stuck to the flywheel. Besides the rusty rotors the there has been no resistance on the drive wheels as it has only started in the air. I only started it in gear once or twice and it was in first and revere to see if the wheels would actually turn. From what I have found online, starting it in 5th and braking should free it.

I am leaving for a business trip this afternoon, so I will not get to try to "brake" it free this until Friday or Saturday. Maybe I can hop into it quickly at lunch and give it a try.

Cheers
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Feb 25 2014, 10:58 AM

The clutch works!!!

Started it up in 3rd with the clutch depressed, pressed the brake and the engine did not stall. No major shaking or thunking noises. Let the clutch out and the wheels started turning, pushed it back in and the wheels stopped. It even goes into gear with the engine running Wish that I would have tried this on Sunday.

Should be driving it out of the garage this weekend

Cheers
Scott

Posted by: ruby914 Feb 25 2014, 11:07 AM

Cool, I was just digging up the old posting about my clutch troubles for you.
Looks like you will not need them.
You're going to love your new toy.
BTW, the car sounds great.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 1 2014, 02:30 PM

Hey Mike...mind finding that info about your clutch dilemma.

I put the car on the ground and it will not go in to gear with the engine running. I shortened the slave cylinder to make sure that I could adjust it properly and still could not get the clutch to fully release.

It will release enough that I can sit on the ground in gear w/o stalling the car but it will not go into gear. With the tires off of the ground they will slowly turn when in gear and the clutch pushed in. If I start the car in gear I can get it to move in that gear by releasing the clutch but if I want to select another gear I have to shut off the engine. I did get it out of the garage under power using this method but it was not glorious, it was rather infuriating.

Something is dragging in the clutch. I guess that I will have to pull the trans to figure out what.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 1 2014, 06:06 PM

I was out of ideas so I pulled the trans. Actually came out relatively easily.



The pressure plate appeared to be properly in place and all of the bolts tight.
The disk looks basically new:



The flywheel looks unused except one area is starting to show some heat spots.




The pressure plate is the same with a matching area showing some heat spots.




I have no idea what these parts should look like at this point in their life but it is odd that there are asymmetric marks in the same region of both the flywheel and pressure plate. Seems like those areas could be rubbing even with the clutch in. Nowhere else does it show any signs of slipping.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: rnellums Mar 1 2014, 08:37 PM

I know on the subie flywheels you can over tighten and cause dragging. Do you have a torque spec for the pressure plate bolts? I think it is around 14 ft - lb for the subie pp.

Posted by: jaxdream Mar 1 2014, 09:04 PM

Do you need the spacer washers behind the cluch release bearing fork piviot ball if the flywheel has been turned ???

Jack

Posted by: ruby914 Mar 2 2014, 01:06 AM

Here you go Scott.

From my Narp thread:
Posted: Sep 21 2009, 09:39 AM

I got the stage II, 9" Porsche heavy duty pressure plate and clutch from KEP but the clutch is not fully engaging.
It's adjusted so tight that it bottoms out on the transaxle case. KEP tells me, I may need to place a washer under the little Teflon pivot on the clutch arm, or bend the arm. Wish I knew before I installed the motor.
Is this normal?

Sep 25 2009, 11:23 AM

I found the thread: Suby conversion and hydraulic clutch?, Two mods at once??
GS guy said:
"While studying the Kennedy installation instructions, it states specifically to:
1) Remove the sealing washer behind the ball stud where the clutch arm pivots -
apparently to reposition the clutch arm slightly and allow more lever travel?"
I don't know if I ever got installation instructions, not to say they didn't send them but I don't find any in my file.
I don't remember a sealing washer behind the ball stud, in my case I think I need to go the other way and add the washer behind the cup.
Looks like it will come apart soon, maybe I will just bend the arm?

Nov. 5
I pulled the transaxle back from the motor to remove the clutch pivot arm, shim the pivot cup and bend the arm.
The clutch still did not fully disengage. Pulled the motor and checked everything in relation to the stock motor and transaxle. Everything looked good.
Called the good people at KEP more than one time.. Finally found the problem. The diaphragm was cracked from between two fingers to the outer edge.
KEP mailed out a new one that day. I was told, with the newer kits you don't have to remove the washer from under the pivot ball.

And that was it.
Problem is, from your photo yours looks ok.

The diaphragm was cracked behind the rivet in the photo.


Attached image(s)

Posted by: Amenson Mar 2 2014, 08:34 AM

Thanks for the feedback.

I could not find the instructions for the pressure plate assembly so I am not sure what the spec was. I am generally careful about torque specs for critical components so I would assume that they were properly torqued. Although anything is possible?


All of the parts are new.


I checked again, very carefully, for cracks and could not find anything that even hinted of a crack.

I also measured from the pressure plate face to the flywheel mounting face and it was consistent.

What I did notice, and I have no idea if it is actually an issue, is that when I set the pressure plate finger side down, the pressure plate face does not sit level.



The level is zero'd to the measurement surface (otherwise known as my glass cooktop).

Is this a problem? It is the only thing that I can find that even hints at an issue.
I sent an email to KEP with all of my observations. They were helpful when I called last week. Hopefully they can give me some feedback to get me moving forward again.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Mar 4 2014, 11:19 AM

The feedback from KEP is that the the pressure plate likely has some issue.
I have a new on on the way and the old one is going back to KEP for inspection.

If all goes as planned I will have the car back together and working on Saturday as my from me to me birthday present and, more importantly, in time for our annual Chili Cook-off party where a whole bunch of people will be at the house who have been asking me for a long long time when the car will be running.
Hopefully I will never have to be asked that question again.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: 76-914 Mar 4 2014, 11:37 AM

Happy birthday. I'll be celebrating with you.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 6 2014, 02:11 PM

The tracking number says that my new pressure plate will arrive tomorrow.
Here is my excellent schedule through the end of the weekend.

Now...Continue to work like a dog to put the finishing touches an a work project that started 3 years ago.
6pm- Clean the flywheel and organize the tools/fasteners required to get the PorSTI back together.

