Massachusetts 818C build

[sgarrett]

Hello everyone,

I have been reading these forums for a few years now, and finally joined officially 2 years ago. I was originally planning on buying a type 65 coupe to build with the kids, but they wanted the 818 since it didn't look so 'old-fashioned'. Here is my son in an 818 at the 2017 FFR open house….that sealed the deal.

101105

I purchased a donor in June 2017, stripped it, picked up the 818C kit in late 2017, and am now up to installing the harness and cooling. I am not planning to do anything unusual or exotic with the build. I just want to build what FFR designed.

I have been meaning to start a build thread but never got around to it. Partly because I worry there won't be anything special in my build compared to the incredible things many of the rest of you are doing. But mainly it was because I thought that there would be long periods of time between posts. Turns out, that seems to happen on a lot of the builds. So that isn’t a good excuse. I have also started to think that just seeing someone's progress building a car, even if it is 'by the book' is fun to follow.

I will get my build up to current with some postings over the next week or so. Looking forward to sharing what we have done so far.

And of course, as I am not the only one doing a multi-generational build, many of you will know I use the term ‘we’ loosely. When I built a car in high school with my dad it was mostly him doing the work with me helping when I could (school, sports, music lessons all had top priority according to mom). Fast forward to 2018 and my teenage kids have even more busy schedules than I ever did. So I take every opportunity I can to get their help while trying to keep the project moving forward….slowly….

[AZPete]

Bring it on. We love to see other guys' work, even if it's "by the book". I'm envious of your family project with kids. I'm sure you'll make a few improvements as you get going because I don't think there has ever been an 818 built strictly "by the book". For that matter, I doubt that there has ever been one of the 10,000 FFR roadsters built strictly by the book. That's all part of the fun.

[octobersknight]

Welcome to teh boards, and I'm looking forward to your build as well. I'm doing a few options here and there, but I'm interested to see where you hit snags and what improvements you made. Can't wait to see what you've done!

[Kurk818]

Welcome. We all love seeing other peoples progress and helping out where we can.

[Hobby Racer]

Wow, first post and your jumping in with a build thread :D

Welcome to the group!

[sgarrett]

Thanks for the encouragement guys....

First I need the obligatory garage pictures. Oversized two car garage with two cars already in it. So I needed to ‘make space’. I refinished the floor and put a lift in one bay.

101115101116

Amazing how big it looks with nothing in it!

101117

I bought the Pantera in 2003 at a REALLY good price. The seller was starting a new company and needed some cash to cover a few months of living. Out of his 7 cars this is the one he chose to sell….and his wife accepted my offer (much to his chagrin).

The Corvette is a car I built with my dad while I was in high school in the 80’s, and triggered me to want to do something with my kids. Since my dad and I finished it in 1984 I have repainted it, put in a new interior, and I spiced up the motor a bit. It now has a 502 crate motor in it (I wrote a check...I'm not an engine expert). Definitely is a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’. This is what it looked like sometime in 1982 or 1983 when I was thinking it would NEVER be finished.

101118

[Hobby Racer]

Every good project starts with a clean work space. You will never regret getting that lift, I love mine!

Great buy on that Pantera, I have always wanted one of those.

[sgarrett]

Yeah...I love the lift. Sort of overkill for what I need, but I didn't like the idea of storing one car above the other on something that might fail over! It was also an excuse to move my garage door track up to the ceiling.

The Pantera was something I had wanted for a long time too. I was in the right place at the right time.

101127101128101129

She is kind of like an 818 in that she is low to the ground, has very little leg room (I mean REALLY no leg room), and is mid engine. Of course, she is jealous of the 818 because it is getting all of the attention (plus she is a trailer queen now so she doesn't get driven a lot).

But enough of the not-on-topic post....

On to the donor....

[sgarrett]

I found a 2002 WRX wagon with only 40,000 miles on it. Damage on passenger front. Enough for the insurance company to total the car I guess. I bought it from a salvage yard in Connecticut. It had a salvage title from Maryland. Ugh. I then spent over 18 hours in 3 different Massachusetts RMVs to get a Massachusetts salvage title in my name. I am quite worried about the very likely challenges I'll face registering this thing in Massachusetts, but that’s a problem for later. Having a title in my name is an important start to the process and I will carefully document the build and keep track of all receipts and taxes paid. Hopefully it will all work out.

Here are a few pics of the donor.

101130101131101132

[sgarrett]

Nothing was really too challenging during the teardown once I got the thing into the garage. Here I am with the kids acting like I really know what I am doing.

101138

The parts were all are in pretty good shape.

101141

Of course, loosening up some of those bolts on the front and rear suspension wasn’t easy. But I borrowed this tool from my local shop. It worked great!

101139

Dropping the rear suspension out felt like such an accomplishment to me since those long bolts were REALLY stuck.

101140

The engine/transmission had already been removed and rebuilt (very basic rebuild) when I picked up the car. The good thing is that I didn’t have to pull it myself. The bad thing is that I don’t know what gets hooked up to what now. I will definitely be asking for help on that later.

So here is the stripped shell ready to be carted off.

101142

[sgarrett]

Going to have fun with the harness later. Good grief. What jumble of spaghetti. Based on what I read in the other build threads, this is the mostest funnest part!

101145101144

[sgarrett]

Here is my favorite part of the whole teardown process. On the day I was going to the factory to pick up my kit, I took the shell to the metal recyclers.

101146

...and they gave me $31 for it! Then they crushed the heck out of it. Kind of folded it up like a taco. The guy who did it saw that we videoed it and he wanted a copy to admire his handiwork. I guess he doesn’t fold up Subarus every day!

101147

I have a video but I haven't figured out yet how to post it. My son felt like he was risking his life holding the phone out the window as bits and pieces came flying at him!

[sgarrett]

I think I have figured out how to do the video....



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsi3FjgR6pg

[Hobby Racer]

Video doesn't work :(

[sgarrett]

dang it....how about now?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsi3FjgR6pg

...and by the way Hobby, I like the color of your car. We were going to go McLaren orange, but now the plan is gloss black with some Ford Vista Blue highlights.

[aquillen]

I can see - following your project will be fun. Enjoy !

[AZPete]

Again we see that the right tool makes the job easy. :cool:

[sgarrett]

It sure does!

[sgarrett]

It was challenging finding a rebuild kit for the brakes. I was a bit surprised. And also surprised that some of the ‘experts’ didn’t know that the 2002 calipers aren’t the same as the 2006 calipers! Had to return a few kits that didn’t work because I didn’t know that either :o !

101191101192101193

[sgarrett]

Although I didn’t take any pictures, I did the modifications to the CV joints and axles. Nothing too tough, but it was definitely a messy process. When I took them back out to the garage to stash them for later I decided to organize the boxes a bit to make room.

I wonder what is in these two taped-together boxes?

101194

Darn it! I bought new axles with the kit! Good grief. I guess I have some spares now.

Since the build takes so long, and there are so many different projects to distract me all at the same time, I find one of my biggest time-demands is looking for things that I have stashed away. At least I know where the glass is. I read in someone else's posts that they stored all of it under their bed. Great idea! Took the old dog bed/pillow and a bunch of old beach towels to make a 'nest' and stashed everything under the guest bed. My wife hasn't found them yet!

[Sgt.Gator]

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for the info on the Bolt Buster, a tool I'd never heard of before. I see Amazon has them in 1,000 watt and 1,800 watt. And they aren't cheap. If I lived in a winter salt roads state I'd certainly get one!

[sgarrett]

Yes...they are pricey. I was lucky to be able to borrow one. It makes the nut glow bright orange. Then when you hit it with an impact wrench it makes sparks like you are in the hall of the dwarf king in Lord of the Rings or something!

[turbomacncheese]

Going to have fun with the harness later. Good grief. What jumble of spaghetti. Based on what I read in the other build threads, this is the mostest funnest part!


I'm actually beginning to enjoy mine. I mean, it's been a long road to get here, but still....

[sgarrett]

After dropping off the shell to be crushed by the metal salvage yard, we continued on down to the FFR warehouse to pick up the kit. Here are my dad and son next to our 818 and the boxes.

