I'm stoked to hear about the parts compatibility, really enjoying your build!
I'm stoked to hear about the parts compatibility, really enjoying your build!
Awesome work!
Just ordered some parts to make sure they fit. I'm pretty confident on both, although the axle is going to be close!
Buying lots of stuff to move things along here. Bought these wheels on tire rack today. Luckily I live pretty close to one of their distribution warehouses so I get to save a couple of bucks picking them up.
Never been a big fan of the black/machined color combo.... i think I might paint all my wheels gold.....
So got my parts and started test fitting:
Lucky, lucky (I suppose it's not totally luck, there was a lot of planning and research that went into it) the brake and more importantly the CV axle fit the way they need to!
I still need to figure out which brake caliper to use, but there's plenty of room for whatever brackets I need to use so I'm not too worried about that. There's a bit of clearancing that needs to be done for the CV axle, but it runs smoothly through the full range of motion.
The wheels fit up nicely too. Everything is looking like it's working out. So now I'm locking everything down in the suspension so I can do one last geometry check. Then I'll finalize it (weld it all up) and repeat all this for the other side!
working my way through this build, would love to see the first page pics back up!
Alas I think they might be gone forever... they were hosted on cardomain and I can't seem to get onto it anymore....
Getting a ride in this car once it's sorted is on my bucket list. Don't worry I'm in my mid 30s and in good health so don't feel rushed 
yeah, I love this build. KEEP IT UP!
I found this little gem out there while toodling around on Google.
BA5 said:I found this little gem out there while toodling around on Google.
That rules! It was campaigned for quite some time!
So unfortunately it's been a while!
Despite being careful, I still wound up catching the 'vid, along with the rest of my family just before Christmas. Very luckily we are ok and didn't pass it on to anyone else, but I definitely wasn't up to working on the car for quite a while.
My cousin got me something pretty cool for Christmas: he found someone photoshops your car to look like a hotwheels car.
I liked it, and thought he did a pretty good job!
Just bought these for the rear. Getting real darn close to setting it down on the ground! Some big updates will be coming soon.
Getting soooooooo close!
I finally got all the suspension in and to my liking! I still have to pick up my tires from Tire Rack and get them mounted, but I'm hoping to very soon be able to put the car back on the ground and have it sit on it's own weight!
Right now, there's still a fair bit of finishing work to do:
I'll take a few days to appreciate that the car is sitting on all 4 wheels, which means that I will officially go from having a non-running, chopped up FWD car to a non-running mid-engine RWD car. But then it'll all go back up in the air and EVERYTHING will come out so I can rebuild the engine and do all the finishing work on the suspension. Which I think will be a lot easier without the engine in the way!
I'm also going to add one more brack going from the toe link mount to the rear transmission mount. That mirrors what I've seen on the Cayman rear chassis.
I've got my tires mounted, I've got my suspension, I just have one LAST thing that's keeping me from setting this down on the ground!
That's interference between the spring perch/spring and the knuckle...
I've known about this as a possible issue for a while. At first I thought i was going to do a rocker arm setup, but that got more complicated than I wanted it to pretty quickly. Then after everything was together it was looking like I might be able to just use everything as-is. But no go, so here we are. I mulled over how to resolve this for quite a while before I just landed on tilting the top of the shock mounting inboard a little ways. It's so little interference, I just need 1/2" or so!
So my idea involves putting a rod end on the top of the shock (which requires an adapter, because Honda and their sometimes stupid use of weird thread pitches!):
The magazine is gratuitous, but staging the photo only required moving the magazine ~8 inches from where it was actually laying!
This means I no longer have to use the existing spring mount (which centers the shock in the mounting hole), so I'll 'push' the shock inboard a little ways.
I'll create a dummy upper shock mount that will let me thread in some rod bolts. I'll run a bolt through those rod bolts and that's what I'll mount my shock to. Then I can use spacers to move the shock inboard.
Here's kind of a bad picture of the model showing the clearance once the shock is tilted inboard.
I'm thinking I'm going to get the upper shock mount piece machined from a place like xometry or one of those places. Although it just occurred to me that I could save myself $150 and 2 weeks if I can modify the existing upper shock mount to do the job instead. So we'll see in the next couple days what works.
After careful inspection it doesn't look like I'll be able to repurpose the existing upper mounts since all the rubber is bonded into it.
