Last night I wired up the oxygen sensor and fixed a problem with the shifter. Today I drove it in to work for the first time and my god does that thing move. Holy crap.

1st gear is out of commission for the time being as I need to look into why it won't fully engage, but starting in 2nd is no problem. My tach also doesn't seem to be reading out correctly, so I have to look into that too.

On the positive side, the car hauls ass and sounds great. It sounds like a type IV. At idle and low rpm, its kind of like a Bursch exhaust sound but when you step on it its really freaking sweet.

I only work 3 miles from home so the fans barely had a chance to come on, however when they did I could see the temperature move back down, so they are working.




-Tony

Did it leave you with a hardon and a craving for chicken?

SWEET, looks like you're driving it to RRC06

Awsome and sounds exciting as hell! Gonna have to open here up on the highway, not that I'm, ahhh hmmm gulp, saying you need to speed or anything!


Make certain your breaks are good!

My brakes need a little bleeding. There is some air in the system but they are definitely working.

I was first in line at a stop light today on a nice wide open road and stepped on it. I was up to 55 before I had a chance to look at the speedometer. There was a boxster two lanes over that was probably scratching his head at this fugly 914 with no bumpers.


Brando: hmm. chicken. that does sound good right now. seriously though I have a smile that won't go away like that annoying guy on the natural male enhancement commercials. I am going to have a hard time focusing on work today.


-Tony

Nice work dude. Nothing like having yups of power, great fuel economy and awesome handling.

I'd really like to get a ride in your car - I used to have a Subaru 2.5RS - it was a really great car with a lot of torque - it just kept on hauling...... I'd love to experience that in a 914... I bet you can break the tires loose pretty easily!

Oh - another thing... keep in mind that that ECU does "learn". You'll probably find in a couple of weeks everything gets faster and more efficient.... If you make any changes to the intake or exhaust - you may want to reset the ECU.

You do have the knock sensor hooked up right?

Anyways: Great work!

GAF. you are sooo giving me a ride in the subie car tony.

Yep, knock sensor is hooked up. There are some other things that I need to eliminate still. For instance I haven't connected the rear O2 simulator yet, or the simulators for the fuel tank level and pressure. Also, while the vehicle speed sensor is wired up, I haven't yet put magnets on the CV joint. So over this weekend I'll hopefully get all this stuff installed and working properly.

Regarding the torque.. it feels like a locomotive pushing you. The torque is available INSTANTLY. It makes the TT feel like a dog. So far I haven't lit up the tires...

The intake noise is prettty nice. The intake pipe sits directly behind the uninsulated firewall. Its definitely a noisy ride. Noisy in a good way.

-Tony

Congrats Tony!

Jeff: when are you going to cave in and convert yours??

Before GAF I need to do a few things. First, the alternator seems to bea dead. Second I have no bumpers. Third I don't know if it will overheat on the freeway, etc. I'm going to work my ass off this weekend and next week to get it ready for the show. And Aaron, we'll exchange rides. I'm anxious to see how your car drives too. Jeff: you have to bring the 914 down, I really want to see a working megasquirt installation.

-Tony

Yeah Jeff you know you want to do it. There's a reason that in the last year or so, at least 7 people (that I can think of off the top of my head) have converted to Subaru power.

-Tony

I

HATE

you!




Wish mine would run

Excellent!

Great news Tony! Sounds like you are expierancing all the little pains that the rest of us have. Hang in there, they are really not that big of a deal...

Looking forward to meeting you at GAF.

I am breaking the tires loose at will whenever I want! Give her hell Tony!!!!

Way To Go Tony!!!!!!!!!!

Gettin er dun...

Stop by, let's have a beer!

Alright Tony!! Looks like we will have to have a In n Out Safaras Club Dr. get together before RRC to see both yours and Aarons cars!

good job dude! its good to see another subie 914 hit the road!

The smiles from this morning are a bit gone. I took Andrew (phantom914) for a ride at lunch and all kinds of problems appeared. First, part of the shifter slipped out, so I was stuck in 4th/5th. Then there was this wierd hesitation at a ceratin RPM. All of a sudden at some RPM (tach isn't working right so I don't know) it would just start hesitating badly.

Last but not least as we pulled into the parking lot (mind you ithis was no more than 5-10 minutes driving) the temp guage read 250 and I shut it down. Water was hissing out from where I have my temperature sensor.

So several bad things. I'm going to have it towed home tonight and then I'll get to work troubleshooting. No idea at this point why its overheating other than maybe its running lean? Sure heated up fast and we weren't even pushing it that much.

-Tony

bummer tony. welcome to the problems of innovation

Do you have a heater bypass???

Yeah I just ran a hose from the outlet on the pump to the crossover on the top of the engine.

-Tony

talk about an adrenalin roller coaster, first a mega high and now a bummer low. I'm sure you will have it all ironed out soon, I wish someone had a suby conversion closer to OK so I could get a ride and give me the kick in the ass that I need to get mine finished.... Congrats on a running car though!!!!!

One of the things you might need to do is bleed that pipe. It's critical to the cooling system that this flows well (I added a very small line from here to the expansion tank to allow this to fill properly....

Water that flows through here gets heated by the engine and wafted at the back of the thermostat - so no flow here means the thermostat will never open.....

