That is a cool conversion. But now I'm going to have too listen to their exhaust beat before I taunt them too much with the teener. I have a water cooled conversion that I've been running a 5spd 012 and Boxster shifter for a few years now, and LOVE the shifting! Rock On!

sweet cradle : )

love all the photos of the boxster : )

has anyone determined the robustness of the boxster transaxle, realted to a stock 914 transaxle, a 915 and a 930?

does the boxster have power assist steering??

i assume this conversion will have catalytic converters and pass 50 state emissions? or will this be strictly a track car?

no shortening of the oil pan - that will save some time and money : )

jim

Nice work - but make sure it all fits the EZ30R too! Some Boxter owners might not want to step "down" from a 6 cylinder to a 4. The 30R should slot in there just as easily!

Now if someone would just offer a good looking flare package for the Boxter and help it "man-up" a little bit!
Jeff

The boxster S six speed is STOUT. It's the same one as in the Cayman, and an inverted version of the one in the new 911 turbo cars. (whatever number they are doing)

It will very easily handle the HP and Torque of a well built Subie Turbo engine.

ez30R and ej20turbo both fit in renegades cradle with no mods. So i bet they will both fit in your cradle too! I love my ez30R.

Wow am I thankful. I was wondering what I was going to blow my money on when I start making some in 3 years An EZ30R and an old boxter is a no brainer

When you pull the pan on the suby motor check the pickup real close as they are known to be brittle from the brazing process at the block flange and the pan definately looks like it's against the pickup. a lot of suby pickups are too close to the pan and when guys jack the motors up against the pan bottom the pickup gap gets real tight and some pickups have broken either from vibration or getting fractured from hitting the pan.

^ agreed, the pan has definately been lifted by the pan and has most likely damaged the oil pick-up. This engine is probably already got spun bearings due to oil starvation.

This engine cradle and tranny adapter looks excellent. You could easily get a ez30r in there with it being less than an 1" longer than a ej257 ect. A built ej257 with a gt35r can crank out over 500 whp/wtq. Most builds are probably between 350-400 whp/wtq. If the porsche tranny can hold up to this, it sounds like one hellofa setup.

jw

Turbo and supporting pieces...

Wow.... you do some very nice work and use choice colors. That green on the 914 is sweet .

I may be in touch in about a year as I have been thinking of getting a Boxter for a daily. Sounds like a good way to go since I already know the Suby engines.

Twin scroll, will you be able to use a factory header? It also looks like the motor cradle will allow a fatter oil pan but with the stuff you are doing it will probably be a dry sump right?

I'm not going to be using the factory manifolds. The factory exhaust is designed to run along the right side of the motor which is where the Boxster has it's shifter cables and linkage. I will be making custom stainless steel headers that will dump into the turbo on the left side of the transaxle. I'll have some pictures up in a few days of the exhaust.

No dry sump on this car (too expensive to justify)

Started on the wiring harness tonight. Here is the unmolested 2007 WRX harness ready to be "reduced" wire by wire...

I finally got the exhaust finished today. I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. I still need to add two double slip joints in between the cylinder banks, some wastegate dump supports, and a couple of O2 bungs, but other than that, it's done. This first system is only 304 SS but I made sure to carefully purge everything, and all of the welds are full penetration welds rather than the standard "automotive style" welds so it will have the best possible chance of surviving. Also, the turbo is supported by a 1/4" thick plate bracket so the actual exhaust tubing isn't holding any weight other than it's own. If the 304 doesn't survive, then I will do the second set in 321 and see how long that lasts.

That's a work of art. You do some awesome work. I love it and I don't even need it (yet).

-Robert

The welds look good. Do you think the long tubes will hurt spool? And I wonder if water from the wheel will hurt the turbo housing.

That is fuckin awesome...

Seriously.

That looks fantasic. Where did you get the flanges against the heads? I will be making my own custom header here soon.

