Hmmm that would be cool. That area also has some of the best scenic mountain twisty roads anywhere, between Idaho City and Stanley.

When the stinger ecu is wired up are you using the stock Subaru knock sensors. If so you sould never hear any spark knock.


The car is looking great. Keep up the good work.


Bob

I knoooooooooow...

What about this...
We could meet in McCall, drive to Banks for a float trip, from there go to Stanley via Lowman, and end up staying in Stanley. Then on the drive home could head out over Galena and down through Sun Valley. It would be epic at the right time of year. Or maybe the opposite, start in Sun Valley and end up in McCall.

Thanks Bob.

Regarding knock sensors, the Stinger does not use them. Here's the info I have from John the owner of Outfront:

"Dean, no EMS product uses a knock sensor. There are only a few select ecus out there that can. The knock sensor is not usually used in High Performance as the engines make so much internal noise that it's hard to distinguish normal noise and knock. In a stock motor/cast pistons, standard valve train engine, a knock sensor makes more sense. Knock is due to poor timing maps and cheap fuel [that] a map was not intended for. My ignition map and using 91oct fuel should be real close and knock should never be an issue"

I'm doing Stanley over the 4th with the other Porsche (if you wanna call it that)



We should start another thread to gauge interest though...

Thanks Hontec, it is a great sound. Gets my blood flowing every time I fire it up. I'm going to use my real video cam in the next few days to hopefully get a cleaner sound clip to share.

Sorry about the wait, thanks for the reminder, sent a PM.

Man I think you are spoiled. I'll probably be up in that area the same weekend, maybe we can meet up.

Elk Creek group site.

na might be ok on the street without knock sensors but a stock piston turbo suby will quickly be junk on bad gas without knock sensing in my opinion. Sure you can run a safe tune without them but you will be giving up a lot of timing to be safe in a 18- 25 psi turbo application. My son even uses aquamist, a 800.00 setup just to be safe at 26 psi. It is true built motors are noisey till it warms up but the knock threshold can be set a little to allow for it. Hotter climates are more critical I'm sure. The knock sensors must be torqued and have a clean installation to be optimum also. The best tunes are done with a listening device that can be made with a cheap hearing helper with the microphone put on a alligator clip and long lead so you can listen while you are tuning. Autospeed had a how to a few years ago on making one, but it's really just moving themicrophone to a lead with a alligator clip to fasten it to a bolt head or motor part close to the combuston chamber. You can usually hear a knock before the ecu registers it. My son is always reviewing his data for knock detection timing after a run. He looks first for any pulled timing incidences. He usually spots the knock light if it comes on during a run. He also has three things he watches, the road, the tach, and the knock light. Then the oil pressure and temp maybe. Thats still using the stock ecu but with speed density and open source tuning.

I can't wait to go for a ride saturday Dean . Not to mention picking up my other bits & pieces . Don't forget to get me the link on the header

About the knock sensor
I did talk to them but it was back when they were outback. I did get the bad gas wrong timing store. I only got knocking under load at high alt.

here is a thread from the vanagon forum. Bad things with out a knock BUT heavier rig.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic...ght=ems+stinger

The only reason im asking is because im thinking of using the stinger system on the 914 suby conversion . Its not doing me any good sitting on the shelf.
You couldnt send me a copy of what your running ??

thanks jcl

You mean the base map outfront installed on my stinger? I'll see if I can figure out how to make a copy, don't know my way around the software too well yet. So what altitude where you at?

That's so cool, can't believe you are going to get to come over to my neck of the woods. Looking forward to it!

I know the spot and will definitely track you down.

Yeah my 12 year old boy is going to ride along to keep me company. Should be a cool weekend

Spent some time building a rotisserie last weekend.

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Dove in today and tackled the cowl/fender area. Nasty in there but not as bad as I thought.

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After a some cleaning.

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Finishing up...

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I haven't tried this yet, not sure if I will need to but I do have a bubble on the edge of the seal strip on each fender. Wouldn't it be easier to just remove just the top of the fender and not distrub the lower part where the fender attaches. It really looks like the fender will be hard to put back on and seal up the way you have removed it. You probably have thought about it a lot and have it figgured out but it still looks like a hard spot to get to from under the fender and getting sealer in at the door jamb side looks even harder. I'm still thinking the only reason for the strip was to allow for a fender replacement without body work at the windshield post area. Maybe they learned from the karmen ghia. But it could be for flex also. I'm thinking I will just blast the seam out, clean it up, ospho it, seal it up with weld through primer then close it up with weld, especially the trunk channel and see if it cracks. The bottom of the welded area won't be sealed though. The only thing is if it does crack it will be way harder to fix it back stock.

You are doing so good so far I'm sure you have it under control. This thread is a really good reference thread.

Looking good Dean! Now just get those flares on

Hey Charlie, I decided to make one smaller visible cut and take the 1/2 section of fender for a few reasons:
- The problem with just removing the top of the fender is the double layer in the top corner of the fender. If you come down the fender about 10" you'll clear the double layer. It'd be near impossible to weld the back side of the double layer when re-installing.
- Steel flare will cover all but about 5" of the visible cut at the top
- Cutting the jamb attachment stretch will be pretty straight forward to re-attach. There is good access from both sides to weld it back in.

On the passenger side, it isn't nearly as bad, so I'm going to...
- use a heat gun and saw blade to scrape out as much of the factory seam sealer as possible from the under side of the cowl/fender seam. There's no welds, just seam sealer for 99% of that seam.
- ospho from the top of the seam letting it soak through the seam to the under side. - prime and 3m seam seal the bottom and top side
- and finally paint.
The cowl/fender seam will be left open with no rubber seal to match the trunk and door gap. This will allow it to dry out whenever it gets wet, with not much chance to trap any water.