101425

Although I had been to the factory a couple of times and taken the tours, it is a much different feeling going there to pick up your own kit.

It is quite the process getting everything loaded up....

101426101427

and everyone is an expert :D

101428

Barely had room for all of the boxes in the truck….

101424

[sgarrett]

Here I am almost done backing down the driveway.

101429

Let’s just say I am really glad we don’t have that on video. Good grief…if my ability to back a trailer down a driveway is any indication of my ability to build a car then I am screwed.

Got the shell onto my dolly and winched it down the ramps….and into the garage….along with all the boxes!

101430101431101432

Built some overhead storage to stash all the body pieces and carbon bits. I ended up wrapping the roof in a nylon tarp and storing it outside under my screen porch. Plenty of room and it is protected by the element under there. Just need to keep the chipmunks away from it!

[sgarrett]

At long last….after 3 years of planning, prepping the garage, buying and stripping the donor, cleaning some of the parts, and getting the kit, the build officially started!

101433101434

I read on someone’s build thread (apologies for not remembering who!) that they used Herculiner on the aluminum panels. Sounded like a good idea so I got some. Worked pretty good as far as I can tell. I prepped the metal per their instructions and it is not coming off. It also deadened the panels really well. I think I will use it on the backside of the fenders and doors too.

[sgarrett]

Got the firewall in next. I didn’t drill the holes to get to the LCA at that point because I wanted to make sure I drilled in the right spot.

101436101437101438

After making sure everything fit right I had the firewall powder coated in a hammertone finish.

101439101440

[sgarrett]

After getting all of the donor and new suspension parts powder coated, I dove into the front suspension. The most challenging part was trying to replace the bushings on the LCA. After completely destroying one of them I concluded they really weren’t meant to have the bushings replaced, so I bought new ones. Darn…I want to try and use as many donor parts as possible! I did the modifications to the steering rack, cleaned it best I could, then painted it in gloss black.

101478101479101480

101481101482101483

Once I had all the parts on I just had to put on the donor wheels/tires and put it down on the ground. Yes! It finally looks like I am making a real car!
Of course, I thought I could set ride height at this point….but there is still a lot of weight missing. Guess I need to ‘weight’ until later to do that.

101484

[sgarrett]

Next up was the rear suspension. Nothing too tricky, except I did buy all new bushings and many new bolts/nuts since the induction torch I used to unstick so many of them ended up making them unusable. It was unbelievably easy to find exactly what part I needed and then pick it up at my local Subaru dealer. Probably not the cheapest way to go, but it certainly isn’t breaking the bank. Of course, I did buy aftermarket bushings. Subaru charges A LOT for those.

101485101486101487

Uh oh….maybe it wasn’t so easy. Ended up with this issue on both sides.

101488

No way could I get this to line up. I pushed, pulled, and beat it with a rubber mallet. After many cursings and a ‘sleep on it overnight’ moment I realized what an idiot I was. Got up the next morning, loosening everything back up and voila! It popped right into place. I just got too ambitious tightening things up before I was sure EVERYTHING was lined up.

101489101490101491

I was quite proud of my progress to this point. But then I realized it was already July 2018. It took me 9 months to get here. Dang….I better pick up the pace or the car won’t be done until the kids graduate from college!

[kcarlasc]

Thanks for the encouragement guys....

First I need the obligatory garage pictures. Oversized two car garage with two cars already in it. So I needed to ‘make space’. I refinished the floor and put a lift in one bay.

101115101116

Amazing how big it looks with nothing in it!

101117

I bought the Pantera in 2003 at a REALLY good price. The seller was starting a new company and needed some cash to cover a few months of living. Out of his 7 cars this is the one he chose to sell….and his wife accepted my offer (much to his chagrin).

The Corvette is a car I built with my dad while I was in high school in the 80’s, and triggered me to want to do something with my kids. Since my dad and I finished it in 1984 I have repainted it, put in a new interior, and I spiced up the motor a bit. It now has a 502 crate motor in it (I wrote a check...I'm not an engine expert). Definitely is a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’. This is what it looked like sometime in 1982 or 1983 when I was thinking it would NEVER be finished.

101118

Just curious.. looking to a put a 4 post in my garage... How high is your ceiling? Good luck with the build.. everything looks great so far

[sgarrett]

Just curious.. looking to a put a 4 post in my garage... How high is your ceiling? Good luck with the build.. everything looks great so far

My ceiling is roughly 10' 6". I do like the lift!

[sgarrett]

On to the cockpit aluminum…of course, according to the manual I should’ve already installed the engine and transaxle, but it was taunting me and seemed like it was going to be really hard. So I avoided it and did the less intimidating mechanical fabrication stuff.

Started on the driver’s side and was glad I realized there was an additional piece that covers up the coolant tube. It isn’t in the section of the manual when you are putting in the other pieces. And it was a bit tricky to fit. Of course, I can’t expect them to make compound folds in aluminum perfectly. So there was definitely some adjustments to be made to the geometry of those pieces. But in the end they all fit well. Plus I figure they will be sealed with silicone on the edges and then covered with dynamat and carpet anyway.

101553101554101555101556

I also put in the pedals at this point. When I put in the pedal mount back at the very beginning I was worried that it was a bit warped. I shimmed it to make sure the mount would be planar for the pedals and it seemed to work out. The pedals went in without a hitch.

Next came the steering column, brake cylinder and clutch cylinder, along with the accelerator cable.

101557101558101559

It is a bit frustrating that the brake cylinder doesn’t mount parallel to the ground. But I have grown accustomed to it now. The steering column was a bit awkward to get all aligned without ripping the grommet out of position. But once I figured it out it wasn’t actually that tough. In the photo it is mounted in the most outward holes. I decided to move it to the inner holes instead. I don’t like having my arms bent more than they have to when driving.

Of course, once the pedals and steering wheel were in I had to see what it would look like with the seat sitting there.

101560

…and the logical next step is to do a quick test drive! But he didn’t make the vroom-vroom noises like I did.

101561

[kcarlasc]

My ceiling is roughly 10' 6". I do like the lift!

Thanks.. I might be out of luck...my ceiling is only 8' 6".... I can get the lift in not sure I can store a car underneath.. but either way I end up with a lift :-)

[STiPWRD]

On to the cockpit aluminum…of course, according to the manual I should’ve already installed the engine and transaxle, but it was taunting me and seemed like it was going to be really hard.
Consider the manual as more of a guide rather than a recipe, sometimes it's actually better to be out of order. For instance, riveting the floor sheet metal was one of the last things I did because it can be difficult to fit the seats with the sheet metal in the way. Also the front wheel well sheet metal is at the very end of the manual but I can tell you it's much easier to pre-drill those panels with no suspension or windshield in the way. Save the rivets for the very end.

[sgarrett]

Good advice...thanks. I debated the floor panels and decided to go ahead and do them first since I was just going to use the stock seats. How hard can it be to just drill four mounting holes for each seat? (more on that later)

I do try to avoid riveting anything for as long as possible. But I have already discovered it isn't the end of the world if you have to drill one out...or maybe drill out a few....or even a lot.

I'll take a look at those pieces of aluminum for the front wheel well. Won't wait until after the windshield is in! And it would be very simple to remove bits of the front suspension now if I need to.

[sgarrett]

Next I put the pump and sending unit onto the gas tank and put it into position. I cleaned them up then painted their tops. I guess it was overkill because they won’t actually be seen, but they would’ve looked bad in all my photos if I hadn’t!

…and then I decided I couldn’t avoid it any longer. It was time to put in the engine. So that means I started to clean up the transmission. I already know how hard/difficult/impossible it is to maintain a car that has a polished transaxle so I decided that this one would just be a ‘relatively clean’ one instead. A couple hours with a wire brush and a bunch of degreaser/cleaner fluid and I declared victory. Looked much better than when I started, and my floor was a mess so I figured I was done.

101568101569101570

[sgarrett]

No more putting it off….time for the engine. Although the manual says to put the engine/transmission assy into the car as one unit, I figured it would be easier for me to muscle them into place one at a time. I don’t know if it was better or not, but it ended up working out.

