Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Tony's Subaru Conversion Thread
914World.com > The 914 Forums > 914World Garage
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
TonyAKAVW
Well, I figured since there has been some pickup in momentum on this project that I would start a thread on my progress. Not to mention its a good way to share whatever ideas I pick up along the way.

The project started in January 2003 when I picked up the silver roller pictured below. Its a '74 and was pretty much stripped. It had a suspension and a few other parts but was missing a lot of major things like and engine, transmission, glass, hoods, gas tank, interior, wheels, etc. etc.

The story of my acquisition of this roller is in this thread:

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?act=...&f=2&t=7991&hl=

After arriving at home:

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?act=...&f=2&t=8963&hl=

This project got a bit of a slow start. I had to first part and chop up my first 914 and dispose of it. It was badly rusted and where itwasn't rusted it was bondo'd. This was going to be a replacement body for that car.

Then last summer I picked up the yellow '70 roller that is now my daily driver. Since then I've spent most of my 914 time fixing it up and getting it ready for WCC. Now that its in a pretty much stable state and WCC is over I can concentrate on this car.

The current plan is that it will get a Subaru 2.5L naturally aspirated engine in a conversion very similar to Scott Thacher's. The basic timeline is like this:

1. Fix up the body enough to make it roadworthy.
2. Put together the drivetrain (engine, adapter, transmission)
3. Install drivetrain and remaining parts
4. Install an exhaust system and wire up the engine, make it ready to drive
5. Install enough interior to drive it.
6. Drive it around a bit, fix whatever things don't work right
7. Flare the fenders (GT flares)
8. body and paint
9. Finish the interior
10.Performance mods - cams, etc.

I'm hoping that I get it at least roadworthy within a year, and the rest of the stuff within a year after that. Its possible I could get it done faster but we'll see. This is a big project.

Here's the car as it was when I brought it home:


TonyAKAVW
Here's a detail picture. This is the weather channel on the passenger side front fender. Something funny going on here.
TonyAKAVW
First job I decided to tackle was taking the interior down to bare metal. Work from the inside out.
TonyAKAVW
Some more ugliness on the front fender.
TonyAKAVW
Well, the fender was junk, so I removed it.
TonyAKAVW
Heres the floor, stripped to metal.
TonyAKAVW
Another messed up fender. I have since found and prepared replacement fenders for both the front and rear damage.
TonyAKAVW
The whole interior got treated with metal etch and the POR-15.
TonyAKAVW
Here's the engine that is going into the car:

Dr Evil
In the first pic your cord is lying in some fluid where the plug is ohmy.gif wink.gif


The last pic is where I am heading right now. Nicely done.

POR-15 smilie_pokal.gif
TonyAKAVW
The motor came with the ECU, wiring harness, and a bunch of other stuff. Its currently with Jeff up in Mountain View but will be coming down in June thanks to Jenny's kind offer to bring it down with her on a trip to Long Beach.

Its a 2001 2.5RS motor, puts out 165 HP stock and has 41,000 miles on it. Turns out that the previous owner of the engine had bought the engine from a wrecked 2.5RS. The really wierd part is that the wrecked 2.5RS belong to Jeff's roommate. So the engine started in a car in Jeff's garage, got wrecked, was sold to a guy in San Francisco, and then came back to its original garage. I wonder if this engine is cursed. Maybe its like the tape in the movie The Ring.

I'm working now on getting an engine adapter plate and flywheel to get the drivetrain put together. I have a good transmission that I bought from Glenn of D&G a while back.

-Tony
Rotary'14
Congratulations on getting off your ass Tony!! (I am having the similiar problems)
beerchug.gif

A slow start is better than a "no" start. You should get to work because it would be a shame to have all the metal (that you stripped) start to rust again.

How goes the drive train plans? While working on the body I'm sure your paying attention to the needs of your cooling system.

Post more pics soon so we can watch progress!