Tomorrow:
7-9am final review/cleanup of work Documents.
9am-12pm Meeting to release project to production.
10am; UPS should arrive with pressure plate.
12:01pm Drive home and open Hopslam.
12:30pm-end: Install and test clutch. Drink more beer.

Saturday:
Morning: clean up garage for party. Pick up beer bottles from Friday.
11am-2pm: Brunch and beers at favorite restaurant.
2pm-5pm: Get ready for Party.
5pm-end: Party. Maybe do a burnout to prove to friends that PorSTI really is working.

Sunday:
Pick up more beer bottles.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 7 2014, 02:00 PM

My plan was going great until the UPS guy showed up at work and did not have my pressure plate. Called KEP and apparently they are incapable of differentiating between a shipping and billing address.

The pressure plate will arrive today but instead of installing it this afternoon during the half day of vacation I took for the purpose, I will install it tonight.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 7 2014, 09:22 PM

Bad news, new pressure plate, same problem.

This must be a stroke issue. What else could it be?

Posted by: ruby914 Mar 7 2014, 11:09 PM

How's the beer?

Posted by: Amenson Mar 8 2014, 08:00 AM

Beer was great. Had a Hopslam, New Belgium Rampant, and NB 1554 while waiting for the pressure plat to arrive. Nothing like a couple of Imperial IPA's to take the edge off.

Hopefully I can get some more travel out of my clutch pedal to confirm if more TOB travel will fix my issues.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 9 2014, 12:46 PM

Not quite in time for for my party yesterday but....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIKFcDL4-NA


Time to take the wife for a ride around the block!

I will document what I did to fix the clutch issue later today!

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: ruby914 Mar 9 2014, 02:22 PM

Cool!
Now, take some time to drive it before you put it back on the jack stands.

Posted by: CptTripps Mar 10 2014, 06:58 AM

Admittedly, I was expecting something more dramatically bad to happen when you revved it up there.

Posted by: Amenson Mar 11 2014, 04:03 PM

I too was a bit uncertain about what would happen but the car needed to start its new life in an appropriate way so I went for it. Turned out quite well.

After the burnout I took it out for a leisurely cruise with my wonderful wife. The temps starting climbing so I brought it back to the garage to work some more air out of the cooling system.

I then took it out for a less leisurely drive and blew an intercooler line off attempting a rolling 2nd gear WOT launch. Made some awesomely terrifying noises but no harm done. This thing is going to be very fun

I also found out that near full throttle pedal travel, the sensor faults out so I need to modify the linkage a bit. Not a huge problem but did result in some pushing before I figured out what what going on.

At the end of the testing the car started to stall out. I am pretty sure that I am almost out of gas because the tank is not baffled so it could suck air as the fuel is sloshing around.

Unfortunately in the middle of this I found out that my 96 year old grandmother is terminally ill so I parked it and am now in Wisconsin.

Stay tuned.
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Mar 23 2014, 05:24 PM

Had a great day in the garage. Took care of a transmission output shaft seal leak on my wife's '05 Legacy GT Wagon. While I had it out I also fixed a small exhaust leak. It went so well that I had a couple of hours to work on the PorSTI.

I have been struggling with an issue where when the engine loads up it starts running like garbage. I had convinced myself that the ECU was hitting some failsafe target and going into a protection mode because it felt a lot like when my Galant VR4 would hit fuel cut. I took log after log with different signals but could not find anything maxing out. The only thing that looked at all abnormal was that the O2 sensor was saturating at full rich when this occurred. I figured that it was part of the protection mode.

Some more research and deep thought and I changed my diagnosis to a boost leak. Pulled the intercooler and checked all of the couplings. Sure enough, one of the couplings had slid past the clamp but was still over the tube so at low boost/vacuum it was still sealing but at high boost it would leak. Put everything back together and it goes like mad. Rolled into the throttle in second gear and got almost immediate wheel spin Gotta love boost!

As for the clutch, the problem is a lack of stroke at the slave cylinder. I am going to replace the 3/4" master with a 1" to increase the slave stroke.

Posted by: Amenson Apr 16 2014, 07:21 AM

With the car running I had a chance to drive it to get the required out of state vin inspection so that I can register it.
My plate idea was still available!


I actually received the plates last weekend but I have been too busy following CptTripps build thread to update my own!!

Posted by: CptTripps Apr 16 2014, 07:39 AM

Ok...so I have a HUGE issue here mister.

You're only about 1:45 south of me and I'm just now figuring this out?

I need you to get in that car and drive your ass up here so I can compare things and make sure I don't build myself a hand grenade.

No excuse. I'll expect you in my garage at 6:00pm tonight.

Posted by: 76-914 Apr 16 2014, 08:00 AM

Outstanding! Great work. Mucho congratulations.

Posted by: Amenson Apr 16 2014, 09:38 AM

Looks like you have everything well under control but if you need any specific pictures or anything just let me know.

I still have some minor details like brake lights and blinkers to hook up before I can get too far away from home. Hope to get most of it knocked out on Friday and then I can start finding excuses for mid range road trips.

I need to get some serous miles on it before June because I will be joining by Detroit buddies on Hot Rod Power Tour. Need to know that it will hold up to 2500 miles over a week of daily burnouts and other shenanigans.

Posted by: CptTripps Apr 16 2014, 09:42 AM

It may LOOK like I have it all under control, but I imagine that there's something backwards somewhere that I will need a 2nd...or 3rd...or 4th set of eyes on before I feel comfortable driving it more than around the block.

So I'll expect that next weekend you'll be able to come up and help me shake-down mine! Right??? Come on man...it can be your first "mid-range" trip. I'm a short 2h drive up 71!

Posted by: Amenson Apr 17 2014, 07:28 AM

I had a buddy conduct a sanity check for me. It was useful to have somebody reasonably unfamiliar with the setup check it over because I had looked at it so many times that I was missing some obvious things.

