BRZ Rally Car

Chris, have you you played with any of the optical capture software for model generation? You know, for.. reasons.

In reply to bluej (Forum Supporter) :

Lots with lasers, I haven't used any of the photo based or "white light" scanners though.  Looks like there's some cool open source stuff out there but I haven't done much with it other than some scanning with a Kinect a while ago.

The camera based stuff, as far as I know, is great for getting something that looks right, but not so good for accuracy.  The system I use for work is at the other end of the spectrum, the models it generates look kind of strange (unless you do a ton of processing) but are impressively accurate.

There's a free IOS app called Capture that uses the cameras that the phone has for doing face ID. It's obviously pretty crude compared to any commercial equipment but it is pretty exciting to think that maybe in the next ten years we will have the technology to accurately 3D scan objects with a smart phone.

Went to the junkyard and got some hardware off of various Subarus:

This means that the bellhousing and motor mounts will all have 14mm heads, and the bellhousing won't have any long studs hanging it up- relax, there are still dowel pins so it's not going to have alignment issues.

The car didn't come with its' factory tow hook, so I grabbed two of them and swapped the smaller one with our Outback Sport.  Not only are these stronger than the typical aftermarket ones, they're really cheap!  Rules say they need to be red, yellow, or orange and I had a nearly empty can of red so:

Let's just check the oil pickup screen on this bad boy.

Hmm.

HMM...

HHGGAAGHHHHF

Yeah this engine wasn't destined to live long in its' current state.  It will need a complete going through, so I'm glad I'm picking up another one next weekend.

That's rough. 

Little bit of gear oil and it would have been quiet enough for a buy here pay here lot....

The most berkeleyed up thing about it is that it looks like this was all a botched rebuild- the case has been apart and it has multi layered steel head gaskets peeking out, so I think somebody tried to do a good job but just used way too much sealant, and in the wrong places.

The upside to this is, it really did run pretty well.  If I ever have to finish a rally with a smashed oil pan or something, I hope the engine tries as valiantly as this one did to keep living.

Did all my measuring so that I can order fuel/brake line plumbing whenever that makes sense.  I need to decide what I want to remake vs keep on the fuel lines.  There are basically three sections:

1. Rear lines at tank- these are above floor height (pretty well protected) and accessible through the panel under the back seat.  Plastic with push-on quick connects at both ends stock.
2. Mid lines- plastic, run under floor.  These are getting replaced with metal hard line.
3. Front lines in engine bay- barb fitting/hose clamp at one end, push-on at the other end.

So I could just remake the middle section and use the stock lines at both ends, or remake only one end (probably the engine bay so that I have my choice of routing), or remake both ends.  Not sure, I don't see a lot of reason to remake the OEM stuff other than the convenience of screwing on an AN fitting instead of messing with the stock fuel line clips when I have to disconnect something.

I agree that only the middle line really needs replacing. I had the same though for the underhood line (AN fittings) but with a factory line have a spare would be easy to keep on hand and I doubt the stock clips are that much of a PITA.

In reply to hobiercr (FS) :

They're mildly annoying but not terrible- the biggest problem with them is that the hard line goes all the way to the strut tower, so I would need to adapt to that location.  I'll probably price the stuff I'd need and see how much extra it would cost me to have the hardware to make them AN lines on hand "just in case" and go from there.

Now it's a race car, project finished:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Now it's a drift car, project finished:

Fixored(j/k)

Through the magic of spray paint, overnight the VW wheels became rally wheels:

white is boring, it needs bright colorful wheels

It isn't a rally car without white wheels. 

The parts harvest from the old engine has begun:

Apparently the guy who removed the 2016 engine I'm picking up bashed the front cover into something and cracked it- this gets me a discount but also means I need to reuse the old one.

They sure did use a lot of bolts to hold the front cover on:

I'll have to clean this extremely thoroughly:

And eventually this too:

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I didn't know those had a timing chain instead of a belt!

That timing cover looks like a oil leak waiting to happen with all that surface area.

In reply to Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) :

And no gasket!  And a direct route to dump excess RTV into the oil pan!  There's a reason people mess it up, I guess.

In reply to NGTD:

It's an interesting engine- it's shaped like your usual Subaru engine but the details remind me of a modern 4-stroke dirt bike engine, except with lots of sealant instead of gaskets.

Is the cover flat enough for anaerobic sealant? That way when it inevitably winds up in the oil it doesn't clog stuff?

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :

I'm planning to use the same Threebond stuff specified in the factory service manual- there's even a spec for how big the bead should be.  Hopefully if it's done the way it's supposed to be done it won't be a problem.

There's even this handy simplified drawing that they released to try and keep people from berkeleying it up:

While I've got them pulled up, I'll just paste the pages from the manual here too:

Having R63 flashbacks here. A mile of sealant, applied just so, in a specified amount of time, carefully set perfectly in place and torqued in that specified time. Do yourself a favor and make a set of dowel pins to help guide it on. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I'll have two sets of bolts once I pick up the new engine, so that should be simple enough.  The sealant I ordered comes in a caulk tube, I'm hoping using a gun to dispense it makes it more controllable than the usual squeeze tube.

I'm a little nervous about this but I know I'm going to need to get good at it.  This will probably not be the last time I have to do it.

Does it matter if you apply the bead to the engine or to the cover? If to the engine, is there an easy way to position the engine so it faces up? That seems like it would make applying an even bead fairly quickly much easier. 

I'd buy enough sealant to plan on berking it up and starting over at least once or twice.