Good luck on your project/adventure biggrin.gif

TonyAKAVW
QUOTE
In the first pic your cord is lying in some fluid where the plug is  


The last pic is where I am heading right now. Nicely done.


That fluid was runoff from a sprinkler from hours earlier. Not very deep.


Stripping the interior down to metal was a LOT of work. I live in an apartment and so I have to do things quietly. I did manage to use the angle grinder with the wire wheel for a while, but finishign it off required a ton of work with chisles and so forth to get seam sealer out of the corners.

I'm pretty happy with the results though. I should probably rough it up and put a second coat on.

-Tony
AndyC
Another scooby doo conversion, I have a friend who works for a company called Prodrive building Subaru WRC rally cars here in the UK so if you need some very expensive performace parts let me know. He is still trying to convince me to scooby mine, his last argument was 500bhp from a £500 engine confused24.gif
Scott Carlberg
QUOTE (AndyC @ May 19 2005, 12:58 PM)
Another scooby doo conversion, I have a friend who works for a company called Prodrive building Subaru WRC rally cars here in the UK so if you need some very expensive performace parts let me know. He is still trying to convince me to scooby mine, his last argument was 500bhp from a £500 engine confused24.gif

Prodrive, that's cool! smilie_pokal.gif

Same company that ran the Ferrari 550's & now the Aston Martin's in the ALMS/IMSA series.
Aaron Cox
nice ring ™ reference biggrin.gif

very cool. you are going to have a beasty mobile.... whats a 2.5rs motor spin to safely?

and...as always. get'r done!
lapuwali
QUOTE (Scott Carlberg @ May 19 2005, 01:32 PM)
QUOTE (AndyC @ May 19 2005, 12:58 PM)
Another scooby doo conversion, I have a friend who works for a company called Prodrive building Subaru WRC rally cars here in the UK so if you need some very expensive performace parts let me know. He is still trying to convince me to scooby mine, his last argument was 500bhp from a £500 engine  :confused:

Prodrive, that's cool! smilie_pokal.gif

Same company that ran the Ferrari 550's & now the Aston Martin's in the ALMS/IMSA series.

Believe me, the WRC stuff is WAY cooler...

Prodrive doesn't just build ANY Soob WRC cars, they build the FACTORY WRC cars, and have won several World Championships. One of their drivers is running second in points right now.

If any parts could be obtained from that place, they'd be the best available. I'd love to know the recipes they used to build engines even 5 years ago. 300hp/500ft lbs 2.0 turbos with wide, smooth powerbands, which could easily make 500hp if you removed the required intake restrictor. You'd be able to break 901s at a dizzying pace. wacko.gif

scotty914
one of the biggest pluses of this conversion is the radiator and cooling are in the engine bay so no cutting

tony the car look good and is you want more hp go to cobb tuning, he has the suby motors down pat

edit for aaron the suby motors have a hard redline of 7 k and the tachs ahave a redline of 6500. i have hit the rev limiter a few times, one of those was at willow i hit first at 45 or so mph opps
scotty914
arron here is the 2.5 ltier torque curve, the thing that amazes me is they have the stock intake and exhaust over 100 % ve
TonyAKAVW
All that horsepower sound fantastic but it comes at the cost of one of the key things I like about this conversion and that is to have the radiator in the engine bay. I like having two trunks, and using the front for a radiator kinda sucks. With 500 HP I seriously doubt you could get enough cooling from an engine bay radiator. It would end up being more like a V8 conversion in many ways.

As far as rpms, I've seen people saying 8000, but more commonly I've seen 6500. I'll probably keep it conservative for a while.

Scott: I agree Cobb is the way to go. for my engine (SOHC) the cams are $500 and give you something like 15-19 HP. There's a guy on the NASIOC board who has a 225 HP naturally aspirated 2.5 engine. He's using the Cobb cams, and has bumped up the compression ratio. It seems like getting above 200 HP is going to be very doable. Oh, btw he's going to put this engine in a 914. Although he said he's going to ditch the EFI and use webers. I don't really understand why, but he claims it will give him even more horsepower. I've never heard that carbs give you more HP than a proper EFI system, but whatever.