Biggest things to pay attention to are those that can cause over boost. Make sure the boost control solenoid is plumbed properly and if you are using the stock plumbing, check that the restrictor pill is in the correct place.

Good to hear that you are stepping back from the goal to drive to Hershey this weekend...no sense cutting corners now.

Posted by: 1stworks Apr 17 2014, 08:18 AM

Congratulations!!!!!

The car sounds sick!!!!!!

Posted by: Amenson Apr 20 2014, 06:36 PM

Had a some fairly productive garage time over the long weekend.

I installed the 1" master cylinder for the clutch. I am definitely getting full disengagement of the clutch but the pedal force is somewhat obscene. I am considering changing to a 7/8" master but need to do the calculations to see how much the pedal force and slave travel will go down.

I had the wife drive it just to see what her reaction would be to the clutch. She was more uncomfortable with the position of the steering wheel than she was with the clutch

I also hooked up the brake lights and blinkers so the car is legal to drive. Unfortunalty when I took it to go on the madden voyage to the gas station, the car started bucking again...apparently when I was doing burnouts in the driveway earlier in the day I blew a IC hose off again.

Anticipating that this would continue happening I purchased a Harbor Freight http://www.harborfreight.com/18-inch-sheet-metal-fabrication-kit-34104.html during the last super sale.

It does a pretty good job but I had to clamp a reinforcing bar on the back side to keep the rollers aligned.

I even put a bead on the input/output of the IC.

Talked the wife into powering the rollers while I rotated the IC.

Unfortunately I must have something mis-clamped because I am still getting a hesitation. Sucks, I was planning to drive it to work tomorrow.

Cheers
Scott

Posted by: 914forme Apr 20 2014, 06:52 PM

Very Nice, I have one of them and never thought about doing that, I will have to try this. I have built them out of Vice grips and exhaust clamps. Did what I needed it to do, on my turbo pipes on my TDI.

Posted by: RonW Apr 20 2014, 08:13 PM

great thread, from start to end. glad to here its on the road.

Posted by: Amenson Apr 21 2014, 02:59 PM

I think that I just calculated myself into a corner and am now doubting myself.

I went from a 3/4" master to a 1" master.
The slave is 7/8".

I calculated that this increased the force needed at the master cylinder ~79%.

If I would have went from a 3/4" to a 7/8" master, I calculated that I would have only increased the force needed at the master cylinder ~29%.

Anybody want to double check my math....

Posted by: Amenson Apr 21 2014, 08:42 PM

Come on...somebody wants to dust of the old HP48

Posted by: jcd914 Apr 21 2014, 10:35 PM

Well with the increase in diameter of your master cylinder piston, the area of the circle has increased from 0.442 square inches with the 3/4" master cylinder to 0.785 square inches with the 1" master cylinder.
I calculate that at about 78% increase in area.
The 7/8" master cylinder would put you in the middle with 0.601 square inches or about 34% increase.

Jim

Posted by: Amenson Apr 22 2014, 09:53 AM

Thanks Jim!
Basing the comparison on area vs force is a much cleaner way of getting to the same results.

I ordered a 7/8" master to get the force improvement. The slave stroke should still be fine.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Apr 24 2014, 11:30 AM

I sorted out the issue with the boost and it is running great again. So great in fact that I decided to drive it to work today.
Took the opportunity to fill it up at the pump for the first time.


I did find that with a full tank, fuel will slosh out of the vent. It is so fun finding issues like this finally!

Posted by: CptTripps Apr 24 2014, 05:13 PM

Posted by: RonW Apr 24 2014, 07:11 PM

NICE! no vids?

Posted by: 914forme Apr 24 2014, 07:22 PM

Who's. valance are you running, it looks like the one Patrick sells, but if you have a better source do tell. I am in the market for one.

And great to see it out on the road. That is a great day in every car projects life. Now go and work the bugs out

Posted by: Amenson Apr 25 2014, 06:54 AM

Not much to show that is video worty, just tooling around town.


It is the Patrick valance. It is a pretty nice piece but it did not fit symmetrically on my car so I had to offset it about 1/2 inch from center. Might be my car but it seems pretty straight up front.

The car got a little warm sitting in traffic on the way home from work yesterday. Probably due to the lack of a vent on the hot side of the radiator. Also did not help that I had a few weeping connections in my cooling system. Man would it be nice to have a set of tube beaders the next time I have my cooling system apart

Posted by: JTSmithson Apr 25 2014, 09:39 AM

Just read this cover to cover, amazing stuff you've done. My father and I are in the process of putting a '74 2.0 back together. I have my doubts on the quality of life our little 2.0 has and if it get's a Suby Motor this thread will be printed on poster boards for reference.

Posted by: JTSmithson Apr 25 2014, 09:39 AM

Just read this cover to cover, amazing stuff you've done. My father and I are in the process of putting a '74 2.0 back together. I have my doubts on the quality of life our little 2.0 has and if it get's a Suby Motor this thread will be printed on poster boards for reference.

Posted by: Amenson Apr 26 2014, 10:48 AM

Thank you for the kind words. Hopefully my successes and more importantly my failures can help others improve the quality of their projects.

That being said, I just swapped out the clutch master cylinder and the 7/8" master has a much more reasonable pedal force and the stroke is enough to fully disengage the clutch.

Posted by: Amenson May 2 2014, 09:12 PM

I have been going through all of my parts to see what I have...more like what I can find.

Looks like I lost my Subaru fog light switch. Anybody have one left over from their harness that they want to sell?

It should look like this:

Posted by: Amenson May 4 2014, 07:48 PM

Had another pretty successful weekend in the garage. Spent a few hours cleaning up some unused or poorly routed wires. Then I tackled installing the upper dash.

The metal support dash came out pretty easily.


Mocked up the assembly on the bench so that I could weld up some cuts make to fit the Suby IC.


Many hours of welding, grinding and painting later...it is ready to go back in.


Installed! The paint job is crappy but much better than is was previously.