And I'm not going the xometry route. I'm able to buy 1" long tubing from McMaster that is the OD and ID that I need, so all the fabrication that's needed is to drill and tap some holes in the tubing and radius one of the edges.
I was able to purchase everything I need from McMaster for basically what just the machined parts would have cost me from an online CAD shop. So I'll call it a win.
Also, I was able to recover some of the broken photos from the early posts, so I'll be fixing those!
So I successfully fabricated and installed my above spring/shock relocation last night!
It works! I moved the suspension through the full range of motion and I have clearance through the whole range!
The top is interesting looking:
I don't have all the washers on there yet to positively locate the shock. And I'm going to use (a lot of!) washers while I find the exact right location, but I'll just use spacers for the final implementation.
Since this works that means my suspension design is finally done! I just have to fabricate the ring for the other side and then I'll set the car down on all 4 wheels for the first time in 2 years!
Also an honorable mention: I got this tap handle from McMaster: It comes with a little standoff that helps you keep the tap nice and square to the work piece while you get it started.
It doesn't fit the larger taps very well, but I was still pretty happy with how it worked out!
Ooooo a big day.
It's supporting it's own weight on 4 wheels for the first time in like 2 years.
Of course the first time I let it down it was sitting rather a bit high. A bit of fiddling with the spring perches gave it something closer to the intended ride height:
The difference in wheel size really makes it look uneven, even though the OD difference between the tires is <2". A picture from a bit lower angle makes it look a little more normal.
I think I might actually paint those wheels before I do anything else on the car. I *hate* the whole dark wheel trend. Really these are some pretty decent looking wheels, but the black just makes them look terrible.
But I cleaned it up and sat in it for the first time in ages. I made race car noises and decided that it was all good an worth it. Even just sitting in it and rolling it back and forth a bit it feels light. Of course quite a bit of stuff is missing, but it's going to be very race-car-y.
I'm pleased with the ground clearance. I designed it with about this much ground clearance, but during fabrication it seemed like there was somehow going to be much less. I'm glad that turned out ok, because I don't want to be smacking the bottom of this against the ground constantly.
I guess there won't be much resting on this, though. It's pretty much going to go straight back up in the air and get completely disassembled so I can finish up a bunch of welding, gusseting, and rebuild the engine and transmission.
Well done, mines going back in the air as well but its a great milestone to be able to put it on the ground!
Well... that wasn't long :(
But on the upside, now I feel like I'm working on a car instead of a..... pile of metal?
Everything in the rear will come out so that the engine and transmission can be rebuilt and made functional together and so all the chassis detail work can happen.
Since I'm now turning my attention to non-suspension things: something I've been thinking about for quite a while is how I will finish the back. Having the rear windscreen didn't seem practical, but I think I got the idea I will implement:
REAR LOUVRES!
They're basically all win:
I guess we're back to this.... feels like we're back to square one.....
But really now it's time for the real fun. Engine and transmission rebuild are to commence.
Got the engine mounted up on the stand. Looking forward to tearing it down with the kids.
I spent some time cleaning up the rear driveline mount. the kids requested I paint the one peice red, who am I to refuse? :D
I also started working on the transmission. It took some hammering with a wooden mallet to get the tail off, but it wasn't too much trouble.
So here's where we get to needing some real GRM input:
I'm essentially doing the 818 transmission conversion to this thing. But I also would like to spend as little money as possible. I 'm thinking I can just cut down the output shaft housing a bit and seal it off. That takes care fo the extra length on the transmission and sealing it up.
Am I understanding correctly that both of the rear output shafts (the two gear shafts on the left, on still in the housing and one next to it) are both unneeded for this conversion? I won't be using them in any way?
I've read somewhere that I can cut down/weld/modify the center diff so I don't necessarily need to buy one of those spools. Has anyone done that before?
I'm also unclear on if I need the bearing on the differential. It sounds like that goes out the window in this conversion as well, but that seems a little odd, because then the transmission output shaft is partially unsupported.
I think I can pretty well noodle my way through this, but if anyone has any input or experience on this, I'm all ears!
Thanks!
PS. Also, I'm interested in an LSD for this. I've done a bit of searching, but I don't see much in the way of FRONT LSD's for Subaru 5 speeds. Am I missing something? Any input there would be appreciated as well!
In reply to BA5 :
I think you and Nocones need to get together on this as you're both facing the same situation.
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