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]

The good news is that the engine and transmission are pretty straightforward for me to get out, and into the car on my own. The cradle works well, and with some other jacks and ratchet straps I really don't need to lift anything. I can remove it all less than 3 hours, and install it all in about 8 hours, including fluids.



And another photo of trans disassembly/discovery



Since I don't have any of the special tools, I used a lot of different sized sockets, bearing tools, and made several different wood v-blocks out of ipe to assist with disassembly and reassembly of the shafts/gears. There was more time spent there than I want to remember. But, I got it done with the help of a friends 10 ton bottle press.

Assembled shafts and then case below. I ended up using oem/mmp polished gears in older 5spd STI ratios, and changed the final drive. I was working to improve the gear spacing, along with reliability. There were a bunch of considerations for strength/driveability that I was considering, but I am also adding torque/boost by gear into my tuning as part of the plan.