101571101572101573

I only broke one thing on the engine….a plastic fitting near the air box. And it was because I was a bit lazy about taking it off. Easy to fix with some JB Weld.
Not so easy to fix was my homemade dolly that the frame had been sitting on since I took it off the trailer.. Oops. Car is now on jackstands and I have some spare casters and cracked 2x4’s. The dolly was only temporary anyway.

I decided to put in a new clutch (aftermarket stock…nothing exotic) since it would be easy to do now. I probably didn’t need to since there was so few miles on the car but I did it anyway. It was more frustrating than I expected and I unfortunately didn’t take pictures. I think it was frustrating because I hadn’t been the one to take it apart in the first place. I had to decipher which were the right bolts and how everything was supposed to be oriented. Plus I had never installed a clutch before.

101574101575

Once I had it in place and torqued onto the engine it was pretty straight forward to get the axles and suspension all buttoned up. But dagnabbit!!!! I tightened everything up too early again! You’d think I would’ve learned my lesson already. I had ‘EVERYTHING’ in place and tightened up except for one thing…when I was trying to put the pins into the CV housings on the axles I realized I didn’t have the splines lined up quite right to make the holes align! After much cursing and two nights of sleeping on it, I took everything back apart, lined the holes up, and put it all back together. It was faster the second time!

101576101577

So this was my progress as of October 2018

101578

So far, getting that engine in has felt like the biggest accomplishment!

[sgarrett]

This leads to a question for me to ask the forum readers….I was given a little ‘u-shaped’ hose to connect the heater tubes on the engine. But I believe my tubes are really far apart. Am I right to believe these are the two tubes I need to connect together with a hose?

101579

[sgarrett]

Thanks.. I might be out of luck...my ceiling is only 8' 6".... I can get the lift in not sure I can store a car underneath.. but either way I end up with a lift :-)

That seems like it would be too low. I'll take a look when I get home on Sunday to see where 8'6" would land.

[kcarlasc]

That seems like it would be too low. I'll take a look when I get home on Sunday to see where 8'6" would land.

Thanks.. that would be very helpful... Luckily the 818 is short and my C3 is too.. but still don't think it will clear both

[STiPWRD]

This leads to a question for me to ask the forum readers….I was given a little ‘u-shaped’ hose to connect the heater tubes on the engine. But I believe my tubes are really far apart. Am I right to believe these are the two tubes I need to connect together with a hose?

101579

Right, you have to buy a longer hose from any auto parts store. The small u-hose only works for certain model imprezas with a slightly different upper coolant cross-over pipe.

[sgarrett]

Right, you have to buy a longer hose from any auto parts store. The small u-hose only works for certain model imprezas with a slightly different upper coolant cross-over pipe.

Thanks....that's what I figured.

[sgarrett]

Thanks.. that would be very helpful... Luckily the 818 is short and my C3 is too.. but still don't think it will clear both

With a more careful measurement it looks like my ceiling is 131" (10'11"). I have the top surface of the deck set currently at 61" above the ground. My C3 fits comfortably under that and I have room for the Pantera easily. It is 43" tall. The towers themselves are 88" tall. Realistically I would say the lowest I could set the top of the deck and still clear the convertible top on my C3 would be 57".

If your garage is 102" (8'6") and if the height of your 818 matches the 52.5" on the FFR website then your minimal total height seems like it would be 57"+52.5"=109.5".

Sorry, doesn't look like it will fit.

[sgarrett]

After making sure that all of the cockpit aluminum was lined up the way I wanted it, I painted it and coated the outside surface with more of the herculiner. It is amazing how solid all of those pieces of aluminum can feel once they are coated, riveted, and siliconed in place.

101696101697101698

[sgarrett]

Tackled the brake and clutch lines next. These were much trickier than I thought they would be.

I had to get a new clutch line because I apparently didn’t get one with my donor (the transmission and engine were already out of the car). It seems shorter than it should be, but I got it to work.

101699

It took a lot of tries to get it to bleed properly. I ended up following the advice I found in some of the posts here as well as in a Subaru forum. After getting all the fittings to stop leaking, I removed the slave cylinder, clamped down the piston and raised it with the nipple pointed up during the bleeding. Attached it to the transmission again and bled it again. Did that a couple of times and eventually got everything working right. I was a bit worried because the pedal seems to be able to travel all the way to the firewall (just barely) when I push it in. It looks like it isn’t quite hitting the rubber bumper that is intended to stop its travel. That is an easy tweak that I think I need to do.

[sgarrett]

Now that the clutch was functional I started to mess around with engaging it and moving the transmission through its gears (tricky to do since I don’t have any shift linkages yet. But that is why I have my helper! He pushed in the clutch and I stood by the transmission and changed the gears by hand.

At this point I noticed that I could always spin an axle by hand even when the transmission is in gear. So that led to another of my ‘gosh darn it’ moments. I figured I had screwed something up with the clutch and that it wasn’t allowing the transmission to engage the engine. So that meant I had to backtrack and take the transmission back out of the car.

I really didn’t want to do that.

I took the starter motor back off to try to see in there and planned out just what I would have to disconnect (minimally) to do the job. Hours spent thinking about it….

As usual, I then slept on it and woke up thinking ‘I wonder if BOTH axles can still spin by hand when it is in gear?” No they can’t. Only when I put it in neutral. Everything is working fine. Good grief. I am an idiot.

[sgarrett]

So then I moved on to the brakes. I had never gotten to bend tubing before and thought this would be really fun. I imagined perfectly bent tubes all parallel with each other and neatly fitting into where they are supposed to be. Oops….I’m going to need to cut and reflare these tubes that were included in the kit if I want to do that. My dad said he had a flaring tool I could use (I don't think he got it last year....) so I went at it.

101701

It actually worked really well! But I didn’t achieve anywhere near the level of symmetrical perfection that I was hoping for.

101704101705101706

Got the lines run, filled the reservoir, started the bleeding process, and watched brake fluid pour/shoot/spurt/exude/etc. out of every single fitting….. Wow….what a mess. As it turns out I really didn’t tighten most of them down enough, but I also had a few bad flares. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but I did eventually create a leak free system, and created a large bottle of wasted brake fluid in the process.

[sgarrett]

Before tackling the electrical harness, I wanted to make sure that my seats and seat belts were going to fit in the way I was imagining. When I did the teardown I saved the driver seat track so that I could move the seat forward/back and up/down. I am 6’1, but my 16 year old daughter is 5’1. She is helping with the build and fully expects to be driving it. So I wanted a range of adjustment for the two of us.

I spent A LOT of time on various designs and approaches. Nothing really excited me and I worried that I just wouldn’t be able to mount it to the frame without welding up some mounting spots (I’m not a welder!)…but I thought that maybe I could get inspiration as I start really fitting them in to the car.

I positioned the seat belts per the manual (donor was a wagon). Wait….these things are going to take up the couple of inches of travel I had planned for the seat. OK…I’ll mount them in the engine bay. I disassembled them to remove the child safety lock. My curiosity about the mechanism got the best of me and I ended up releasing the entire rewind spring and it sprang to life in all of its glory across my basement floor. You have got to be kidding me! That took a while to get back into position and re-tensioned. Then I had to turn the belts around in the mechanism so that the upper mount point was oriented properly, which is why I accidentally released the spring in the first place.

Then I started thinking I really don’t want the belt back in the engine bay so I switched things around again (didn’t release the spring this time though!). In the end, I went with the manual’s approach and just mounted the belts as they intended. I could have saved so much time if I had just done this in the first place.

I see where some people mount the buckle part to the frame, but I attached it to the seat frame. That seemed easier and is where Subaru mounted it too. I just had to bend the mounting bracket flat. Worked perfectly for me.

101713101712101714

The manual doesn’t tell you where to attach the lower anchor. But I saw what dougkirkbride did so I copied it (thanks!). As you can see, it fits right between my brake lines just like I planned it (and like dougkirkbride claimed also!). If anyone wants to reference this in the future I drilled the hole 15.5” from the end of that piece of the frame and used 3/8” hardware.