Now I can accelerate without having to hold the IC in place!

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson May 15 2014, 01:50 PM

With the dash in and some of the wiring tidied up the car feels almost like a real car. So much so that I have been driving it a lot...apparently too much for the unvented radiator.
The engine temps have stayed almost ideal but after a half hour drive through traffic and highway speeds on a beautiful 80 deg day the thing started sputtering and quit on me. Sort of started up enough to get onto a side road where I could check things out. After poking around for a bit I noticed that the fuel pump was not making any noise. Went to touch it and damn near blistered a finger. Apparently containing all of the heat from the radiator in the same area as the fuel cell and heats up the fuel so that it no longer cools pump causing the pump to seize. I did not like the external pump anyways so I picked up one of these:

http://www.tanksinc.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=84/mode=prod/prd84.htm

I am also going to apply some adhesive heat barrier to the fuel cell and finally put the hole in the hood so I should be ok.

I found it to be very irritating that the fuel gauge reads backwards so I ordered a new sender.
http://www.egauges.com/VDO-Tube-Type-Sender-90-0-Ohms-Adjustable-Gauges-s/23211.htm

I also noticed that the radiator fans were running all of the time and that the ECU was commanding them to do so. After a bit of reading the ECU considers speed when turning on the fans so I guessed that the vehicle speed sensor disconnected fault was causing this. Temporarily hooked up my sensor and the fans work properly. While messing with the sensor I considered that there was no way possible for the speedometer to be correct so after some searching of the internets I found and ordered this wonderful device:

http://www.fastforward.ca/harness_retrofit_accessories.html

I was still struggling with a fuel/boost cut type feeling as boost started to build. Again I had convinced myself that it was indeed fuel/boost cut. In preparation to have my car tuned next week I made a quick boost leak tester to confirm that everything was OK. Well, it was not. I had a few small leaks that were together causing a huge loss of air under boost. Welded up a few pinholes and adjusted a few clamps and it is making power again. When I took it out for a test drive last night the roads were a bit damp so I had a load of fun boiling the tires with any moderate throttle apply.

I also found that all of the wheel bearings need to be replaced. I read a number of different explanations on how to remove the rear bearings and would like to try it while on the car w/o the spendy tool. Anybody want to convince me that trying to "tap" them out is a bad idea? I have a press so I could do it that way but really do not want to pull the trailing arms.

I have to say again just how cool the custom dash is that I picked up from ruby914. If you want to use the suby IC you really need to convince him to make one for you.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: ruby914 May 17 2014, 11:58 AM

I don't know Scott. Have you have you seen what Kent (76-914) is doing with his Suby/914 cluster. He is making the need for complete dash replacement obsolete. He is 1/2 way there.
I have to take a 2nd look at the Suby cluster, see if it can be drawn and quartered with the parts reintegrated into the 914 cans and still get full functionality out of it. It would be cool if the odometer was still there and the Suby harness connectors utilized.
I see you did manage to get the fuse box up under the dash, wow, great job.
Where is the ECU now? I think anything FWD of the stick shift is a major task.
I also like the upside down fuel sender tube, wish I knew they made them sooner.
Do I recall your wife didn't feel comfortable with the control locations? What was it?
I think I did manage to get the steering wheel just a little more forward. I also tilted the seat back some.

Posted by: Amenson May 20 2014, 08:32 PM

Mike, I did see what Kent is doing and while it is really impressive, it just feels right to have the suby gauges and with your handy work...it integrates really well. I do hope that you go back to a stock configuration so that I can have your carbon covered piece

My ECU is between the seat. I will hide it under the center seat cushion/tray. My wife did not like how low the steering wheel was and how her legs were unsupported. The wheel is now much higher so that I can see the gauges and the seat will be reclined 15 deg very soon. Should be pretty much ideal seating position for me and not so bad for anybody else sorter than 6'.

On the progress front, I got the in tank pump and new fuel sender installed. No pictures because it was a somewhat hectic install...partially because one of my buddies stopped over with a couple of Cuban cigars that distracted me for a couple of hours. I did make a valuable swap fact. The suby fuel pump controller requires an isolated ground in order to control the duty cycle. The in tank pump kit that I used has a pump ground that is not isolated so the pump does odd things...like run continuously when the IG is on but engine is not running. Not really a problem except that I also had a leak inside the tank that was causing the engine to run like crap. I went to bed Sunday night with the car not running and no idea how to fix it with an appointment first thing in the morning with the tuner. After a restless night of mental troubleshooting I fixed it first thing in the morning and made my appointment. The result is this:



Pretty standard stock turbo results. I had him be a bit conservative so that I can put pretty much any quality of premium and still beat on it w/o any fear of detonation.

I also had my new tires installed which really helped with the straight line traction but the sidewalls are really compliant. I actually pulled over on the way home from the shop because I thought that something was wrong. I feels like I am driving on gummy bears. I played with the tire pressures a bit and got some improvement and it will get a bit better when I replace the wamped out bearings but the handling will still be less than super. Maybe I will have to install the 911 front suspension and 16" phone dials I have squirreled away. Anybody have a set of rear 5 lug parts laying around?

Tires are 205/55R-15 Dunlop Direzza DZ102's. Wheels are stock 2.0 Fuchs.

Anyways, still have a load of stuff to clean up before I will be comfortable to drive it 2500 miles on Hot Rod Power Tour. Less than 3 weeks to go, time to get serious.

Cheers
Scott

Posted by: Amenson May 20 2014, 08:53 PM

...almost forgot. After the tuning session, which was particularly nerve wracking listening to some strange guy wail on my "baby" on the dyno for almost 4 hours. Every time he brought it to redline at WOT I cringed waiting for horrible noises of catastrophic failure. None happened but after the session he asked me what fluid in the car was blue. WTF...did the tranny crack? Swepco is blue! Got under the car on the lift and the passenger side of the trans was soaked. Pressure plate was dripping. Looked around and it appeared that the front seal was leaking. Got it home and looked at it closer and it actually looks like the fluid was coming out of the breather.

