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:

[waltonsm]

For a long time I had plans to build the wing. I knew I needed the downforce with the planned torque, and also the desire to carry boards, bikes, and maybe our kayaks. I have been custom roof racks or boxes for most of our cars.

I got distracted by making an even larger version of this for our 3.6 VR6 corrado racecar, but planned to use those lessons for improved aesthetics.

My goal was to make a big wing with a modern airfoil, designed around the speeds I want downforce, and I want adjustability, and potential the opportunity for tunable, passive AOA adjustment in the future. It is fixed for now, but have the adjustment if I get really bored in the future.

I had cores hot wire cut, installed a spar, and did a low vacuum operation by throttling a cheap vacuum pump I got to install some heat pumps.



After the wing was build I spent 6 months deciding how I was going to mount it, but mostly, where.