That sounds like a good plan to me. Except for the groove going into the trunk seal channel. I guess you will put a dam on the end of the groove up against the seal to stop water from getting under the seal. I read where someone actually takes the trunk seals out after washing the car to dry the channel out. He doesn't glue them in.

Good point. I like the idea of not gluing in the trunk seal, may not even use one at all. It may keep water out of the trunk, but it's destroyed my channel in places.

Got one flare on tonight. Since I'm a rookie at fab work, this was pretty fun to see a flare go on smoothly and fit nice.

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When lining up the bottom of the flare with the bottom of the fender, I was a little concerned about the top of the flare hitting the fender too high. But it turned out perfect, using Root_Werks method. Thanks Dan!
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Looks great, you're giving me the "if he can do it, I can do it" ideas yet again. My suby 914 isn't even running yet.

It really does look good though!

I don't remember if you said whether you are using fg rockers. Did you check the front to rear positioning to the rocker or are you going to mod steel rockers to fit? And have you heard about easygrind filler wire? It's not cheap but really easy to grind and hammers a lot easier and doesn't seem to crack as easily when you hammer it.

Yes, AA flared fg rockers. I did mount the rocker up first to get forward/rear position for the flare. Looks like it'll line up well. I've read some on the easygrind wire but haven't tried it. I'm using a high quality .023 and really like it so I'll probably stick with that. It grinds down pretty easy using a die grinder with cut-off wheel to knock down the high spots and then finish up with a flap disk. Easygrind does sound good, although I did see quite a few mixed reviews. I'll need to get some and compare for myself.

Thanks Sean. Yep, if I can do it I'm betting you can too, get'er done.

Since I now live in an area where I'd get lynched if I blasted my car outside, I decided to go stealth and turn one side of my garage into a 914 sized blasting cabinet. Not sure I'll do that again but I sure love the results.

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I did have a few neighbors giving me the look as I backed my brother-in-law's diesel powered compressor into my driveway.

before...
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After finishing up with disassembly, and 1000lbs+ of sand later...

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All of the seam sealer and foam in the wheel wells is gone, and most of the rest of the body too. There was enough surface rust under some of the seam sealer that I decided I wanted it all out of there. Heat gun and chisel worked best, then hit it again with sand. Glad that's over. Time to finish up the rust repair and rear flares.

New gauges arrived today, can't wait until it's time to install these. My goal was to get updated gauges with as close to original look as possible. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. Electric programmable speedo which is driven by the stock suby vss.

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Absolutely looking great! I'm amazed you took it down as far as you have. Going to be an absolute beauty once you get the new paint on there. I can't wait to see it

I've been contemplating doing exactly the same thing (blasting booth in garage) for the longest time. I live in the suburbs, neither my neighbours, nor my wife would let me do it outside.

Did you leave the plastic loose on the bottom, did you cover the ceiling and the floor?
Can you tell us (or show us) more about your booth?

Keep up the good work!

What gauges are those? I'm going to end up using vdo vision series electronic gauges to stay with the stock'ish look and still have better functionality and low cost. I just haven't pulled the trigger on ordering them yet.

I want to switch over to red lighting which is easy with the vdo, but the speedometer is really expensive for anything over 120mph.

I used a good quality duct tape to seal the barrier wall to the floor. I didn't cover the ceiling or the floor. The biggest obvious problem with this whole setup is the silica dust. It's toxic to breath so you need a good mask. And if your garage is attached to your house like mine is, you'd want to be really careful to keep the dust isolated to the booth. Honestly if I do another car again I'll be looking for an outdoor location to do it. I could go on about what I learned as far as equipment goes etc. happy to share. Just let me know if you want any more info.
- Dean

Wow. Talk about progress... Keep up the good work!

The gauges are from speedhut.com, revolution series. I was going to go the vdo route, but decided to go with speedhut instead. I really like their options. You can configure the gauge to have exactly the look and features you want on their site. I like the porch logo, and the turn signals and hi-beam in the speedo, not exactly like oem in the tach, but still has the same feel and functionality.

I would never attempt to try to do that in a confined space. I'm really surprised you're still breathing. How could you see? The only good thing is you could reuse the sand but I guess you survived and got it done.

Silica dust is why I don't use sand.

It actually wasn't a complete enclosed/confined space, I had a decent airflow moving through by opening the big overhead door and the back door. I used a 3m organic vapor mask the entire time which is more than adequate for silica dust so I don't feel like I was in any danger. Only time it got hard to see was working in up under the fender wells. Had a big spotlight for those areas. It certainly wasn't optimal but it got the job done.

Talk to me about that garage door opener, the slider track and rails...

And the motor setting on the other side of the screen. It'll just breakin quicker.

Thanks Jamie, needed to take it this far to get the level of detail I'm looking for. It'll be worth it. Now to get the metal work finished up. Looking forward to seeing your suby conversion get wrapped up.
- Dean

You guys are bored tonight I see. The motor is sealed up well, and being on the other side of the barrier didn't get to see any of the dust. Garage door opener, rollers, drive track survived just fine. Life will continue on.

WAY COOL!

You & me both brother . I get all day saturday to work in the shop. I am excited to get some work done. Not only on the suby but my v8 car as well

That is just awesome!! Congrats for it going well!!! PS your gauges are beautiful!!

Sorry... not trying to distract from your awesomeness on this build. That was just one of the first things that crossed my mind as I saw your "tent" Godspeed Mr. Potato head. Godspeed!

Is it done yet?

Looking great... this is going to be a sweet ride. We're going to have th schedule some teener weekends at The City of Rocks.