I've put this car off long enough. I am buying a 2004 WRX motor to put in. As well as a suby tranny. I plan to get everything up & driving in this car. Then swap the drivetrains with my green car. We'll see how that plays out.

I need to replace the firewall section that was cut out by the PO in the late 80's. I'm going to replace the lower cutout of the firewall first. I like the idea of making the upper section of the firewall removable. Nice to have access from the front if possible. At least while I am getting it all setup. If I don't feel the need later I'll just make the firewall stock.

I've got the 911 rear axles already so will need to get those resplined for the suby CV tranny side. I've got the suby tranny I'm buying from Bob. I plan to do my motor cradle mount a little different. Not really planning on a cradle. I'll draw something up on it & post it later. Basically will use the engine bar mounts. But I plan to have an bar arch to the firewall where there will be another mount but a sideways tube. So there would be three mount points on the bar. the typical spots for the engine bar. Plus the front mount which will pivot. So when bolting in the drivetrain. You would get the front of the motor up first. Then lift the tranny up & bolt in place. Then the engine bar mounts. This will keep everything nice & out of the way for the exhaust. I came up with this thinking of the Porsche 6 firewall mounts. Anyway it will make more sense with a picture.

For the WRX motor. It has the Stock ECU with wiring setup for a 914 with the ECU flashed. Not sure if I'll be keeping that setup or using my spare Stinger ECU. Motor has a round 55k on it. I plan to do the timing chain & head gaskets while it's out. I'm also looking into getting bigger injectors, Fuel Rail & bigger turbo. I may wait on that but getting all my options of upgrades before it goes in. My plan is for this motor to go in my green car eventually. I'm going to get it all up & running in my old v8 car. Then make the decision to swap it. Then my old car will get sold.

Well there is the start of the plan. I'll update as things come in

Looks like a nice ambitious project Jamie. But dare I ask - why another Subie conversion when you already have one? Anyway, good luck!

My v8 car has been waiting for a drivetrain. Right deal right time I guess is the clincher. Plus I absolutely love my suby at the 158hp to the rear wheels. At the same time the 220+ sounds great. Plus with my green car I bought it finished. While I highly recommend doing it that way. I also don't know the setup well enough. I want to do this build from the start. Not only will I know the conversion inside & out. It will be a hell of a lot of fun

Put all the STI bits on it and you'll be close to 300hp

Please build quickly! I nee something to watch now that Sons of Anarchy is over.

That looks like a great project. One of these days I'll have to drive on over from Bend to see it in person. I want to learn more about these Suby conversions, the idea of more power than a /4, but with Japanese reliability and Suby longevity sounds very appealing to me.

Okay so my drawing here is really crude. This is just to give a feel for what I was thinking & get input. My thoughts were not doing a full cradle. Just doing some drop down mounts for the tranny. In looking at the Porsche six mounts that are on the firewall. I thought why not do something similar with the suby motor.

So the 2 small blocks on the front of the bar would be a tube a bolt would go through. This would let the front of the motor get lined up & mounted. Yet let you pivot up & down from the tranny. So you'd lift the front of the motor. Then bring the tranny up & attach. Then you'd attach the engine bar on the side's.

This came up as I plan to use the out front header system that moves the turbo to the front of the motor. My mount would keep the engine mount from affecting the headers. Plus be one less tube my exhaust will have to route around going back.

Okay so let me know what you think. I admit I am no genius & maybe my idea sucks. So lay it on me but please do it constructively. Don't just tell me I'm an idiot

I also figured to add another angle piece to the motor mounts on each side once I had the headers on

I'm thinking of doing something similar to make exhausting my 6 simpler. Why go up a larger turbo though? I feel like even in stock trim that engine is going to be a handful, and that trading lag fro more power might be a losing proposition.

I think you may have a problem routing that exhaust down under the car and out the back. The orientation in the photo is for a rear-engine car, probably a sand rail where the exhaust is already in the right place, but in a 914 that big exhaust pipe still has to be curved down and around/through your motor mounts, axles and all to exit in the rear. I know it's possible to change the turbo to the front, others have done it, but I imagine you're going to need to get creative with the plumbing. Plus that turbo and pipe get significantly hot, and that puts them right near the firewall.

Jamie I think instead of reinventing the wheel I think I would just use the engine the way Lyle had it.
Is he selling you just the engine or the conversion. I expect that everything on it was done right. May be wrong but didn't Brad Meyer do the conversion for him?