Interesting. I get the impression that water is moving because the top raditor tank was really hot. and the place I'm measureing the temperature is the hose between the engine and the top of the radiator. I took a radiator hose repair kit which has a plastic tube and spliced it into the hose. Then I drilled a hole for the sensor and threaded it in. thats where the boiling water was coming out. I will check to make sure the heater bypass hose is bled well though. I noticed it has a kink in it, so maybe it isn't flowing well wnough.

Well, having progressed about 5% of the way into my conversion, I've gotta say it sure is nice to see somebody "finish", even if there are still a few things to tweak.
Sounds like this will still be a project for a while longer (it's a 914, right ?) but just getting out on to the road at all has be a huge rush. Congrats.

Yeah - my first thought was "who cares about the heater - block that shit off" - in fact - I intentionally kinked the hose so no water would flow.... Didn't work out to well for me .

The setup also means the interior of the car gets heat regardless of the thermostat position (in the original application) - which is quite clever actually.....

Congrats on DRIVING your car Tony!!

When I was testing my cooling system's efficiency,,,
I gave it the "idle for 1/2 hour test".

and the "go up a really long steady grade at freeway speed" test.

I think the 405 N of LAX would be a good short test,, and then for a killer,, head up the 5 past the grapevine and turn around. If your temps stay reasonable,, you should be able to cut it anywhere.

I found that my electric fan would pass the idle test,,, but I needed really good air-flow to pass the steady grade test.

just my .02

can I have a ride in your car when it's ready?? I'm local to ya,,, sort of

-Rob

Rob - sure thing. Once I get this thing running well I'll start taking signups.

I was just talking to a coworker about the cooling system and I think an important question I need to figure out is whether the coolant system is causing the overheating or whether the engine is causing it. The fact that it overheated so quikly leads me to believe that its the cololant system, and that probably coolant isn't pumping. I'm not sure how to check if its pumping or not though. Is there a sure-fire way to know?

I think what I will do is add in that line like you did Fiid, and make that the place where coolant enters the system. Right now it enters at the top of the radiator at thepressure cap. Which means I need to take off that cap for fluid to go in.

Hopefully this is an issue of coolant routing and not something with the engine. I wonder if the hesitation problem has something to do with the ECU telling the engine not to run over a certain RPM at high temps to help save itself.

-Tony

Right-on Tony!! VROOM_VROOM That's very cool. I hope we see it soon.

Another detail:

The thermostat is sealed closed when the engine is cold. This means - if you're filling the radiator that you may not have actually filled the engine - due to air bubbles and the like. I actually drilled a hole (I believe it was a little shy of 1/4") in my thermostat to allow a little bit of water to flow even when it's closed. This seems to do the job very well - except that it actually takes quite a while to get it up to proper temperature now. You might get away with something as small as 1/8". It does take a while to fill the system, since you have to let the water flow through that hole.

You should probably do a few heat cycles at least to make sure you have all the air out of the system.

If you do add a line to the heater loop - bear in mind it takes water from the top of the engine (hot) and feeds it to the bottom (cold) just behind the thermostat. This is the only water flow when the thermostat is cold, so if there's another line which allows the engine to suck in water which is not hot - it will compromise the thermostat opening - which could be problematic.

My belief is that modern engines are designed to get to temperature very very quickly - which is why this very short water circuit is employed.

Tony...you're making me drool. I can't wait to get mine going. If yours runs that good, just think of how the turbo'd version runs. I took a ride with Dana (Renegade) in vegas last year and it's kinda like this: 3rd gear ...punch it...100mph in a blink. And....it does sound like a 914, a meaner one. The difference is kinda like what a single overhead cam 350 Honda motorcycle sounds like versus a double overhead cam 450 Honda (probably before your time). Anyway, you're definitely gonna fool alot of people with that car.

By the way...starting to put the engine FI back together. Still missing a few things from powder coating. New pics of the intake manifold with the Perrin fuel rails and TGVs mounted on http://community.webshots.com/user/fat73. Also a pic of the front trunk with the battery permanently mounted.

Ed aka W9R1

Just a bump on the road bro. I'd say remove the thermostat and run the fans on a thermal switch for your rad. Make certain you have put the recomended amount of antifreeze in your system and off ya go>>>>>


It won't take long to warm up in the morning ideling.

Okay minor update... I really should be putting this stuff in my progress thread.

I did some work Saturday and basically added more coolant to the system. I also fixed a leak. I took the car around the block several times and as should be expected, the temperature went up quickly to 140 or so, then progresively to 180 and then I let it idle. Got close to 200 and the fans came on, the temperature went down, and then the fans went off. Temperature rose again and then the fans went back on. By this point the air in the engine bay was getting warm so I decided the two extra fans on a GT syle engine lid were going to be necessary. Tonight I got that project going, should be finished tomorrow.

Also fixed the shifter and alternator. Tachometer now reads higher RPMs than reality... Something liek twice as much.

Need to get the rest of the sensors working. ECU goes into Limp Home mode pretty quickly.

-Tony

There are certainly a growing number of suby conversions. Sure sounds like a great combo!

Sounds awesome. Once it will heat cycle (by that - I mean that the temperature will actually go down again) you are in business... . Only question now is: how much cooling capacity do you have... can you overheat it by working it hard. It's more fun to figure that out.

How do you have your tach wired?

WOW = World of Warcraft?

I take it you've narrowed down and resolved the overheating probs. Any way you can leave a few sensors disconnected and 'trick' the ECU into thinking they are really there and working great?

I say who cares. Leave it that way and impress the hell out of folks when you rev it to 12k