-Tony
Aaron Cox
dude. taht looks like serious fun.

that torque curve looks fantastic drooley.gif
TonyAKAVW
Here's a thread about the engine I just mentioned.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread...ht=dyno+results
lapuwali
It's possible the stock intake plenum and throttle body are too restrictive for a high power engine. They're made for 160ish HP, not 200+. If you used IDF-style throttle bodies and EFI, you'd see the same gains, but you'd also retain the advantages of EFI. You'd also have to fab up a linkage (unless someone makes one, or you could adapt a VW Weber linkage, and hassle with synchronizing multiple throttles.

Certainly, at some point, the stock intake will become the limiting factor. 200hp from a 2.5 is quite decent, and I'd be pretty happy with that from a street engine. As you say, you're also eventually going to hit the limits of the Thacher Cooling System™. I'd concentrate on removing weight from the car after the 200hp mark was reached.
scotty914
nope the stock fi is good to 220 hp with cobb tuning cams and heads. it just cost 2500 for that
Aaron Cox
tony, how long till we see turbo(s) installed?


been for a wild ride in a 500hp turbo scooby sandrail..... biggrin.gif
very cool indeed.


i assume your still laying power to the pavement via a 901?
or do you have plans to beef that up too? (lsd etc)
TonyAKAVW
Well, for now I just want to get the thing running. That is definitely a big enough task. Turbos are not out of the question, but I probably will keep it naturally aspirated. Now if someday I run into a pile of money I would definitely be willing to put in an STI engine and crank that up to 500 HP.

The 901 will be used as is, or until something breaks. I'm trying to do this project cheaply (I'm a 914 owner of course) so putting in an LSD or high performance axles, or bigger CVs etc., is way over the budget. I'm basically trying to put in the engine and do as little other modifications as possible. I'm sure that after I've got the car running I'll find things I want to improve, but for now theres nothing extravagant in the plans except maybe for the fender flares.

-Tony
TonyAKAVW
Here's the new front fender held in place with vice grips. When I got the fender it was essentially a quarter of a 914. It was a real chore to first cut off 90% of the excess metal and then drill out every single spot weld. Bondo helped out a lot by letting me use his brand new plasma cutter. I think that is perhaps one of the coolest tools around. Just the thought of vaporizing steel with electricity!

You can catch a glimpse of the new rear fender section in the front trunk.
AndyC
QUOTE (lapuwali @ May 19 2005, 09:56 PM)
QUOTE (Scott Carlberg @ May 19 2005, 01:32 PM)
QUOTE (AndyC @ May 19 2005, 12:58 PM)
Another scooby doo conversion, I have a friend who works for a company called Prodrive building Subaru WRC rally cars here in the UK so if you need some very expensive performace parts let me know. He is still trying to convince me to scooby mine, his last argument was 500bhp from a £500 engine  :confused:

Prodrive, that's cool! smilie_pokal.gif

Same company that ran the Ferrari 550's & now the Aston Martin's in the ALMS/IMSA series.

Believe me, the WRC stuff is WAY cooler...

Prodrive doesn't just build ANY Soob WRC cars, they build the FACTORY WRC cars, and have won several World Championships. One of their drivers is running second in points right now.

