5/16/12 Just picked her up, now time to prepare for a constructive winter.









I'm not looking to build a drag car, but I do want it to have the ability to run a 10 second pass.
I would much rather keep it a hardcore street car with the ability to tear up a road course.
Might look into a c4 front suspension and subframe to go in it too.

Car will be getting lowered, vented side panels, custom roll cage and reinforce chassis, and quite a few other goodies that I can't think of.

Will probably take till the mid/end of next year before it is setup 100% how I want her, but its a work in progress.

Feel free to check in here from time to time.

 

keeping the original power plan? Should be a fun little car.

 

No way on the original engine.

I thought I put that in but sorry.

I'll be making it a mid engine with either a K or H22.

Most likely a h22 though, I can get a complete front clip for $3500 h22 type s euro.
Then take the entire suspension, brakes, etc and cut/weld it in here pretty easily.

Either that or I'm kicking around the idea of a bike engine (hayabusa or something)
Use the bike tranny with a custom *driveshaft* to power the vw tranny, take out first and 3rd in the vw trans, put braces in place of those and use 2nd, 4th, and reverse from the vw trans. Essentially I'll drive around and do normal shifting with the bike trans but have 2 options of high gear/low gear with the vw trans along with a reverse

The H22 swap would be a million times easier to pull off though. Will be looking at starting a little fab work later around the end of this year.

 

Wish you were closer to us James, we would sold you ours...been sitting for about two years. $1500 and no one wants it in this Oregon weather.

Have you looked into a fortin trans? that's what we have behind our hayabusa and s2k sand buggys.

 

Actually I'm thinking lazy boy here.

Any suggestions where I can get a complete turnkey vw motor?

I was looking into Gex but they have some really bad feedback everywhere I go.

VW guys hook me up! And yeah I'll put a baby snail on the next motor going in

 

I actually work at an aircooled vw shop, don't buy a gex motor. Why do you need a motor? You would probably be shocked at the price to build a decent 1600 these days. Your're talkin at least 2k for anything turnkey and decent. Best bet is to just find a good used runner if you just want to play around with it.

 

Looks great, I love to ditch the vw engine in favor for a honda or bike engine.

Best of luck with it.

 

Please don't let this end up like your s2k build.

Best of luck and I vote for a k series engine.

 

don't remind me of the s2k build lol

Well the factory aircooled motor died today

Apparently, 65-70mph cruising on the freeway, overpasses, and good ole 90+F Tx temps are all a bad combination.

Checking out a 2004 EJ25 Subaru Motor on Monday.
I really think I want to just keep the ole pancake style engine but with some modern day reliability.

 

EJ20 turbo
or EJ25 non turbo?


What you guys think? I'm thinking turbo, the stock longblock ej20 seems to be good to ~350whp or so while the ej25 non turbo seems to be good to 225whp....

I'm thinking:
EJ20 turbo (00 sti engine)
AEM EMS-4 Universal
Kennedy VW trans adapter kit
200mm race clutch rated to 260trq
Rancho Pro Street Swing Axle trans

 

Your goal is 10 seconds, right? What's the buggy weigh? That will determine whether you need a turbo or not.

 

I haven't weighted it yet. Only managed to get about 150miles on it before it died, about 100 of those were toed miles! hahha

They typically weight in around 1100lbs without driver I believe.
Whoever had it before me redid the floor pans with some (what looks like) 1/4" plate! so that surely added some weight. I'm ripping those out and using 1/16" aluminum diamond plate when I go to do the cage later on.

My goals are:
40mpg when cruising at 60-70mph on freeway
10-11 second quarter on street tire (honestly 11.5 would still be plenty)
stock internal motor (I like junk yard builds incase you pop one grab another and toss her in)
Ability to whip *** on a road course.


So it will take a while to get all those but I'm sure it is possible.

My goal weight for the car + me + roll cage = ~1350lbs

 

We got an engine

EJ208 twin turbo Subaru engine.

Our plan:
Get a set of Subaru axles and front spindles, then time to build a mid engine sub chassis and suspension.

The idea is going to be to use as many shelf parts as possible. Subaru breaks, axles, spindles, engine/trans.

I'll be welding up the center differential in the trany and the tailshaft end will come off and we'll make a blockoff plate.

I suspect the build will start around the middle of next month as we are still getting all the parts right now.


BTW, this mid engine sub chassis and suspension is something we will build fixtures of with intent to build more
I'm looking at making a modular complete rear subframe that can be attached to ANY car to be made into a mid engine rwd.
We are starting it with the Subaru engines at first but will work it out for cable shifted Honda engines also.

 

Looking to slowly tread into a new direction (still going to continue doing intakes though!)

For a LONG time I have wanted to build tube chassis cars such as the Atom and others. Well we are heading that way with our Subaru project. The first manner of order will be:

Complete Modular Mid Engine Subframe with suspension.