101710101711

[sgarrett]

I also realize now it was a complete waste of time for me to be thinking at all about the seat adjustment. Now that I have been living with the car and muscling the seat in and out about 100 times, I realize it is so small there is no way I could ever get the seat back far enough for me to have it where I would really want it. But ironically, it is still more legroom than my other car. So I am mounting the seat in a fixed position and living with it. It is in the perfect compromise spot for both my daughter and me. And since I can't push it back any further anyway I've got nothing to complain about. I guess I can always upgrade to other seats in the future if I really need to.

I just drilled through the frame on all four corners and mounted the seats.

101716101718101717101719

I did do one modification to the outside bracket for the driver’s seat. It turned out the bracket was a little too short for me to be able to reach a mounting location on the frame easily. I took a couple of the pieces that I cut off of the fronts of the brackets, shaped them, and had the guy at my local service station weld them onto the bracket for me (they have been awesome helping me with misc tasks that I dont have the tools to do.).

101720

It works great!

Done! Seats and seat belts are ready once the harness and cooling are done.

101721

Took them out of the car for the 200th time and put them back into the basement for later.

[sgarrett]

After reading MANY posts about the harness and talking with one of the guys at FFR I felt confident that I could make short work of the it. I do not plan on doing any excessive dieting of the harness. But I do want to make sure I don’t have a rat’s nest hiding in the center console, under the dash, or behind the firewall.

Step one in the manual says to connect the two big engine connectors.

101722

Then attach some other engine connectors and the alternator wires. Easy so far.

Then I am supposed to: ” Pull the control boxes and fuse panels through the bulkhead and lay them out on the gas tank”.

101723

Uh oh. This is going to suck. :(:confused::(:confused::(

So now the harness is spread out in the basement and I am stripping off all the bits of tape and tubing that make it the perfect geometry for the Subaru but make it not so good for the 818.

101724

[sgarrett]

…and that now brings me up to date with the build. My goal was to be ‘done’ with the car in the fall of 2020. At this point I feel like I will be hard pressed to finish by fall 2021. But I’m not giving up hope yet!

I’ll try to keep updates flowing.

[kcarlasc]

With a more careful measurement it looks like my ceiling is 131" (10'11"). I have the top surface of the deck set currently at 61" above the ground. My C3 fits comfortably under that and I have room for the Pantera easily. It is 43" tall. The towers themselves are 88" tall. Realistically I would say the lowest I could set the top of the deck and still clear the convertible top on my C3 would be 57".

If your garage is 102" (8'6") and if the height of your 818 matches the 52.5" on the FFR website then your minimal total height seems like it would be 57"+52.5"=109.5".

Sorry, doesn't look like it will fit.

Thanks!!! I figured I would be short a few inches... my C3 is a hard to so can’t even do it with the roof down. Was hoping the 818 or vette would fit between the rails and could lower it some.. but no luck there either.. thanks again!

[aquillen]

" I imagined perfectly bent tubes all parallel with each other and neatly fitting into where they are supposed to be."...

You've got very nice looking bends and arrangements there. Be proud.

[sgarrett]

Wow....the harness is time consuming and not very satisfying…but making progress.

So I decided to take a break from it and start putting in the Dynamat. Never used the stuff before, but easy to work with and to quote my son: “I hope this is where you want it because it is going to be impossible to get it all back out again”. I learned to be mindful of where the little pieces go when cutting it. That stuff is tenacious. I have multiple little black stains on the knees of my pants now, and our shoes make sticky sounds as we walk across the floor.

102045102046

I do have a question for you guys about the locations you used to mount the various modules and fuse boxes on the harness. There just isn't going to be room for all of them between the firewall and the top of the gas tank. I have looked over many of the threads but wonder why I don’t see where anyone mounted the engine fuse box (the black plastic one) up high behind the driver’s seat. It seems like a great spot for it.

102047

In the picture, I am thinking about attaching it along the red line by the circled number 1. I think I am supposed to put the overflow tank where the circled number 2 is. Will I have a future problem if I mount the fuse box where the number 1 is?

[STiPWRD]

There's nothing wrong with placing the fuse box in the locations you've shown but consider that this will put a ton of wiring in your engine bay. You'll also need to extend a bunch of wires to the front of the car for the gauge cluster, steering wheel, pedals, head lights, fans, wipers, etc. All of this will have to fit through the center console, which is already cramped. It's actually relatively straight forward to put both fuse boxes in the front under the dash, this is what I did. Larry detailed the approach here:
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?12055-The-Savage-build-thread&p=152340&viewfull=1#post152340
Here is a picture of my fuse boxes under the dash area:
102048
As you can see, I haven't cleaned up the wiring yet so it still looks like a bit of a rats nest. It's hard to avoid unless you go iWire or completely rewire the harness from scratch.

[sgarrett]

Oh...that is a great picture! Thank you. Very helpful. And Larry's posts are also great!

[sgarrett]

How did you manage the fuel vapor canister? Did you just buy a charcoal canister and mount it down below where I was thinking I would put the fuse box....or did you try to use the original vapor recovery system?

[STiPWRD]

How did you manage the fuel vapor canister? Did you just buy a charcoal canister and mount it down below where I was thinking I would put the fuse box....or did you try to use the original vapor recovery system?

Sort of. I mounted mine a little further away from the cabin, to the left of the transmission (center of photo):
102055
It's a charcoal canister from a yamaha scooter I found on ebay. It's hooked up to the top of the fuel tank on one end and vents to atmosphere, works great. The original wrx canister was a bit bulky and unsightly.

[Radical818C]

Thanks for posting this. I will be watching closely. Considering a build with a Radical V8.

[sgarrett]

...It's hooked up to the top of the fuel tank on one end and vents to atmosphere...

So the vent hose from the tank goes into the canister and then you have a hose coming out the exit of the canister that is just open to the atmosphere? Nothing more complicated than that? I saw in the Wyoming 818R Build Thread that shoeish mounted a GM canister just behind the driver door between the frame and the body panel. But I couldn't tell where the exit hose from the canister was going.

[AZPete]

Yes, it's as simple as that. I got a Miata canister from eBay and it's vented straight out to atmosphere and there's no gas smell in the garage, even in the summer heat.

[sgarrett]

Yes, it's as simple as that. I got a Miata canister from eBay and it's vented straight out to atmosphere and there's no gas smell in the garage, even in the summer heat.

Thanks Pete...and I have been admiring your car and bookmarking a lot of your posts. I will probably be pestering you in the near future about the AC. :)

[STiPWRD]

Yes, it's as simple as that. I got a Miata canister from eBay and it's vented straight out to atmosphere and there's no gas smell in the garage, even in the summer heat.

^ What he said

[idf]

So the vent hose from the tank goes into the canister and then you have a hose coming out the exit of the canister that is just open to the atmosphere? Nothing more complicated than that? I saw in the Wyoming 818R Build Thread that shoeish mounted a GM canister just behind the driver door between the frame and the body panel. But I couldn't tell where the exit hose from the canister was going.

I have a GM canister you can have if you want it. It is on the large side. In Hingham, MA.

[sgarrett]

I have a GM canister you can have if you want it. It is on the large side. In Hingham, MA.

Thanks....but I think I am going to look for something a bit more streamlined so that I can mount it back near the transmission.

I drive by Hingham when I go down to visit my parents on the Cape. Do you have a completed 818? I'd love to see it sometime.

[idf]

Thanks....but I think I am going to look for something a bit more streamlined so that I can mount it back near the transmission.

I drive by Hingham when I go down to visit my parents on the Cape. Do you have a completed 818? I'd love to see it sometime.

I do have a completed 818S. Would be happy to have you stop by anytime.

[sgarrett]

I do have a completed 818S. Would be happy to have you stop by anytime.

Thanks....I sent you a pm.

[sgarrett]

Well I finished up the Dynamat and felt pretty good about myself....I made progress on the car!

102392102393

...and that meant it was time to get back to the harness....gulp.

[sgarrett]

It is going better this time around. I took off almost all of the coverings over the wires so that I could separate the stuff that goes to the front from the stuff that goes to the back.

But good grief. My garage is now chaos, I can't make up my mind about where to put all the darn modules, I have started to lengthen some of the wires, and I still feel like it is a giant rat's nest. But at least I am much more familiar with just what is going on in the rat's nest now.

