914 WRX Build Options

[waltonsm]

After seeing some recent posts, I decided it was finally time to thank everybody on this forum for years of encouragement and scope creep on my long term project. As with every real project, this will never be done, and there are certainly many things I would do differently a second time around. But I am 80% of the way there, and I am enjoying driving it as much as I am working on it for the last year or so.

I plan to add more photos of my build process over the next few weeks. You may see some of the advice you gave me realized, and probably some bad or good ideas in metal, fiberglass, and wood.

Hopefully I can help someone else out too.

-Steve


Here are some recent photos:





And a few from about 4 years ago:

[Chris H.]

Wow REALLY cool build! Thanks for sharing it. Some great new ideas in there. Among many other things, I really like how you did the center tunnel. Might have to borrow that one.

Question...so your ONLY radiator air exit vents are in the former headlight buckets? Curious to hear how that works since no one has done it before. Any cooling issues at all so far?

[waltonsm]

Wow REALLY cool build! Thanks for sharing it. Some great new ideas in there. Among many other things, I really like how you did the center tunnel. Might have to borrow that one.

Question...so your ONLY radiator air exit vents are in the former headlight buckets? Curious to hear how that works since no one has done it before. Any cooling issues at all so far?

yes the only radiator vents are through the former headlight buckets. You can see from these pictures how i sealed everything up to duct air out of the headlight buckets. This can be a low pressure zone depending on what is happening right at the bumper. So i went forward knowing I can trip the flow right before the bucket, and open up the bumper and reinforce to get more frontal area on the radiator.





I took it to the track in this config. no headlight buckets, no lower valences, no rocker panels.


I have a thermostat for the oil cooler on the subrame, but the car barely hit 200F on the track in this configuration with 20 min stints at the Ridge. Also, driving 6/10 on first day out (to balance tire pressures, brake bias, sway bars etc. am i in the ballpark.. I was happy with it.

In this configuration, I never even got to 185F on the freeway, mostly around 165. so too cold. and I could continue with plan for headlight vents. and splitter. Glen provided some inspiration for the splitter here when I was trying to figure out how to make an RSR style airdam that would function as a splitter too.





You can see from this configuration that I have lot more area I can open up on the bumper to increase radiator frontal area. I also can seal it better between bumper and chassis if I need to. I also can trip the flow before the headlight buckets vent louvre things if needed.

The subaru fans are set at 185 and 205 I think. Sitting on the freeway in traffic on a hot day, I will hit 205 now and sit there. As soon as I start moving it drops down to 185. On a 50 deg day on the freeway it is below 185 still.

I haven't had it on the track in this configuration, but this is in the ballpark and will work with minor tuning.

Steve