Now you will be able to convert ANY car to mid engine rwd, all you need to do is have 4 attachment points from your roll cage and you can bolt on an entire engine cradle, full irs, everything.

We will begin construction of our first proof-of-concept unit next month.

The idea,
The entire engine/transmission has a "mini frame" built around it, this mini frame is also the attachment points for upper/lower A arms and shock hookups. This mini frame will bolt to your main roll cage via rear verticals and a cross bar running between the main hoop's feet. In the event that you want to work on the engine, suspension, transmission, etc. Just unbolt these 4 bolts and roll out the entire rear section of the car (complete engine/trans/suspension/brake/wheel/etc)

Also to keep costs affordable to the end user, this will utilize all readily available parts. IE stock axles, brakes, spindles, hubs, engine, trans. The only custom parts will be the shift linkage, modular framing, tubular suspension, shocks/coilovers.


Chime in with your ideas, thoughts and comments!

 

Maybe you can get some ideas from this:
http://www.factoryfive.com/kits/project-818/

They are doing something with the same drive line if I remember correct.

 

Id really love to see a stock H series in there turbo'd. you can make more then enough power with a stock turbo H to get that light chasis into the 10's and still have lots of tq to make it fun around the track. Id just look around craigslist for a used swap, you can find them for under 1k.

 

Already have a motor and transmission and will begin construction of the rear subframe this weekend hopefully.

Also picking up the set of axles, spindles, brakes this weekend so that next I can have my suspension components being constructed

 

can't wait to see it. should be a sweet build.

 

so interesting

 

Very very cool project man. I am an aircooled fan. Speaking of subframe style engine installs you should check out zcars and minitech for some reference. Those guys specialize in installing honda motors in minis. Both have mid engine install kits for minis where you basically cut the floor out and bolt the engine in place. I am sure you have a plan but if you need reference that would be a good place to start, even though it's not a vw. Keep up the good work!

 

Couple pics today 6/6/12

Our newest addition to the machining center.




24" x 10" piece being machined down. These are the oil jobs that keep getting in the way of the race parts.

Big mill doing all the real work

twin baby mini mills


lathe




modular chassis fixture table, about to weld it together but need to finish machining welding alignment tools first

4'x4' 4" bolt spacing. Those are a ton of 3/8" pipe sleeves welded in, after each was completely welded front/back each was deburred and honed for a precision fit on 3/8" grade8 shoulder bolts. The parts were cut on band saw then machined to exact lengths on the mill, all holes were precision drilled on the mill as well.





jdm ej208 twin turbo engine getting prepped for fixture table. Will build a complete tubular frame around the engine/trans that will tie in all suspension components. Converting over to a double A arm suspension type but will be using factory wrx 04 front spindles/brakes and axles for ease of part replacement.

Have to open up the trans and weld the center differential and front diff. Need to cap off the tail shaft and convert to cable shift.



Don't forget to support your all America BMC. Everything is made in house and all material stock is USA made when available

 

I have converted a wrx box to front drive and made a cable shifter for a porsche 914 install I did. You can actually buy a simple sleeve that replaces the center diff and allows you to make the trans a good bit shorter. You can also buy a reverse cut ring and pinion now that will let you use a subaru box mid engine. I used a mr2 shifter and it worked great. Not trying to clutter your thread just giving you some ideas and love the idea of a modular drivetrain!

This guy makes some cool stuff but havent used any of it http://www.subarugears.com

 

bottom half of the frame skeleton tacked together with lower control arm.
Using 04 wrx front spindles. Heim joints instead of ball joints. Pretty much unlimited adjustability.


Will fixture this control arm tomorrow along with work out the upper half of the frame skeleton.

1 5/8" .083 wall 4130 for the frame work. The control arm is just tossed together with 1" sch 40 mild steel pipe just for mockup, will make the final arms (after fixturing) out of 1.25" .120wall 4130 as well.

Doing a coilover shock setup, need to finish the upper framework first before choosing shock length and spring length though. Should be nearing completion within the next week or so.

After all suspension points are tied in I'll be x bracing and gusseting the hell out of this rear section. Will be more than sturdy enough

 

that hideous mockup lower control arm served its purpose. Fixturing is done now and the new set of sweet chromoly bars will be made next week.





The bars that will actually be used will not have bends in them. Just these mockups for mockup purpose only had bends which were done with a harbor freight pipe bender (not even a tube bender )

 

So quite a few things have changed since starting this build.
Here is an update:

Decided to stick with 1600cc engine, got a newly rebuilt longblock from a local builder
bugoholics

Car should be running again by the end of the month, after that and all bugs have been ironed out I'll look into converting it to efi and turboing it.

The knucklehead who had the car previously thought that 1/4" floor pans would be a good idea! I ripped about about 175lbs of floor pan and put back in 40ft chromoly tube 1 5/8 .083 along with framed a floor and am doing aluminum diamond plate flooring.









Who needs a rotisserie when you can just go outside and flip the car over to get the pita welds