If any parts could be obtained from that place, they'd be the best available. I'd love to know the recipes they used to build engines even 5 years ago. 300hp/500ft lbs 2.0 turbos with wide, smooth powerbands, which could easily make 500hp if you removed the required intake restrictor. You'd be able to break 901s at a dizzying pace. wacko.gif

Sorry for the Hijack
I am going for a look around their workshops when they all get back from Cyprus so I will take some recon photos for you all if they let me. As for parts check out their website www.prodrive.com and see if anything tickles your fancy, I am pretty sure he will arrange a discounted rate drooley.gif
Hydra
Hey tony,
good to see you started working on your conversion.
As for the tranny setup, why don't you use a subaru 5 sp. manual tranny?
pros:
-it's a lot cheaper than a 901 (around 150$ for one in good condition
-it will allow you to have the engine placed about 5 inches more to the back, giving you more space for your radiator setup.
-and most importantly, you won't need the kennedy adapter kit (much less $$$)
cons:
-you will need to fabricate your own mounts for it.
-adapt a cable gear shift linkage
-adapt axles (but that is easy if you consider doing frankenaxle out of the subaru axles on the tranny end, and the 914 axles on the wheel hub end) welder.gif
my 0.02$
Best of luck

btw: i'm working on my eg33 conversion right now, and trying to figure out a way to mount the radiator in the optimal position for cooling, and it is such a major PITA.

oh and scott, i could really need those scoop pics... wink.gif
d914
other issue would be you would need to find an older fwd tranny.all the newer ones are set up for awd......working on that solution right now..
TonyAKAVW
Spent a few hours today cleaning out the unnecessary metal from the engine bay. The mtal I took out is the metal that surrounds the type 4 engine tin. Its unnecessary for a water cooled engine, so to make more space in the engine bay I got rid of it. I may also remove the stock engine mounts but for now I see no good reason to remove them other than aesthetics.

I have a bit of welding to do on the hell hole side of the car, but its not going to be too bad.



TonyAKAVW
ll
TonyAKAVW
Some of the metal coming out from the firewall is still there. It comes out about an inch or less along most of the firewall. Getting rid of it alltogether is a bad idea, because the two halves of the fireawll joing together. If I need to remove more later I'll do so, but I suspect I'll be fine.
TonyAKAVW
Next step is to paint over the bare metal with POR-15. I gave it a good treatment with a phosphoric acid rust converter, washed it off and dried it.
9144guy
is't that the engine off of ebay? i watched this motor looked cool, was the wiring harness extra? , i wonder how fast the car will fly, isnt it a turbo?
redshift
Dood, your metal cleanup work is beautiful, way clean.

nice!


M
TonyAKAVW
QUOTE
Dood, your metal cleanup work is beautiful, way clean.


Thanks!

I used a combination of cutoff wheels, grinding wheels, and a wire brush wheel.

QUOTE
is't that the engine off of ebay? i watched this motor looked cool, was the wiring harness extra? , i wonder how fast the car will fly, isnt it a turbo?


Nope, this engine was advertised on Craigslist in San Francisco and The Samba as well. $900 for the engine, harness, ECU, bunch of other crap. Not a bad deal. Its a naturally aspirated engine. I decided against the turbos due to their torque curves and complexities.

-Tony
scotty914
9144guy, i will tell ya the suby 2.5 moves out quite well.

at the wcc tony was talking with me about going turbo, it would be faster but the cooling might not work with the radiator in the engine bay. after tony got a ride in my car he decided that thou the turbo would be nice the car is plenty fast enough with out it.

tony as for the engine bay clean up what you did is perfect, the engine will fit very well. before you go any further i would recommend getting the wiring harness, fuel, and brake lines secured or set up to be. the reason i say this is the next thing you will have to work on after por 15 will be motor mounts and radiator frame. as a matter of fact you might want to start on the mount now so when you por the engine bay you can por the new mwtal as well.

edit: tony you could remove the stock motor mounts but they are really really well attached line 50 spot welds per mount

one thing i can say is i am jealous of tony, he does not need to guess as much as i did headbang.gif
9144guy
kick a$$
9144guy
i wanted to turbo my 1.8 liter. we had a 930 slant nose(steel) that came into the shop with twin turbo garretts/w built in wasegates and water cooled intercoolers, my boss bought it, and went back with stock parts,turbo, and a intercooler,also had halltec injection box,,i have acess to the parts but, i decided to go with stock inj. so my wife could have fun with it instead of me wondering when it could pop. maybe some day with another engine
TonyAKAVW
I have begun thinking about how to do the radiator frame. I am at this point going through many different ideas, but really until I get a radiator and see how it fits in, its all just ideas. One idea I still have is to make a frame for the radiator that attaches to the motor mount. In the end this will probably weigh a lot, be difficult to fabricate, especially around the interface to the firewall. I'll probably POR-15 the engine bay as much as possible now, then after the frame is done re-do those sections. There's a lot of bare metal...