I did get the steering column all plugged back in again so I declare a small victory on that!

102394102395

[AZPete]

I had a worse rat's nest! My only advice is Patience, Patience, Patience.
One wire at a time.
And vodka.

[sgarrett]

Big shout out to Harley. On Octoberknights build thread he noticed that the upper bearing race was still in the transmission after he finished the mods. That got me thinking....so I opened mine back up and look what I found:

102572

Oops....but thanks to Harley potential disaster avoided. Thank you!

Still chugging along on the wiring. Will post pictures soon (I hope).

[ben1272]

Big shout out to Harley. On Octoberknights build thread he noticed that the upper bearing race was still in the transmission after he finished the mods. That got me thinking....so I opened mine back up and look what I found:

102572

Oops....but thanks to Harley potential disaster avoided. Thank you!

Still chugging along on the wiring. Will post pictures soon (I hope).



I read that post as well, and was scratching my head trying to remember if I removed the race....now I am going to take mine apart and have a look see. :p

[sgarrett]

Harness progress continues one wire at a time.

I am not done yet by any stretch, but I feel like there is an end to this very long tunnel!

I am dieting it more than I had anticipated, but once you get started it really isn't that bad. I now have all the stuff that goes to the back and the stuff that goes up front mostly separated. Working now on getting everything to fit into the hidden locations. I think I have settled on putting the tan fuse box in the middle of the dash and the engine fuse box up front above the battery. I still don't know exactly where to mount all the misc little modules. Need to fit them in somewhere along the back behind the firewall I guess. I'm not sure I even need all of them....will be working on figuring that out this week.

103000103001103002103003

Huge thanks to the people who have posted before me. Your advice has been invaluable. Some things that I will reinforce:

1. The Subaru wiring manual is your friend. Get intimate with it. After a few hours it all starts to make sense. It is my bedtime reading now :D
2. DO NOT cut a wire without following it to the end first. You will likely encounter a splice. Easier to cut at the splice that fix it later!
3. DO NOT cut a wire with a thick gray insulation around it. It is shielded. Not easy to fix. THANK YOU Arizona Pete for kindly sending me some of your leftover shielded wire. Huge help!
4. One wire at a time. You can't eat an elephant all at once. That is so true here.
5. I don't drink...but this wiring harness is getting me to reconsider.

[sgarrett]

Quick question for you guys....once I am all wired up in the car I assume I will need to take it to a tuner. Can they reprogram the computer so that any fault codes for things I have removed are ignored? Things like the seat belt sensors, rear door switches, etc. Or do I need to short all of the switches closed?

Thanks

[AZPete]

I had my tuner remove all the useless codes, then he copied the new map onto my Cobb Accessport.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Quick question for you guys....once I am all wired up in the car I assume I will need to take it to a tuner. Can they reprogram the computer so that any fault codes for things I have removed are ignored? Things like the seat belt sensors, rear door switches, etc. Or do I need to short all of the switches closed?

Thanks

Codes that are generated by the ECU can be turned off by the tuner. These a code related to emission stuff that you removed.

Dash indicators like seat belt sensors and rear door switches don't go through the ECU. So you have to fix the with wiring. I don't remember shorting any thing out. Just not wiring the switches and the dash indicator doesn't turn on.
Bob

[STiPWRD]

As Bob mentioned, the ECU mainly handles engine related functions so it will only throw a code if it senses an engine or emissions issue. Things like door sensors won't cause a fault code but may show up in the gauge cluster and have to be fixed by troubleshooting the wiring. I didn't have any of these lights pop up when I removed door and seat belt sensors/wiring.

If you don't want to deal with a tuner, you can disable any codes yourself with an accessport or with open source software (rom raider) and a tactrix cable. Both of these can also be used to tune the engine.

[sgarrett]

Thanks guys!

[lawrencecacc]

looking forward to seeing it

[MonzaMan]

This leads to a question for me to ask the forum readers….I was given a little ‘u-shaped’ hose to connect the heater tubes on the engine. But I believe my tubes are really far apart. Am I right to believe these are the two tubes I need to connect together with a hose?

101579

I don't suppose you still have the "little 'u-shaped' hose"? for the life of me I can't find mine, but my engine does have the connections very close together (EJ207 V9). Perhaps I can help you find a "good home for your unused one :D!

[sgarrett]

Hi MonzaMan,

Yes I do still have it and I would be happy to send it to you. Just PM me with your address.

[sgarrett]

I am making steady progress on the wiring harness and hope to emerge soon....

But I have completely confused myself now and hope someone can help me with the wiring to the starter motor. I continue to struggle with connecting all the engine bits back together since I didn't originally take the engine out.

I have run the big red cable FFR supplies with the kit from the positive battery terminal back to the terminal on the starter motor. I have also run the yellow wire with the black connector on it back to the terminal on the starter. I have also run a big cable back to the starter from the negative terminal on the battery to ground the starter.

1. Where do you guys attach the ground that comes back from the battery? Can I use one of the mounting holes for the starter? I will use the other one to attach the braided cable.

2. On page 268 of the FFR assembly manual it shows two red wires that they call the fuse box/starter wire. It isn't clear where they connect but it looks like they are on the same terminal as the battery cable. But I have no idea what those are. They don't seem to be a part of the original wiring and I can't find them in the Subaru wiring guide either. Where does each end of those paired wires attach?

Any help appreciated.

[sgarrett]

Typical....after thinking about this for way too long, giving up, and posting my questions, I think I figured it out.

1. Looking at pictures of other people's cars, including the one in the FFR showroom, it looks like the two red wires in the manual that confused me actually go to the alternator. They are attached on the same terminal on the starter as the battery cable. In the factory Subaru they are the white/red-stripe wires that come out of the fuse box and go to the alternator. Is that right?

2. I don't actually need to run ground back to the starter. As long as the engine is grounded to the frame and the battery is grounded to the frame then the starter is grounded. Is that right?

3. I have already attached the battery to the fuse box and extended the white/red-stripe wires back to the alternator. I don't think I need to run the ones from the starter to the alternator now. I also don't think it is a bad thing to ground the battery back by the engine. That is what is recommended in some various things I read (ground the battery close to the starter) and I have already made and ran the wire back there. I also grounded the battery to frame at the front of the car. And I grounded the engine to the frame with the braided cable. Is this ok to do?

[MonzaMan]

Just want to say thanks again for sending the “u-hose”. The support of forum members is fantastic. I guess I’m jaded by the typical bitter Internet forums, but the FFR community definitely makes a new builder enjoy the project so much more!

As a random tidbit: this hose is needed for a JDM EJ207 V9.

[sgarrett]

You are welcome MonzaMan. Glad to help! Hopefully you'll be able to get working on it again soon.

[sgarrett]

So I thought I had made huge progress and was excited to post here that I had conquered the wiring harness.

I got it all to fit and am reasonably happy with the layout.

108467

I used the space under the driver seat for some of the modules and even ran some of the wiring for the entertainment system.

And the tunnel/firewall fit with no problem!

108468

And then I got a bit excited and thought I would see if everything lit up the way it is supposed to. Darn it....not even close. Got some (a lot!) debugging to do. The horn works though!

Back to it.....

[sgarrett]

Lots of progress....and two lessons learned that I guess should've been obvious.

1. The turn signals don't work unless you have the emergency flashers button plugged in...and you also need bulbs to make them flash at the correct rate (I knew that one already actually).
2. The door switches are 'open' when the door is closed. I mistakenly thought they were 'closed' when the doors are closed. Same with the seat belt switch. I shorted them to ground when I removed the switches....thus it kept telling me that my doors were open. That was about 6 hours of frustrating wire-chasing until I thought about it the right way! Darn it.

I also discovered that the window switch diagram in the FFR manual is labeled wrong. The pins for +12V and +12V(illumination) are reversed. That one only took me about an hour to figure out.

Need to get everything buttoned back up again, wire in the entertainment system and then I can declare initial completion of the wiring harness. Of course, I have no idea if the engine will actually run yet, but at least I know if the doors are open or closed!