Bob

I am getting the engine complete with exhaust. While I am looking into bigger turbo & options. I probably won't be doing much there until later if at all. Just pricing things out to see what makes sense & prioritize. I am not getting the cradle as he is building his ls1 off of it. As far as the turbo routing. Lyle had it in the stock spot. He was running a 901 with the adapter plate. Since I plan to run the suby tray we talked about Bob. The suby tranny output CV's sit farther forward right. Which means moving my motor back so my cv's aren't at to big an angle. Which would mean the turbo isn't going to fit without cutting up my rear trunk.

My turbo's in the stock location and we did have to cut a bit of the trunk for it, but it's really minor compared to my son's car. He bought an unfinished project where they didn't flip the intake manifold so took a huge section between the shock towers for the throttle body inlet. Something to avoid if you can.

The nice thing about using the stock exhaust is that it's pretty well designed and built, it's cheap since you have it, and you're keeping more things stock so easy to replace or upgrade later. The bad thing is that it crosses the engine in the front which limits the ways you can do engine mounts in the front. I have the Smallcar engine mounts around here somewhere, for example, a neat solution that we never used because they would have forced us to design all new exhaust and turbo plumbing. Too much work. Plus of course I'd have lost that lovely Subaru exhaust burble.

Not trying to be critical here, but have you thought about buying a 4 wd suby and driving the whole package the way they built it?

A lot of people do that, but why? Point A to point B? Hopefully we can do a little better than that.

One could argue that the Porsche never intended people to put a 911 3.6 or even 2.7l six in a 914 since Ferdinand Porsche once said he wished he had made the /6 smaller since he didn't care for how they kept increasing the bore and stroke making it bigger and bigger each model year.

Back to the original thread....

Why are you ditching the V8?

Even porsche made 2 factory 914-8's. I think porsche is a company that isn't afraid to modify their cars and try new things. Even if the factory didn't do it, there's no reason we can't. Many production cars were made with engines and chassis from 2 different companies. Cobra, Pantera, TR8 are just a couple examples.

The v8 was ditched long ago. Car has been a roller for 2 years at least now. The buick 215 weight wise was great. I was still just under 2200lbs with my 70 914 with it in there. That motor is really deep with the water pump really sticking out. With my tranny in the stock location they cut out the firewall & made a cap for it to work. I had plans of putting an LS1 in its place. Even had the motor for a while but just didn't have the time to get to it. Eventually sold the motor.

I bought my current suby not long after. Just love that car & really love the subaru conversions period. Was figuring on a eg33 six but the WRX turbo motor is great. So when that came up I jumped.

For this setup I don't want to reinvent the wheel. It may go in as close to how it came out as possible. I am looking at all my options with it. Which include what I can do to improve the setup. I'd love nothing more than to throw it in & drive it. At the same time if I need to make some changes. I want to do it all before its in.

As it stands I need to do something different to mount the motor. I don't have a cradle for it. I might be able to copy my current cradle on the 2.5. I don't think I can & keep the motor with exhaust as it sits. I like the idea of coming from the front as it takes the exhaust out of the equation. Even using the headers to move the turbo in front would work with that mount. I won't know until I get it here & can physically compare things. I would like to do this the easiest way possible. Ideally if I can bolt is up with it's current setup. I will do that & just figure a way to mount it. Whatever I end up doing I will document here in this thread. The build threads are the best here when people post what they did & why. Everyone here helps get it to a finished car. Thats why I posted to get input from those who may have a better way. I don't claim to be a genius by any means

I do own a subaru Forrester actually. Although I bought it for my daughter to drive while she is in Utah for school. It's home now & has a pretty good oil leak I have to track down & fix. SO I will be getting plenty of suby work here in the following months. LOL

Well plans have changed. Had a friend here I was chatting with. He asked if I knew of a good flared roller for sale. Next thing I knew we struck a deal on mine. This car has been my baby for 7 years & I had no intention of ever selling it. After buying my green car that has changed. So in the next 2 weeks this will leave my garage for the last time. I'll let my buddy speak up when he is ready on what he plans. It will stay water cooled & sounds like it will be a really powerful motor. Hate to see it go but glad it is going to a friend. This is a nice 1970 with metal GT flares & no rust problems. Nice updates great 5-lug setup. Just needs a drivetrain. I will start a different conversion thread for my green car.

It's always tough to let a loved one go...