-Britain

I'm not worried about lag in relation to header length. THe system is a little longer than the aftermarket Subie equal length headers, but not a whole lot longer once you take into consideration the length of the up-pipe. There's really no other place for the turbo to go in the chassis anyway. Besides, it worked on the 917/30 didn't it?



Water fron the wheel shouldn't be an issue since I will be retaining the rear wheel liners, and the fact that this car will be a track car.

I had my water jet guy cut the flanges from some 1/2" thick 305 SS. I had him do a few sets so I have some extras if you want. Send me a PM if you are interested. When I was looking around for some for myself, I had a hard time finding any that were thick enough, or had the right 1.755" holes for the tubing to slide into.

Sweet!!! Is that my old car? One of those tons of Boxsters with a bad motor?

Hahaha, yes it is. I'm breathing new life into it. I was going to have Jim tell you about but I wasn't sure if you were a "Porsche Purist" who would be offended by seeing it with something other than a Porshce motor in it

You should update your "signature" on the status of the car

I'll update the signature. I'm certainly no purist. If my time and budget allowed, the car would have gotten something interesting done to it--I was thinking an Audi V8 though....

Seeing that exhaust in front would blow a Porsche snobs mind!

That exhaust system is just amazing. Between that and the trans adapter, hope you are making good notes because you could be making more adapters and exhaust systems...

With a properly sized turbo the tubes length should not be a problem. Check out the turbo location in my turbo project thread below. Water/turbo housing has been a non-issue as well.

Also google up STS turbo systems, they do rear mount turbos for many other cars, and while it may be a little unconventional, it can work well.

I am awed by this build. One thing that I notice, though, is that your popes are really close to the gear box. Typically this can led to premature wear and failure. Is this something that you already considered and have provided for?

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

huh? I missed those guys in his pics is this like "where's waldo?"

Jim

Blah blah, I was typing on my iPod. It is not easy

To answer your question, Yes, I do plan on heat wrapping the entire system, and adding strategic heat shields where they are needed. Also, this car will have a transmission oil cooler (as all track cars should) so I'm not really concerned.

oh, and yes, I am keeping very detailed notes on everything. I'm not building this with the intentions of making a "one-off".

I was noticing the same thing- maybe if/when this system proves itself durable they could be jet hot coated. Kind of a shame to hide that nice SS work, but I coated the 914T exhaust and it was a good thing for temp control under the car.

The wiring harness has been reduced to only what is needed to make the engine run.... hopefully.



And here's what wasn't used...

I got the first round of primer sprayed on the prototype fiberglass roof scoop. Once I'm happy with the shape and finish, I'll make a mold off of this part. The plan is to make the scoop removable so I can get to the rear trunk and remove the fiberglass hard top to get to the top of the engine. Also, now that most of the rear window will be blocked, I will probably just fill it in and mount a rear facing camera somewhere and an LCD display where the rear view mirror would go.

I know the shape of the scoop may not be the most attractive, but it will definetly serve it's purpose of getting a lot of cool air to the intercooler which will be in the rear trunk and will vent down over the transaxle and through the license plate are in the rear bumper.

thanks for keepin the pics coming : )

Looks cool. Did you mold the whole thing or adapt it from something else? Any pictures of the process as you went?

-Britain

I made the whole thing from scratch. Cut and glued foam to the car, sculpted the foam in the shape I wanted, covered the body with mold release in the flange areas, fiberglassed over the foam, removed everything from the car and scraped the foam out. Then sanded the fiberglass, body worked it, and sprayed it with a primer filler. I'll probably block it one more time, touch up any low spots, primer it again, then final sand it before I make the mold. It's a lot of work for sure. I'll have about 35 hours into the prototype part.

Yep, been there, done that. It looks good though.

-Britain

Any updates???

Quick update...

The plan was to finish the intercooler plumbing before doing the cage to make things easier... but I couldn't help myself. The cage isn't done yet (still have harness bars to add and final welding) but it's pretty close. I'll throw up some better cage pictures once everything is completely finished...







