Well, crap. No clue how I'm going to get my impact wrench to the office.

I bought another 1/2" breaker bar. 26" this time...and found a 6' gas pipe I'll use too. If that doesn't do it, I'm taking this thing to a subaru dealer and asking them if they have any bright ideas.

Did you blast it with some penetrating oil? Might want to do that for a day or two. Then the breaker bar/pipe should work. Just take it easy so you don't snap the bolt head off. It'll most likely break loose with that combo...I had to use a cheater pipe.

Good plan Chris. I'll grab some PB blaster today and start spraying it. I'll be out of town for a few days this week, so I'll hit it good before I leave tomorrow too.

I'm thinking about replacing the pistons/rods/valves while I have it all broken down. I've come this far...think it's worth the effort? Seems like another $800-$1k at this point would make sure that I'm not going to have an issue down the line.

Just met with the shop that's going to do all the body work and paint after I get everything welded in. They think 3-4 weeks and about 40-80hrs of work to do the car right. I think if it takes $5K for the body to be perfect...I can live with that. I want a car that I won't ever sell...and won't feel like I compromised on anything. Something I'll have for a very long time.

I'm also making plans to build a rotisserie for it. I think I'm going to use 2 1,000lb engine stands and weld up a more substantial base so I can rotate everything and raise it up. If I could find a cheap one locally, that'd be the way to go, but I'm thinking for about $300 in metal and parts I can get it done.

I don't really have any experience with the turbo 4's so not the best one to ask on that. Maybe someone with more experience will chime in. With 60k it seems like it's not necessary...really just getting broken in at this point...how did it run before the wreck?

I was going to recommend re-sealing the engine but I'm sure you'll do that. Think you can get a kit that has every seal. Subaruparts.com had one for my EG33. Might have to call them. How did the valve covers look? Any oil leakage? It's not a sign of anything bad, just curious. Mine was a nasty mess, but much older.

The only thing I don't have is the head gaskets. I was thinking of picking those up for good measure, but there aren't any leaks right now so I'm not sure it'd be worth the effort unless I was doing everything.

Motor ran great before the wreck. It even started up afterwards and sounded real smooth. Perhaps I just won't bother.

In other news: My 911 3.5" Boge struts FINALLY arrived from Carrera Parts. Actually in decent shape. They also gave me a set of trailing arms for the trouble. Hmmm.

Wow...buy a lottery ticket!

Yeah same here on the head gaskets...I do have 'em (only because they came with the kit and the engine has 140k), but since you have to take the engine pretty far apart to change them I'll wait until they are needed. It's highly unlikely you will need them for a while.

So would you suggest doing it as a "while I'm in there"?

I'd rather not pull it down this far again.

For me when I looked at the procedure and the exploded view diagram of the EG33 I decided no, I'll wait, and it might be above my level of competence anyway. Might be a bad call on my part, we'll see.

On yours my thinking is with 60k miles it really SHOULD be fine for a long time yet, and you'd be loosening and re-tightening stuff that was done by the factory, etc. Hopefully we'll get more opinions. There's a guy on my thread who did an EG33 swap into an Impreza. He's a well known member on rs25.com. Might want to ping him as he seems to be a general Subie expert (BRZCory). That forum is a lot kinder to questions than NASIOC BTW.

Couple of updates:

Got the rest of my Subaru engine stuff yesterday. Head gaskets, TGV gaskets, and an aluminum alternator pulley. I also talked to a guy that is local, and builds the engines for race applications. He's going to do the TGV delete for me, and we're going to discuss rods/pistons/valves and what I'm going for. I also picked up a VF39 Turbo, so with the calculations that he put together for me, without anything else, and a bit of tuning, I should be north of 325hp to the wheels. He's pumped because says ~325hp is screaming fast in an STI...which is about 1,000lb heavier than what I'm putting it in. Fun times!

Oh...and I bought a rotisserie. ;-)

Very nice!
I have a G20 turbo. I expect around 300 at the wheels. A 300 Hp subie is a blast to drive, so, like you, having 800-1100 lbs less as well as a lower center of gravity should make our cars an absolute blast.
If memory serves, I remember a story about stoplight racing a Maserati in Vegas with a 2.0 turbo 914. the Maserati could not out accelerate or out brake him. With this kind of HP, we are looking at serious performance.