Is it possible/common for gear oil to get slung out of the breather?

Posted by: 914forme May 20 2014, 08:54 PM

I have a spare set of drilled hubs. You can take your -4 rotors, bolt the hobs on and mark the -5 bolt holes, and drill the 4 holes. on each of the rotors. If the hats are as soft as the metal in the disk, you should have no problem drilling them.

Iam swapping over to 911 rear hubs and stubs. So these are just kinda hanging out in the rear arms, still haven't pressed them out yet. I could get that done if your in need.

Posted by: JTSmithson May 20 2014, 09:01 PM

What would you want for the 4-lug Fuchs if start doing swappy swap stuff??? You can PM to keep the bidding down.

Posted by: Amenson May 21 2014, 07:15 AM

This is definitely an option. Realistically the conversion will not happen before Power Tour so I am not in a hurry. When you get them out, get in touch and we can work something out.



Send me a pm with an offer. This will get you first in line when I do sell them and give me an idea what my budget would be for the swap.

Nobody has any feedback about the trans fluid situation??

Posted by: mgp4591 May 21 2014, 08:02 AM

I've only seen oil out the breather tube if it's overfilled... or if the bottom of the tube is venting below the fluid level. Other than that...??

Posted by: CptTripps May 22 2014, 12:11 PM

My size 13 foot would catch EVERY one of those wires!

Posted by: 914forme May 22 2014, 04:14 PM

Added a catch can and see what happens with your trans fluid. Many a thread on how to do it, you can go cheap on it, a bike bottle, and cage, and some hosing. Its not a bad idea anyway if your planning on auto-xing it or taking it to the track anytime.

People don't like oil on tracks.

And for some reason unless there is a VW Beatle in the crowd the first place they always come and look is at the 914s.

I was at one event a guy in an Eagle Talon dumped 4 Quarts all over the paddock and they came over to inspect my car. I am like what are you looking for, I am clean, go look at that guys car, with the trail of oil heading to that trailer over there.

Posted by: Amenson May 23 2014, 08:15 AM

I like the idea of adding a catch can, thanks for the suggestion.

When I used to race F500 we had a run group with Formula Vee. Even though we ran two strokes and probably put a decent amount of oil out of our exhaust we still complained about the oil from the FV guys Air cooled flat 4's are always to blame.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson May 25 2014, 08:47 PM

Had a productive day in the garage today and ticked off some major items.

The biggest but least interesting thing was to fill the access holes in the outside of the longs. I always hate doing things that when complete just make it look the way that it should have in the first place. So boring that I did not even take any pictures.

The other thing is something that I have been avoiding....cutting the cooling scoop in the hood. Lots of measuring, marking, measuring, and more measuring...

..then finally some cutting.

Cuts came out almost perfect, wobbled a bit on the longitudinal cut but can't really tell.

Still have to bend it open further and fab in some sides but it should be fairly discrete.

The opening will be about 12cm deep. The cut out is 60cm x 20cm.



Eventually I will fab up ducting to the radiator but that can wait, too many other things to do before the start of HRPT on the 6th.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Alphaogre May 25 2014, 10:08 PM

I'm really diggin that hood!

Posted by: Amenson May 26 2014, 07:58 PM

Continued work on the scoop today.
Was struggling to get the right curve in the flap until I found this custom bending tool laying around the shop

Once I got the curve the way I wanted it I made a template and the side pieces.

Pulled the hood. Sort of liked this view but I really need to tidy up the wires.

Time to break out the tig

After I got the feel for the material I was making no filler micro tacks on the edge of the 1mm sheet.

I love TIG...less than 5 minutes of grinding with 100 grit to clean edges.

Looks pretty darn good if I must say so myself.

Will be fairly discrete once painted.

Venting!


Will find some reasonably close color in a can and spray bomb it so that it looks decent from 10 feet.

Almost done with the high effort tasks...time to burn through all of the little tasks on the check list.

Soctt

Posted by: CptTripps May 27 2014, 06:47 AM

That's pretty cool man. I'm wondering why you felt you needed to cut the hood. Was using the wheel wells not an option? Mine are cut out for venting, and on the V8 that worked just fine. Is it because the fuel cell is in the way?

Posted by: Amenson May 27 2014, 08:29 AM

I struggled a lot with the radiator venting method. The wheel well vents obviously work based on the number of cars that use them. I just could not rationalize dumping all that hot air onto the front brakes and tires.
Until yesterday there was no vent and during normal driving the temperature did not get high enough for the ECU to even turn on the fans!

Posted by: veekry9 May 27 2014, 07:16 PM

"Looks pretty darn good if I must say so myself."

Yup,looks good and works a charm.The hammer and wood method of sheetmetal-work.



Did an entire tow-truck rear-bodywork with this method,not using a brake.
Looked good in black,all the facets of the rear flares.
Labour intensive.

Posted by: Amenson May 28 2014, 08:06 PM

Pulled the fuel pump to isolate the ground and replace the in tank fuel line that was leaking a bit.
I wanted to put fine fuel filter in the tank also but there was not enough room.
Still a really nice setup.


Installed for good!


Isolating the ground returned control to the fuel pump controller so it does a fixed priming run at key-up and proportional speed based on engine load. Can't even hear the pump at idle now!

Scott

Posted by: Amenson May 29 2014, 08:25 PM

Installed the modified angle drive WSS tonight.
I really enjoy using modern connectors:


All wired up and it works!

Put it into gear on the lift and the spedometer moves finally. Played with the Speedpuls Tachotronic and the speed changed. Can't wait to calibrate it tomorrow morning on the way to work.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jun 2 2014, 08:21 PM

The speedometer is working and perfectly calibrated. Went to use the cruise control and it would turn on indicating that the system was fault free but it would not set. Looked into it a bit and figured out that the second clutch switch (not installed because there is no room) needed to be connected and held closed. Put some tape on it and checked the signal on the Accessport...good to go. Took it for a quick drive and the cruise would still not set. Though about it for a few days and could not come up with any other ideas. Checked my daily driver STI and and compared it to the Porsti and the clutch switch was not right. The tape had stretched.