[STiPWRD]

The turn signals don't work unless you have the emergency flashers button plugged in...and you also need bulbs to make them flash at the correct rate (I knew that one already actually).
You mean how LED bulbs flash faster than halogen bulbs? FFR provides you with an LED compatible flasher relay that fixes that issue; this should be in the kit.

[sgarrett]

YAY!!!! After 6 months I have declared victory on the harness. It is now fully installed in the car. Of course, I still need to wrap them (not until I am certain the car starts!) and the parts that go out to the head and tail lights aren't properly in place, nor are the window harnesses. But only because I don't have fenders or doors yet. I confirmed everything I can think of works....windows, lights, flashers, etc. I also confirmed that the starter motor is getting a signal when I turn the key to ignition. I also took the opportunity to wire in an entertainment system and a rear view camera. I also confirmed the remote door unlock still works.

111637111636111635

I also discovered it is quite convenient to use some of the wire that I removed to lengthen the wires that were too short. So in the end, I had almost a full bucket of scrap wire.

111638

The next thing I want to tackle is the transmission cables. Started on the center tunnel today. I am making it so that I can remove the firewalls and the center tunnel in the future. Getting much better now at those threaded inserts!

111639

Need to do the cooling and the emergency brake cables after that. Then finish lots of the little things I hadn't pushed across the finish line yet (like mounting my charcoal canister) then I hope to try first start by the end of the summer.

[AZPete]

Congrats on the harness! That's a BIG hurdle and I remember how nice it feels to have the wiring figured out, lengthened, shortened, and ready to be tested and wrapped. Congrats!

[aquillen]

Surgery on the nervous system is always a big deal. Congrats on all that work.

[davidstrother]

So cool that you're doing this with the kids like your dad did with you. I wanted to sell my Porsche 911 to fund a FFR Cobra build with my dad. Unfortunately he passed before that happened. I was diagnosed with cancer bout a year and a half ago. I'm not letting that happen again. 818 #569 is in my garage. I try to get my step son out there as much as I can to help/hang out with me. Best of luck with your build brother.

[sgarrett]

Grab the moment! Glad you are embracing the chance to do what you want.

I find that it is mainly me doing the car. The kids are so busy, and the wiring was definitely not an easy journey. But when there is a clear task that I am 100% sure I know how to do it then I grab them. It is amazing how well they remember those moments.

[sgarrett]

I finished creating the switch plate for the center console. I ultimately plan on wrapping the aluminum in 'pleather' and will wrap the switch plate in faux carbon fiber.

112624

I am still using the power mirrors switch, two 12V sockets, seat heaters switches, and the power door lock switch (along with the window switches).

I got the shifter and cables installed today....

112627112628112625112626

Two things that surprised me:
1. I needed to use a hammer to get the pivot over the ball on the end of the shifter. Should have done that on the table.
2. I discovered I need to shave off a lot of plastic on the shifter to make sure it stays within the 5 3/8" width of the center tunnel.

I noticed after the fact in the manual that FFR also did both of those things! So I think I'm on the right path.

So I put the seat in to adjust the cables to get the right feel, per the manual. But I am not so sure I know what to adjust. There is about a half an inch play in the cables and I don't seem to know how to get rid of it. I expect the shifter to stay roughly in position when I put it into a gear (like second). But mine just moves back into neutral even thought the transmission is still in second.

Is this typical with a cable shifter or should I be able to get it tighter?

[STiPWRD]

Is this typical with a cable shifter or should I be able to get it tighter?
This is actually fairly common and the reason why so many builders go with the VCP or MR2 shifter. I had the same exact result with the stock cables. The issue is the long cable length and the 180 degree turn - this contributes to a bunch of slop in the shifter. I went MR2.

[sgarrett]

Thanks...That's what I was afraid of.

[Ajzride]

I expect the shifter to stay roughly in position when I put it into a gear (like second). But mine just moves back into neutral even thought the transmission is still in second.

I experienced the exact same thing with the stock cables and the huge bends. I've ordered the Mr2 shifter but am probably a month away from install and testing.

[sgarrett]

Slow progress....but some progress is better than none!

Got the e brake done. Was more challenging than I thought. When I mounted it back towards the firewall, I discovered that I didn't quite have enough range of adjustment to get it as tight as I wanted when actuated. I moved it forward about 3/4" to fix that, but that exacerbated the cables hitting the aluminum cover. I fixed that but will need to make a little cover to put over it.

113813113814

Started on the cooling tubes today. Got the driver's side installed.

113815113816113817

Observation #1: wow, those corrugated tubes are hard to push into those rubber tubes! That was quite a workout. Anyone have a trick they've discovered?

Observation #2: The manual says I am supposed to cut the lower radiator cooling hose in half and use it to attach the corrugated tube to the engine. It fits on to the engine fine, but there is no way it is going to fit over the corrugated tube! The OD of the corrugated is about 1 3/4" but the ID of the rubber hose is about 1 1/2". In fact, the OD of the hose is less than 1 3/4"! There is no way it can fit over the corrugated. Did anyone else discover this? I am figuring I'll hit the parts store tomorrow and get a radiator hose with some 90 degree bends in it with closer to a 1 3/4" ID.

[STiPWRD]

That's the right idea, I've seen a few guys use generic radiator hoses. For getting tight hoses over tubes, try a little dish soap to help lubricate the surfaces. Also, rubber stretches easier when it's warm so try leaving the hoses in the sun for a few minutes.

If you have issues with the corrugated tubes (some have mentioned they leak), Mike Everson makes a nice tube kit. It's pricey but looks much cleaner and is more reliable.
http://www.replicaparts.com/818%20parts%20page.htm

[sgarrett]

Thanks for the tips.

I had seen Mike's tubes and was definitely tempted. Love the way they look. But not ready to throw out the extra dollars yet.

[sgarrett]

Got the passenger side tubes installed and found a hose that would more easily connect my engine to the corrugated tubing.
114021114022114023

And thanks for the tip on the soap. I actually was concerned that it would somehow 'contaminate' the lines so I hadn't wanted to use it at first. It helped a lot....but WD-40 helped even more!

[sgarrett]

Three quick questions for the forum:

1. Is this the ground strap for the gas cap?
114024

2. Do I need to use any sort of grease on the gaskets for the exhaust system? I see mixed feelings on that online. Thought I'd see what you guys did. I am just using the stock Subaru Turbo exhaust pipes.

3. I don't have all of the nuts and bolts left from the exhaust system (the guy I bought the donor from had already removed the exhaust when I got it). Replacement nuts and bolts from Subaru are quite expensive! But I figure I do need to use nuts and bolts intended for this use. Do I bite the bullet and use Subaru nuts and bolts or can I just use a grade 8 nuts and bolts from the hardware store?

[Hobby Racer]

Three quick questions for the forum:

1. Is this the ground strap for the gas cap?
114024

Yes, that's the gas cap grounding strap.


2. Do I need to use any sort of grease on the gaskets for the exhaust system? I see mixed feelings on that online. Thought I'd see what you guys did. I am just using the stock Subaru Turbo exhaust pipes.

No grease is needed for the gaskets, it will just burn off and doesn't help to seal.


3. I don't have all of the nuts and bolts left from the exhaust system (the guy I bought the donor from had already removed the exhaust when I got it). Replacement nuts and bolts from Subaru are quite expensive! But I figure I do need to use nuts and bolts intended for this use. Do I bite the bullet and use Subaru nuts and bolts or can I just use a grade 8 nuts and bolts from the hardware store?

You don't need to use Subaru nuts / bolts but quality hardware helps (i.e. not HomeDepot).

[sgarrett]

Thanks!

[sgarrett]

Managed to corral my son and get the radiator installed! I had been putting off adding the nose to the car since it will take up a bit more space in the garage, but it was time.

114097114096114098114099

My son noted that the builders of the Millenium Falcon also used a lot of corrugated tubing. He was also impressed (not) with my one-handed angle grinder technique for cutting said tubing. I reminded him to do as I say, not as I do.

Also got the overflow tank installed and my charcoal canister (finally!).