My next project after the POR-15 will be figuring out what to do about wiring. I will be going a bit crazy with the wiring making it over-connectorized. I will probably have bulkhead conncetors at the firewall rather than having a wiring harness come through, as well as at the trunk wall. I'm going to give myself plenty of extra wiring so that I can add things in the future that I have not yet anticipated. I also want built-in engine bay lights so that its easier to work in there. When the engine lid opens, the lights will come on. Should make it easier to debug when I'm on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

-Tony
scotty914
here is a cheap and easy way to get engine bay light... get one of the ricer light kits and install it on the firewall with a small switch that is a nc contact that gets released when the engine lid is up. this would cost about 20 bucks or so to do.

as for a bulk head connector, if you do that make sure it is not behind the radiator, for access reasons. also a good source for a connector is an early suby firewall connector they are like 26 pins and the pins are available new

edit: i would still do the radiator mounting now, so you dont have to move it later when you see it is in they way
redshift
QUOTE (scott thacher @ May 21 2005, 11:43 PM)
at the wcc tony was talking with me about going turbo, it would be faster but the cooling might not work with the radiator in the engine bay. after tony got a ride in my car he decided that thou the turbo would be nice the car is plenty fast enough with out it.

I was thinking about cooling today, the answer to all your cooling problems... ENGINE TIN.

If you could get tin back around there, you get alot more cooling, without a pooper scooper, I am pretty sure..

Even at lowish speeds, there is a massive disparity in air pressure, above and below. The ass of a teener is a kite.



M
Michael J
Tony,
Keep the updates coming. I think the idea of a basically stock Suby engine will have a lot of appeal. If I could double the HP from my 1.7 and not take on a bunch of maintenance headaches I would sure give it some thought. I just want a REALLY fun driver. Don't race.

And I commend you for taking this project on in an apt. garage. I can barely turn around in my garage and I don't have to worry about pissing off the neighbors.

Good luck.
Dr Evil
Michael J,
Check out Scott Thatcher's suby conversion for a done, stock, fun to drive one. He pioneered the mounting of the radiator in the engine bay infront of the engine, and proofed it buy driving it from MD to CA for the WCC05. If I had time (oh ya, and money) I would do oneof these for sure. Tony is just taking it a step further
TonyAKAVW
Just a teaser. I got the engine home last night. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post tonight.

I stopped by Jeff's place at about noon yesterday and we picked up the engine and put it into the trunk of the camry. It took a little work but it fit eventually. I had to take off the alternator, the coil pack, and the throttle body. It leaked some fluids into the trunk and scraped up the paint a bit, but it managed to survive about 350 miles.

I'm going to try and recruit some coworkers to help me lift out the engine tonight.

Pictures at 11.

-Tony


TonyAKAVW
In order to get the engine out of the car's trunk easily I removed the alternator, brackets, and the intake manifold/injector runners/throttlebody assembly aka "baby alien."

Its stunning how much the EJ25 looks like a type 4 engine, albeit 30 years more modern.

-Tony
TonyAKAVW
Baby Alien or a Four legged spider??
TonyAKAVW
Bright blue powder coated rice. That must be good for like 50 HP.
TonyAKAVW
Needs a new timing belt cover. Probably a good opportunity to put on a new timing belt.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Invision Power Board © 2001-2024 Invision Power Services, Inc.