I considered replacing the switch with a jumper connector but I though that it would be fun to use a mechanical solution to an electrical problem so I welded a cap on one of the nuts.

This is the kind of stuff that I always give my ME buddies crap for doing...they will be impressed.

So Cruise works now.

I also installed the wiper motor and wired the intermittent circuit to the stock motor...works like a charm. How many 914's have cruise and intermittent wipers! All of the work to use the suby harness is really starting to pay off.

I still have some trans fluid dripping and the area around the breather is staying dry. My wife mentioned that her employer had a bore scope that could be used for government work. What better way to look for a leaking trans seal! She brought it home and the scope is worth considerably more that my car! Has a steerable head, zoom and a whole lot more features.


Worked great...now I have to pull the trans this week and replace the seal.

Scott

Posted by: Amenson Sep 18 2014, 09:53 AM

Time for an update...
In my last post I was in the last push to get the car ready for Hot Rod Power Tour....well we made it although did not make the fist day in Charlotte due to an endless to do list. Thankfully my Father flew down from WI a day early to help.

Some little things to take care of 2 days before departing!

Time to go...just a little bit exhausted and excited/terrified to see if she holds together.

The trip from Columbus to Knoxville went perfectly, finally together with the Late Hauler crew on Power Tour again after 8 long years.


PorSTI parked at the first Hotel. Picture only shows about half of the cars in our group, most everything has LSx something and half of them boosted.


Time for the shenanigans to start....

Posted by: Amenson Sep 18 2014, 12:38 PM

Each day of Power Tour has an organized car show at some huge venue. Somewhere between 3000-5000 cars. The Late Haulers carve out a small area of the show and set up tents and coolers, the rest of the afternoon is spent drinking beer and checking out cars.


After the event everybody heads to the hotel and relaxes before dinner.


After dinner and maybe a bar, back to the parking deck for more beer and...


It took a while to get the PorSTI dialed in for burnouts. The first night I made a load of smoke but it was a one wheel peal. The rubber pattern was pretty cool because the exhaust was pushing it out to the side...

Over the next day or so I figured out that if I started the burnout in second while rolling both wheels would spin. We were getting ready to leave on the second morning and I decided to try a second gear burnout stationary from my parking spot to inspire the group to get on the road. Gave it a little throttle, let the clutch out and kerplowee...the car lunged, made some horrible noises and stalled. Went to put it in neural and found the shifter cocked way over to the side. Got out and surveyed the damage. Turned out both of the front engine mounts pulled out the rubber and then engine was held up in the front by the shift rod. Moments after the failure jacks, and tools started showing up.

In 10 minutes the first mount was removed and the guys were trying to squeeze it back together. It took a trip to a local shop where they let me in back to press the parts back together and 1.5 hours later the car was back together with some big washers installed above the mounts to keep the failure from occurring again. Had to do a quick test burnout to make sure that it would hold together for the long trip to the next venue. It is too bad that this picture was not zoomed out a bit further because my Father was standing there with a look of disgust on his face that I was abusing the car again



Each day the trip from the hotel to the next venue was filled with rolling races on the open road, traffic jams through small towns and the inevitable breakdown. After the motor mount incident the PorSTI had zero problems and proved it to be the second fastest car of the group, only the 600+rwhp turbocharged Vette was faster. The PoSTI flat out hauls. 5th gear pulls feel as strong as 3rd, until better judgement steps in and shuts it down.

Anyways, this goes on day after day and besides the seat needing some additional padding the car is great to drive. The cruise control is a real plus on the long open sections.

Finally after much practice I was able to put down a really pro burnout. The picture only shows the end after I had been slow rolling for about 50 feet and could no longer see where I was going so I did a beautifully slow doughnut. Random strangers were coming over the rest of the night and even the next morning to say how great a burnout it was and to talk about the car. Apparently there is video of it that my buddy took but I don't have it yet. Looks like a "9"


On the drive to the last venue one of the guys overextended is aftermarket clutch slave cylinder. The shop we rolled to a stop at did not have the correct type of lift to pull the trans so he took us to another local shop that just happened to be the Ring Brothers. They gave us full access to the entire shop and when they departed for the event, left two of the builders back to help us get the car fixed. They even had the exact slave cylinder we needed that they installed but never used on some other project and gave it to us. Buddies car going up on the lift with their Pantera 'ADRNLN' and this years SEMA car in the background.



While we were working on the car a few Hot Rod magazine people showed up to interview the Ring Brothers and take pictures of the shop. They noticed what we were doing and said that if we got it together and to the show in time, they would set up a photo shoot. It is amazing what can be accomplished with a dozen gear heads working together. We made it to the show and got our photo shoot.

The picture did not make the magazine but we did get invited to the Hot Rod hospitality bus for an afternoon of free booze and got to hang out with the Hot Rod magazine people. (that is David Freiburger on the left).



They even had me bring the PorSTI over and park it in the hospitality area!


What a great ending to a great trip.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Sep 18 2014, 12:53 PM

Since the trip I have been driving it daily and finishing/fixing little things. The biggest improvements have been made to the pedals. All three have been cut apart to improve the position, force ratios and travel.

I did have a CV let go on me a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately it happened as I was returning home from visiting a new friend that I met on power tour. He was nice enough to give me a tow home.


I am currently building a fresh transmission as the one that is in it now is suffering a bit. First and second syncro parts are on their last legs and I think that the internal rods were repositioned a bit when the engine was sitting on the sift linkage. Just a bunch of parts now but should be together and swapped in shortly.




Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: CptTripps Sep 18 2014, 01:48 PM

I've got one thing to say about that...


Attached image(s)

Posted by: Amenson Sep 25 2014, 11:55 AM

Good eye...
I have 2 Jeni's withing 5 miles of my house. Drive by one of them to/from work every day. It is a problem.