I removed of all 4 fenders and replaced with FG as well as FG hood and trunk, I think I lost another 100-150 lbs in the process. I did add weight back in with a GT kit and long kit. I also removed all of the tar (replaced with lizard skin) and replaced the steel gas tank with an Aluminum cell, lost the headlight motors and all of the smog stuff.
At this point, I am both looking forward to getting the car weighed and worried about enough weight to keep my 9 and 11's planted. I will probably be adding weight to specific locations to corner balance the car.

when i bought the leg wagon it came with a binder of receipts. one bill for a failed radiator and all that went with it and "while you're in there", the shop installed new cyl/head studs. is that a 'standard' procedure when you tear these engines down? sorry for the hijack

I'm the one hijacking! Man I need to shut up. But I do know the answer to this one....

Anyway Kev I saw that your car is a 97 from Kent's "manual" thread...and with those 2.5L DOHC engines there was an issue with the head gaskets (design flaw).

Here's some good info:

EJ25D

So to answer your question, yes, for those engines it was standard that any time there was a coolant related failure of any kind it was recommended that the head gaskets be changed/upgraded. That's probably what they did. Why else would they remove and replace the head studs, right ? Anyway that's a good thing. Should be fine for a lot of miles now. My mom has a Forrester and she had the exact same thing done.

Same thing, 97 Legacy GT wagon back in the day, DOHC 2.5. New gaskets and the Subaru recommended coolant at 60K, kids used it to commute between school in California and home in Texas. Went another 120K miles with reckless dumb-ass teenage boys, racing and offroading, pretending to be rally drivers, never a problem again.

rule of thumb from the subaru guys here. if the motor is pre 05 just change the head gasket. Unless you have a receipt that it was done, you will not be happy.

subscribed

I would install ARP head studs while i'm in there, and get the torque lube. They are supposed to be torqued, lubed.

Hate paying for them, love the quality of the hardware though. Keep the deck down on my TDI, 40 psi of boast, never a problem.

ARP Studs/Lube: Already ordered.

Gaskets: Already in-hand. For $200, it's not worth worrying about it. I've come this far, and can clean a few things up while I'm there and see if I have other issues. Now is the time...right?

Not a lot of progress...but a lot of parts showed up today.

New rear trunk floor, head gaskets, ARP head studs, TGV gaskets, Fuel Rails, Blaupunkt Stereo, Targa seal...stuff like that.

Oh...and spraying that drive-shaft bolt 2X daily with PB Blaster for a three days did the trick. Well, I still needed a 4' breaker bar...but I got it off!

Awesome. Did it make that loud "screeeeeeee---eeeee-eee-eee---eee--cccchhhh" sound ? That's when you know you're getting somewhere.

Ha! That's exactly right.

Picked up my Rotisserie from Garland on Saturday. I was up in Detroit to help my brother look at a couple Aeromates up there. We didn't buy either of them, but sure had a great time meeting with John and looking at all his awesome 914s. Wow.

So I've got a rotisserie in pieces, and a car that's still too much "together" to do anything with it yet. Maybe I'll see if I can set a record for the fastest 914 disassembly.

Sorry I missed you while you were up here. Had Harpo and BS Chairman over putting the back light and interior in the 6. Got the engine put in on Sunday.

Enjoy the rotieserie, it made the rust-or-ation much easier.

Let me/us know what modifications you did to it. I made a print of it for reproduction in the future.

Just in case, there is a Part Duex....

Ha! Yeah, I was going to stop by, but we were in Detroit 3h longer than we'd planned already, and were running out of time.

Glad to hear that it's finally coming together for you.

Today's progress involved loading my motor up and sending it to a proper ship to get checked out. Matt from Slick Motorsports knows a thing or two about building 800HP Subie motors. I'm not looking for anything that crazy, but he's going to have everything cleaned, machined, and checked out for me before I start rebuilding it.

So it looks like it's about time to start breaking down the rest if the car to get it ready for some time on this rotisserie I've got now.

Soda blasting my struts and trailing arms. Ran out of baking soda after an hour. They look awesome though.

wow - blasted looks great - gonna paint or powder?

I think cadmium-like plate would be nice?

jim

Going to just paint. I'm not going to go crazy with the powder back there. Gloss black epoxy paint will be great and be easy to clean. I've thought about the hammered looking paint too. Going to try a few things to see what I like before I paint them.

I also need to weld a bit to the trailing arms. I'm going to tube them first before I paint.

Got the computer (Hydra EMS 2.7) and a "flying lead" harness.

TurboXS Exhaust showed up.

Heads and Valve covers dropped off at the machine shop for cleaning and a check-up.

Block is being broken down and the pistons are going to get coated and re-ringed.