114100114101

Feeling like I am making huge progress at last. Working on cleaning up the wiring on the front now that the nose is on. Then I need to bolt on the exhaust, tackle the list of misc little things that I skipped along the way (shorter list than I was thinking it would be), fluids, then try to start it up. Hopefully by the end of the month. Fingers crossed.

114102

[Hobby Racer]

Ooooh, ahh ... love the Pantera :D

[sgarrett]

Yeah....the Pantera is special. Just got a rebuilt 351 Cleveland back into it. It was off the road for about a year. But unfortunately the intake manifold is now too tall to fit under the hood properly and the rear main seal appears to be leaking....great. The old cars aren't for the faint of heart.

But the cars we build are a completely different kind of special!

Got the front wiring cleaned up and going to the right points.

114146

Will wrap it all later once things are definitely all working right.

Also attached the exhaust. It looks quite silly sticking out like this without the wheels and body on....

114147

Getting closer to that first attempted start....

[sgarrett]

It is getting so close to first start!

Continue making progress knocking off the list of little things that needed to get done (like setting some torques, adjusting ride height, etc.). I really thought I could start it this week. I put all the wheels on since I thought it was time....first time I have actually done that during the build. Oops. Should've done it sooner. The front tires hit the cooling tubes when I turn from lock to lock! Argh!

114492

Those things were annoyingly frustrating to get in place and I didn't really feel like moving them around. I was trying so hard to keep them really close to the side rail and lower than 5 inches from the bottom of the frame. I thought that maybe I have more room to play with than I thought. So I placed one of the side panels onto the car to see just how much room I have.

114493

OMG! It is actually starting to look like a car. I had to resist the urge to put ALL of the panels in place just to see what it would look like! As it turns out, I have more room for the tubes than I thought and re-positioning the tubes wasn't so bad. I just wish I had known ahead of time to keep the corrugated inside the edge of the frame. Makes sense now.

114494

Then I filled up the transaxle, the engine oil, and greased the front suspension. Also put gas in it. Nothing leaking yet.

I also wanted to see if the clutch I had put in a year ago actually did what it was supposed to do. I rolled the car out of the garage testing the engagement of the clutch. Yay....it seems to work. And so does the emergency brake. First time these parts have been out of the garage in two years!

114496

Unfortunately, when I was pushing it, the rear wheels seem to keep dragging and making a scraping sound. I figured the calipers I rebuilt 2 years ago were bad. I must have done something wrong with them. As I was straining to push the thing back into the garage I noticed that the sound didn't seem to be coming from the brakes. Another OMG moment: the balance weights on the old Subaru wheels stick out too far and hit one of the rear suspension arms. The scraping sound is me pushing them all the way around the wheel as they lock up against the suspension arm!

114497

That is an easy fix. Phew. Maybe the brakes are ok! Had the wheels re-balanced today with stick on weights.

When I went to put in the coolant I quickly realized there is a reason that Tony at FFR recommended I offset the expansion tank (and I see that many on this forum have done so also) so I finally moved it.

114491

I even have the adapter in it getting ready to fill it up!.

I jacked up the back of the car and started pouring in the coolant. I got one of those bucket things that sits in the hole for the expansion tank. I would pour some into it, then let it go into the car. A little at a time. Checking hose fittings constantly. Wow. How much does it take to fill it up? I put in two gallons then had to go back to the store. Nothing leaking! Still looks good. At 3.5 gallons I had gotten cocky and wasn't really watching the rest of the car. That is when I noticed a very pretty stream of green coolant flowing under the car and towards my garage door. After reflecting for a moment how vibrant the green color is, I realized I had a problem. Turns out there is a crack in my radiator.

114495

Now I know why the donor car had a big sticker on the windshield that said "DO NOT START ENGINE". I don't remember the reason given to me at the time, but I KNOW it wasn't that the radiator has a crack in it. Plus by the time I picked up the car the engine was already out of it and the coolant drained. I sincerely thought about fixing it myself with some JB-Weld. But then thought better of it.

My thanks to all of you on this forum. After just a few minutes of reading posts on here about radiators, I picked out a drop-in Koyo replacement and it will be at my house in a couple of days. All aluminum and still cheaper than an OEM Subaru replacement. I even finally understand why the Wayne Presley coolant fix (the nipple added to the water outlet on the engine) is important. Going to get that in tomorrow. Sure would've been easier to to do it before the engine was in the car. Live and learn I guess.

Still hope to start it up soon! And at this point, first start and go kart could be the same day.

[STiPWRD]

Congrats on all the progress! It's a good time to test fit and pre-drill the front splash guard aluminum since it will also need to clear the coolant tubing. It's much more of a pain to do it later when more stuff is in the way.

[sgarrett]

As always, thanks for your suggestions STI. Always helpful. I saw your post about the radiators and was going to get the CX Racing one you recommended. But I saw too many reviews that said it started to fail after 3-5 years. That pointed me in the direction of Koyo (since they were all lamenting that they didn't get one) so that is what I went with to begin with. Got a good deal on it! It should show up on Monday. Darn it! I really wanted to run the car by the end of this week.

As for your recommendation....I had seen that I needed to put that splash guard into place in a few other builds. There are two of them that I am looking at. Here is the first:

114535

I can see where this one attaches, but I need to move my darn clutch lines:

114536

I think I am just going to leave them where they are since they are working (and bleeding them was a challenge). I'll just put a couple of small notches in the aluminum panel to go around them. I also need to increase the width of the opening for the control arm. It is just a hair too tight and I don't want it scraping off the powder coat.

But I think you are talking about this one:

114537

I don't see anywhere in the manual where it actually tells me to put it in. I only see it on page 593 where there is a call out for it. I think I put it on the backside of the same piece of the frame where I attach the first splash guard I pictured above. But to do that I need to notch the top of it to go around the brake line. Is that what you had to do? And I can see how both of these will become more difficult the further I go!

Thanks....

[STiPWRD]

Correct across the board! I also notched the aluminum in a few spots to clear lines and had to extend it on some of the more forward splash guards where it didn't line up well (passenger side so I don't have pics). The small panels do go inside the frame but by the time I got to those it was very cramped and I could only get about 4 rivets to attach those.
114554114555114556

[sgarrett]

Thanks for the pictures! Very big help. And I am glad to see I wasn't the only one who thought it would be good to run the clutch lines near the outside edge of the firewall.

[sgarrett]

I finished installing the barbed fitting onto the water outlet. Everything seemed to go ok and it was able to tighten up nicely when I screwed it in.

114568114569

I actually had a hard time finding a barbed brass tee fitting, but Amazon had one that they sent me the next day. $4.00. Not bad!

Here is the tee fitting in action bringing the hoses from the barb and the radiator up to the degas tank.

114570

I was quite worried about messing this up and having to pull the engine out to fix a mangled hole. I have done a lot of tapping in my life, but was extra diligent on this one.

I bought a new tap and new drill for the pilot hole, blocked up the tube down stream from the hole I was drilling (then almost couldn't get the rag back out!), ran my vacuum constantly and surrounded the hole with wide painters tape. I didn't want any stray metal chips!

But as I am sure you all know, that area is hard to access with the engine and rear firewall all in place. I needed a really long tap to reach down there. Or at least a really long handle....the only thing I had with a 'square drive' that was big enough for the tap was the drive end of my socket extension. The bit actually fit really good!

114571

I added a little duct tape to make sure it stayed in tight and then wrapped more tape around it for good measure....but it wasn't long enough. So I had to add another extension (and more duct tape).

114572

I turned the whole combination with a vice grip clamped on the top. Worked much better than I expected and now I can check this one off the list.

[sgarrett]

I got the new radiator in and plumbed. And I think I have as much coolant in as I can without running the engine and using the water pump to move the coolant around.

114831114832

All ready for first start. But I need to wait to do it with my son because he wants to be there....no problem. Hopefully later tonight or by this weekend.

Meanwhile, I started looking at that nose aluminum to get it installed before it gets trickier as you guys have pointed out. Thanks for your pix STI....very helpful.

But I am wondering which way people mounted the radiator supports. In my picture below I have them mounted to the outside of the frame.