On the transmission front, I wanted to pretty up the trans a bit so I did some research into painting magnesium parts and found a whole bunch of nasty and expensive options. I ran into a couple of mentions of Prekote Surface Pretreatment. It is supposed prevent corrosion and aid paint adhesion all while being non hazardous. I gave it a try and it does seem to be non hazardous because I splashed it all over my fade and arms as I was applying it and did no have any reaction. After treatment I put on a few coats of Tempo LYC Gray Engine Enamel and it looks pretty good. Only time will tell if it holds up.


Gear stack with stock gears, new syncro bands, new or nearly new syncro hubs and new/nearly new sliders.


The tail covers on the transmissions I picked up both had some problems so I have to swap the one on the car over before I can button it up. Of course it will need to be painted so I will have a bit of downtime for the swap. The weather is supposed to be great this week and we have plans solid for the next 3 weekends so I may not get to it until the end of October.

Need to get it in before the snow flies because if this trans does not meet my shifting expectations I will have to start shopping for a suby 5 speed to drop in over the winter...

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Oct 7 2014, 03:19 PM

I now officially have a problem...
To make a long story even longer, I was searching craigslist for an exhaust for my '05 STI daily driver because it is developing a small leak. A guy from a bit outside my area bought some parts from me over the summer and said that he frequently parts out Subaru's so I searched his area for parts. What is the second add that shows up? 2009 WRX transmission, 19000 miles, needs new output shaft bearing.

Call the guy up and apparently his son did a stage two update with a performance clutch to his new WRX and destroyed the output shaft bearing. He says the trans was shifting fine when it started to make noises spins freely in all gears when turned by hand. Couple of texts later and he agreed to sell the trans, ACT Heavy Duty Performance Street Disc Clutch Kit, ACT StreetLite Flywheel and two front axles for $300. Drive out to get it, the trans was as he described and the clutch/flywheel is in very good condition.
Now I have a problem.



I have a really fresh 901 almost ready to go back in and the parts to build a really nice close ratio track box.

How do I not put the Suby trans in this in this winter?

Anybody in the market for a really nice 901 sideshifter?

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: DBCooper Oct 7 2014, 03:34 PM

Ha ha ha, good job. We're doing EXACTLY the same thing to my son's car right now. I've had that transmission in my car for a while now and believe me, you have no choice, you have to put it in. Seriously. And another plus is that no one's 901 is as good as they'd like it so you should have no shortage of takers for a good transmission. Means you should net out pretty well.

Well done. Again.

Posted by: Chris H. Oct 7 2014, 09:29 PM

Nice score. $300 for a low-mileage 2009 trans? You STOLE that even if it needs a little work. And as DB said, there's always a market for a good 901. You'll be so happy with a Subaru trans. You CAN'T NOT DO IT. They paid more for the clutch/flywheel than you did for the whole setup.

Edit: LOL! Looks like the center diff is still in there! If it's still good that's worth ~$250ish on NASIOC

Posted by: Amenson Oct 8 2014, 07:49 AM

Ya, I know that I really do not have a choice about putting it in. Whenever I walk by it I have to play with the shift rod, just so precise and crisp feeling.

I will finish the 901 that I am building and install it in the car to get a few miles on it before the snow flies. Have enjoy the fruits of my labor and prove that it is built properly. Then I can put it up for sale to fund the parts to install the Suby trans.



The clutch/flywheel setup is probably going to seal the deal and make the swap happen this winter. Had I had to purchase it, the setup that came with the trans. would have been toward the top of the list and cost ~$1k. Now I can toss an OBX lsd in it instead!

I have all of the parts to the trans. I dropped in the center diff so that I could spin the input shaft and see the front diff turn. It looks a bit beat up from when the bearing failed so I probably won't sell it because I can't guarantee the condition.

If anybody is thinking about getting a fresh 901 sideshifter, the second one that I am building could be put together with any combination of stock gears plus M,S,X,Z.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Nov 6 2014, 12:39 PM

Every time I look for parts for my daily driver I find Suby 5mt's for sale

There are two '02 WRX 5MT's for sale with bad center diff's for sale in the Columbus Ohio area. One guy is looking for offers and getting none and one is listed for $150 plus an R160 as partial trade. My guess is both can be had for next to nothing. They are listed in a closed Subaru facebook group so if you are interested I will have to send your contact information to the sellers. Just send me a PM.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: CptTripps Nov 6 2014, 12:59 PM

I need to get you up here to give me some pointers on my build. I likely did a few things very wrong and having someone else that's done a subie build take a look at it, would be great. I've had a few take a look, but yours seems to be the closest to mine...and you're only a few hours away.

Posted by: Amenson Nov 7 2014, 05:00 PM

This is entertaining....I have started looking at your build and a few others as reference for the suby 5mt and water air intercooler details!

It would be nice to get up there to give you some pointers but while you are relatively close, all of my "free" time is booked converting the PORSTI tans. Not to mention I have a '70 C10 that will be torn down to the frame starting thanksgiving week

You are welcome to come down and check mine out some time. Always cold beer in the garage

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Dec 4 2014, 09:44 PM

The 2014 version of the Late Haulers Hot Rod Power Tour video is finally in the public domain. Enjoy....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdv4WFbOTw8


Major PorSTI Shenanigans at 2:27, 11:43 and 13:57.

Back to putting together a bullet proof drivetrain for next year.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Mike Bellis Dec 4 2014, 09:58 PM

When I did my first V8 conversion I use the "upgrade 911 mounts". First start, put it in second gear, eased the clutch pedal up with no gas, ripped the 911 mount apart at idle torque.

I went to solid steel after that. Never had another problem.

Posted by: Amenson Dec 9 2014, 08:57 PM

I couldn't stand looking at the suby trans sitting under the bench any longer so I pulled the 901 and bolted up the 5mt after work today.

Liberated from the 901.


The clutch assembly feels like it weighs half as much as the KEP parts!


Looks pretty good in there.


