Tony's Subaru Conversion Thread Options

[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]

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