...and I'm off to Austin to watch cars go vroom!

What is going on in Austin? Your the second guy I have seen mention a trip to Austin.

USGP Formula 1 race.

http://circuitoftheamericas.com

Cool! Have fun!
Looking forward to more of your build!

So...we've got the motor torn apart and starting to get it back in shape.

Heads looked great. They're off being cleaned and bead blasted. New guides and seals is a they need.

The pistons look a little crusty, and there's a little gauging by the skirts. Perfect opportunity to have it boated out .5mm and replace the pistons. I'm going to leave the rods alone. They're just fine. I'm not sure a set of forged rods are going to do a lot for me.

Picked up Wiseco K588M925 Pistons

Your like a mad scientist.

Turns out I needed new bearings too. So...we're just going to do it all. Why not. I'm going to have a "built" motor, and the end result (according to my builder) should be north of 380fpt at the wheels. I got a set of PPG 1-3rd gear and a cryo'd Trans center shaft for a song, so I'll be able to push north of 600hp if I so desire down the road.

This is a never ending hole at this point, but I'm quickly running out of things to replace, and he's going to start building it all back up next week, and I'll have the whole motor/Trans completed in about 3 weeks.

At that point, I'll fit it in the car. Since I'll need to cut out some of the trunk for the Turbo and Starter, I want t do that before I have the car soda blasted and the body work started.

Hi, new here and saw your earlier post regarding the pontiac mirrors. Are they close to fitting the body lines? And do you use a gasket between the mirror and body? Thank you Dave

Not sure yet. It's going to take some modification...that's for sure. I'll end up making a gasket of some kind once I know what the end contour looks like.

Placement of the Pontiac Solstace mirrors is also going to be different. They're a lot taller, so the stock position is hard to see. I may end up 6" forward from the stock holes.

Not a ton of progress. Waiting on the motor to come back from the machine ship before we start rebuilding it. Also having the headers and up-pipe ceramic coated while the frame I bought from Ian is being powder-coated.

Getting close to build time. Just need to get the engine here and fitted so I can cut everything out that needs to be cut, and get the body off to the shop for the work to be done.

In the meantime, I also got all new gauges that I'm going to try and put into the VDO housings, with some new white (or silver?) dials in having made.

Got the block back from the machine shop...and all the purdy new parts layed out. Time to start putting the motor back together!

Got the equal-length headers ceramic coated, and had the awesome engine/Trans mount from Ian at ColdWater914.com powder coated to match the Boxster brake calipers. I'm also going to have them do a few more pieces for me in green and polish the aluminum on the air intake. This is starting to come together quickly. I should have the engine built in the next week or so.

Love the "awesome engine/Trans mount from Ian at ColdWater914.com" can't wait until the day comes that I can order one! LOL.

Got to work in the garage yesterday. After the seats came out, I started poking around under the tar. There a bit of rust, but nothing that's perforated and at this point, it's not worth replacing the entire floor.

So...I started scraping. Heat-Gun + Paint scraper = blisters & cheap therapy.

I'm going to finish up after work today and scrub it all out to see what I'm working with.

Also soda-blasted the throttle-body. Cleaned up real nice.

Funny, it took me a while to get rid of the green.

Damn. That's hot...and pretty much exactly what my Subie engine will look like when it's done.

Love the color you put on your cradle.
Got most of my silicon tubing, blow off valve and new radiator today. More fun this weekend.
Met a great guy down here who does really nice fab work.

Bailed on the idea of re-making my own gauge faces, and ordered a custom set from New Vintage USA. One of them is custom, and the tach needs to be made from a different casting so it'll be larger, but I think this is going to look bad-ass.

Now I need to find some switches from an airplane so I can complete the look for lights, hazards, and the heater and defrost. It'll be cool as hell to have this look more like a cockpit.

http://www.space1.com/Artifacts/Artifacts_...itch_guard.html

http://www.delcity.net/store/Toggle-Switch...-Panel/p_795774

http://www.amazon.com/93331-Formance-Blue-...h/dp/B0050V12DS

Got the whole front end torn out today. I have a fairly funny group of "DAPO" pics. This is the one that pisses me off though. No way I could have known until the radiator and '75 bumper brackets were removed.

Looks like it got hit on the pass-front enough to knock it in about 1/2". Not sure how I'm going to fix this, but I'll tackle it after I get everything else yanked. Any suggestions on how to push this back out? BAH?

Did it get wacked to fit the radiator in? It almost looks like you could use a puller and straighten that out.


Looking good!