Going to have to remake the exhaust cross over.


I have the parts and material to make a transmission mount similar to DBCoopers.
Can't wait to start making parts again

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: 76-914 Dec 9 2014, 09:27 PM

Enjoy, they grow up and leave the garage before you know it!

Posted by: CptTripps Dec 10 2014, 08:12 AM

Get a set of Ian's motor mounts while you're in there. You'll surely never run into the problem you had on the Power Tour again!

Posted by: Amenson Dec 11 2014, 09:29 AM

It stuck around in the garage a bit too long the first time, it is getting booted in spring this time.


I was trying to buy the transmission mounts from Ian but I don't think that he is up and running again quite yet.

Eventually I will make a cradle to move the engine/trans back to align the axles better using a hybrid of the back of DBCoopers mount tied in to the trailing arm ears like Ruby914's mount.







Making the transmission side mount now will save a step when I make the new cradle down the road some time.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Dec 12 2014, 03:21 PM

I think that I just stepped on a mid-mue slope...not supper slippery but slick enough.

I have been agonizing over what to do about the CV's. I eventually want to run 108mm CV's but that requires a 5 lug setup, which I really do not want to do now. I can run stock 914's with Ian's conversion axles and then jump to 944's when I do the 5 lug...but then I am stuck with the smaller CV's unless I want to change axles again.

So...I just happen to have a '83 SC Boge front suspension...complete. I did some looking and it seems like the 914 strut inserts will fit the 911 Boge's and the ball joints seem like they should be the same also. Can I really just pop the current struts off of the ball joints, swap the inserts into the SC struts and bolt them back onto the ball joints?

Assuming this is the case, anybody have an 23.3 ET 7x15 phone dial or two laying round that they want to get rid of. I have a set of three, but one is marked as being repaired.

Then I can use my "new" tires (well, at least three of them, one is already on the wear bar for some strange reason ) and get this done reasonably inexpensively.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: DBCooper Dec 13 2014, 08:21 AM

Ha ha ha, you are SO screwed! Grin and bear it, though, when you're through it it will all be done and good.


Yes you can. I think mine's an 87 so a little different and I think we used the 911 inserts and ball joints, but that's how it's done.

Have fun.

Posted by: r_towle Dec 13 2014, 08:27 AM

Take a picture of the back of the wheel.
Oddly, I might have one...but I am not very smart about all the right numbers, so post a pic, and I will too.

Rich

Posted by: Amenson Dec 13 2014, 09:46 AM

The back of one of the spokes will say "7x15 ET23.3"
I tried to take a picture but they are too dirty to show the numbers clearly.

Thanks,
Scott

Posted by: Mike Bellis Dec 13 2014, 10:05 AM

I think I have a pair of them. I will need to check the condition. In total I have at least 10 phone dials in various sizes.

Posted by: Amenson Dec 14 2014, 11:39 AM

They don't have to be pretty, just straight w/o too much curb rash. I have to strip the ones I have and will probably repaint some non stock color.

Posted by: Amenson Dec 28 2014, 09:25 PM

I finally received my cable shift setup from Ian! Also started mocking up the transmission mount. Should have it mostly made tomorrow.



I picked up a pair of 108mm CV stubs and a boxster hub. The base of the hub centric ring has a raised edge that interferes with the phone dials. Should be easy to turn down on a lathe...good incentive to get mine up an running finally. This is not correct...the wheel fits fine with a brake rotor in place



I started pulling apart my SC front struts. I picked up one of Doug's strut wrenches and even using it the nut does not want to budge. Any recommendations?

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: r_towle Dec 28 2014, 11:08 PM

A two or three foot pipe wrench does the trick.

Posted by: CptTripps Dec 29 2014, 01:00 PM

Looking good man!

Posted by: Amenson Dec 29 2014, 09:39 PM

Only took a foot long cheater! It was nice to know that I could lean on it a bit, Thanks!



Thanks, it is starting to look like your car, only a heck of a lot less shiny

It was great to spend a few hours fabricating today, even got to use my huge new (to Me) anvil to tweak the ears of the stock suby mount into place.



A quick trip through the sandblaster and it will be ready to weld. I was planning to use the MIG but the gaps are tight enough to TIG.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jan 3 2015, 06:52 PM

I finally got the transmission side mount cleaned and tacked. The remaining rubber on the half of the mount would not come off. I eventually used a wire brush on my plug in grinder, sandblasted it, more wire brushing, and then more sandblasting.






Now to make the body side part of the mount.

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: Amenson Jan 18 2015, 08:07 AM

It was a beautiful winter day in Ohio (above 40F) so I took the opportunity to work in the garage.

Welded up the transmission mount.





While I was waiting for the paint to dry I jumped over to the other project. Cut the roof off and drove it around at Thanksgiving.



Today I remove the doors, seat, fuel tank and other random stuff from the interior. And started cutting



Ready for stage 3, 12 inches out of the center of the frame!



Mmmm, perty:





I finally found a set of '04 STI DOJ's for the drive-shafts. Lined up with 108mm cv's, stubs and Boxster Hubs. Should be as strong as I can get with OEM parts.



Good day of work!

Cheers,
Scott

Posted by: 914GTSTI Jan 18 2015, 10:07 PM

Scott, what in-car shifter did you use ? And what car are the 108's stubs from ? I'm not a Porsche guy I just play one in my Garage.

In 2007 I found you build and some where along the way I got stopped. Now I'm back on it and may even go with the Subaru 5 speed.

Randy

Posted by: Amenson Jan 19 2015, 07:57 AM

And I though that my project had been stalled... Get back at it.

I have an MR2 shifter. It is not great and will be modified substantially before it gets installed. The only other shifter with the correct stick to cable motion that I know of is the Lotus cable shifter (barrym is using one for his build).

The stubs came off of a pile of used axles that I found, not sure which actual vehicle they are from. I have an extra pair that I may sell once I confirm that they really do work with the Boxster hubs.

Cheers,
Scott