I made a custom intercooler for the trunk and started the "duct-work" to direct the hot air out the rear bumper. The last shot shows the bottom of the duct open. This will be closed off to force the air out behind the car rather than randomly under the car. I'm just waiting to pull the engine/tranny to finish everything off. You can see the turbo dumps directly into the intercooler on the driver's side, then shoots off into the engine bay on the passenger side. The plumbing will be VERY short and direct. I was going to use Wiggins clamps, but then reminded myself that this is supposed to be a "budget build" The intercooler core measures 18" x 12" x 4.5" with 2.75" inlet/outlets

Are those rear flares something you made? If not, who did you source them from?

A.I.R. makes the flares, but I have to warn you... if you are used to the way the 914 and air cooled 911 flares are added, you will be amazed at how much more work it takes to do flares on the rear of a Boxster. It involved cutting the quarter panels (obviously) but you also have to reconstruct the inner wheel-well a bit because it will no longer extend all the way out to the flare, and you will be left with a large gap that would allow the inner quarter panel to fill up with road debris, water, or whatever. Also, to date, A.I.R. doesn't sell a flared rear bumper, so you have to bond the flare to both the quarter panel, and rear bumper, then cut the flare in two along the stock body line, then fiberglass new "flanges" on both the bumper piece, and quarter panel piece. In short, if you aren't comfortable with cutting, welding, sheetmetal fabrication, body work, and fiberglass work, you will have to pay the big $$$ to have it done by a shop.

Beautiful work!!!

Intercooler plumbing finished. That's it. Only one short section of tube on the cold side. The hot side is just a 2"-2.75" coupler from the turbo to the intercooler so no plumbing there. The engine and transmission are now out so I can do all of the engine service work (TGV delete, gaskets, injectors, fuel rails, leak-down test blah... blah...) and install the flywheel. The next time the engine goes in the chassis will be to try and start it. Time to finish the cage, do the body work, and paint the thing...

Air-Jacks added...

Air jacks are so cool!

I think your doing a great job on this build. The cage work looks pretty amazing, one of the touches I like are the gussets on the door bars. What is the proper name for those chamfered holes in the gussets called and what tool do you make them with? Regarding the air duct, It looks like the area across the rear window gets much larger there. Of note is the cross section at the base of the rear window. If you wanted the regain some of your rear window use, what do you think would happen if you where to narrow that section at the window while maintaining the profile? Would not the velocity of the air remain higher and that being what cools the intercooler aid in heat dissipation?

Just some thoughts I had while reading, great project though, can't wait to see it come together.

So one of the things I have been dreading ever since I decided to run the wide body GT2 front end is the radiator duct situation. There are two ways to go about it, the expensive way, and the time consuming way. I chose the latter for two reasons. The first reason is the cost of converting the radiators and related duct work to the Turbo/GT2 spec. Basically, that would mean all three turbo 996 radiators, GT2 air ducts for all 3 radiators, radiator mounting brackets for all 3 radiators, and matching cooling lines along with other misc. hardware. Yeah, it's expensive... like a few thousand dollars. Not in the budget for this car. The other reason I decided to stick with the stock Boxster radiators is I want to be able to test the cooling capabilities of the stock Boxster cooling system with the extra horsepower and potential heat that the turbo motor might create. So here is what I came up with...








The side radiators are in the stock location using the stock mounting brackets. The center radiator mounts upside down using a slightly modified stock mounting bracket and the stock plastic duct. In stock configuration, the Boxster S and 996 radiator would vent down below the car through holes in the bottom of the bumper cover. Aerodynamically this is less than ideal which is why the GT3, RSR and GT2's vent up through a hole on the top of the bumper cover. What this means is I had to move the center radiator forward and angle it up to make room for some duct work that would direct the air up instead of down.

Plumbed the air-jacks and started on the electronic power steering conversion. Both are almost finished, just need to get a few more fittings.

awesome fabwork (as usual)