114833

That is what the pictures in the manual look like. But the words say you should put them to the inside of the frame (opposite of what I have in the picture). If I put them on the inside it seems to make one of the aluminum pieces sit better. So I was thinking I should move them to the inside. Where did others put them?

Thanks...

[redbudrr]

I followed the pictures and directions in the manual and mine look just like yours, and it is working fine.

[sgarrett]

Yay. It started....first try. I was speechless.


https://youtu.be/zaGtiZnhOfE

[sgarrett]

And then I go-karted it back into the garage. Hmmm....these shift cables will take some practice to figure out.


https://youtu.be/UZfaQkz9wdE


It doesn't look like there are any leaks and nothing seemed to smoke or catch fire. Oil level measures good and I'll keep trying to shove more coolant in there. But the engine sounded really 'rattley' to me. The video is actually fairly accurate as to how it sounded (at least on my computer). Maybe it is valves not seating properly. Or it sounds like there isn't enough oil to my untrained ear. But it definitely measures right and I put in over 4.5 quarts. Could it just be the fact there is no muffler on it? Or it is just badly tuned?

I think next steps will be to get it to a tuner and aligned. I may try sticking the original muffler on there just to see what that sounds like.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

But the engine sounded really 'rattley' to me.

I also notice a high pitch buzzing noise that changed pitch with engine rpm. May something rubbing the fly wheel teeth. Maybe the timing belt rubbing something. I't didn't sound like valves to me. could be something itn the turbo, like a bad bearing.
Bob

[sgarrett]

Thanks Bob. Yes, I was thinking it was something mechanical in nature also. I ran it again and walked around it more carefully. I do think it is flywheel related. That seems to be where the noise is concentrated. Part of me was hoping it was just a turbo issue. Much easier to get that off....and throw money at it.

But I think my next step is to pull the transmission back off. Just out of curiosity, can I run the engine mounted in the car without the transmission in place? Or does it need that additional anchor point provided by the transmission? That would leave only the two anchor points on the sides of the engine....probably not enough.

2 steps forward, 1 step back. At least I'm not in Frank's shoes yet. ✌

[STiPWRD]

Congrats on the first start! The transmission needs to be on to run the motor because the starter is attached to it. The noise sounds like a bad bearing to me as well but it could be something minor.

[sgarrett]

I took apart the rear end to get the transmission off of the engine. I was definitely annoyed and wished I didn't have to do it, and was hoping I would find something obvious to fix.

Fortunately, it was obvious....here is the next attempted start....


https://youtu.be/JBa8R77Wf3Y

[sgarrett]

...and now I need to share what was wrong. I contemplated deleting my account and never coming back here again because I am quite embarrassed by the issue. But I figured I needed to share....that is the first step in recovery maybe?

There is a metal cover that covers the gap between the bottom of the engine and the bottom of the transmission. Subaru calls it a 'cover complete-clutch housing'. You attach it AFTER you put the engine and transmission together. It is essentially just a dust/debris shield.

When I got my donor, the engine and transmission had already been removed and separated, but the cover was never removed from the engine. By the time I got the engine home, moved it around the garage, stored it in a tire for a while, muscled it into the car, and then pushed the transmission onto it, that cover had been rolled over and pushed up into the engine. Not knowing any better, I thought that it was supposed to be up in there. Nope. It definitely is NOT supposed to be up in there. Here is what mine looked like after I took off the transmission.

115076

You can see where the shield is hitting the clutch and the teeth on the flywheel. That part pushing up vertically into the clutch in the red circle is supposed to be horizontal and sit completely below the engine. Well done Mr. Mechanical Engineer!

So the good news is that it was an easy fix. The bad news is that it was pretty bone-headed of me to do that. I wonder what else I have done like that! I am sure I will find out at some point down the road.

Onwards....

[Frank818]

That is exactly the type of mistakes I made couple of times!!!! And is exactly the same situation about my valve cover and that gasket washer stuck around the stud. Thought it was "supposed to be like that".

Happy it was an easy fix!

BTW how do you get the engine to crank that fast? Man I'm far from there.

[sgarrett]

[QUOTE=BTW how do you get the engine to crank that fast? Man I'm far from there.[/QUOTE]

Because I am just using the little engine that came out of my donor....I am not as ambitious as you are!

Hope to be driving up and down my long driveway this weekend.

[Frank818]

You got a point!

I hope you can provide us with a nice video of your ride.


Oh BTW, are your fuses easily accessible?

[sgarrett]

Oh yes....the fuses are accessible.

115675

They were originally facing up and I thought I would just pull the dash to change them...but then I thought better of it so I turned them 90 degrees. I plan on having the area in front of them open. The side wall for the center console is just going to come up to the bottom of them.

The other fuse box is in the front of the car near the battery, just like it was in the donor car. Super easy to get to.

[sgarrett]

Haven't had any chance to work on the car lately, but here is the video I shot of me driving it up the driveway. Nothing spectacular, but it did remind me of the first time my dad and I drove the Vette we built. The only fiberglass on it was the rear quarter panels and rear deck along with the floor. No doors, front fenders, hood, roof, etc....

We drove it to the gas station and then around the extended neighborhood. About 5 miles. Every time we shifted we slid around in our seats because we hadn't actually tightened the floor to the frame all the way. A guy in a camaro asked us if we wanted to race. That was in Wyoming in 1983. We probably even had policemen wave at us and give us a thumbs up. I wonder what would happen to me if I got caught driving this around the neighborhood here in Massachusetts now? It wouldn't be pretty.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWYImvOdoS4

I want to have someone film me driving by but that will have to wait.

[Frank818]

It's always very special to drive the car without any body panels on! I didn't hear any weird major noises.

I remember years ago Metalmaker drove his around quite far but he didn't get caught so nothing happened. Or maybe he did and never told us. lolll

[sgarrett]

Yeah....there are no weird noises. But I haven't done a good enough job yet securing all the misc cables in the back. So every once in a while one clanks against the axle or part of the suspension. Working on cleaning up that stuff now and the aluminum around the front wheel wells, but really slow/no progress now and for the immediate future.

[sgarrett]

I had my son take a video of me driving the car down the driveway....now the go karting feels official.


https://youtu.be/LsM_bzhm_lI

He also drove it up and down the driveway a couple of times. First time driving a manual transmission. Can apply for his learner's permit the end of this month. We'll be hard pressed to have the car ready for his driver's test....but he is hopeful.

[aquillen]

If you do (I hope) have it for the driver's test, by all means get a vid of the tester person getting in and out. Want to see their face when they get back...

[lsfourwheeler]

Your son might be the first person to use an 818 to take their driving test lol

[sgarrett]

As happens to most of us, work on the 818 came to a screeching halt over the past few months. Very busy fall limited time available for the 818. But I did make a little progress!

I got tired of finding tiny little dribbles of coolant on the floor under each of the clamps. I just can't seem to get the clamps with the worm gears tight enough. If I go too tight they skip a tooth. The coolant isn't pouring out, but it is enough to really bug me. I must not have gotten the adapters into place correctly because it seems like they work for others! I decided to change them out to the t-bolt type clamps.

119721

I've gotten all of them switched out now, run the engine a few times, and have no new dribbles on the floor. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I also decided to adapt the HVAC fan to fit into the nose area. Even though I won't have heat or AC, i do like the idea of being able to blow in a little fresh air when driving. I did this on my vette and it helps on hot summer days (not like a hot summer day in Arizona of course!). Unfortunately I had already removed the wires for it from the harness so I needed to put them all back in. I also modified the fan switch so that I could mount just the fan speed dial on my dash. I haven't finished the brackets yet for the fan, but I did finish up the wires and center console.

119720

I even used my 3D printer to make a little change cup to fit into the center console.

I also have started putting in some of the aluminum around the front wheels. Once I get that done, mount the fan, and finish cleaning up the loose wires and cables around the fan belt then I get to start on the body panels!

[sgarrett]

Made a big push this week to get stuff done. I really wanted to be able to start on the body by 2/1 (originally it was 9/1/19, then 12/1/19, then 1/1/20.....). I made it! I was able to check off everything that was on my punch list, so on to the body.

Great advice to get the front splash guards drilled and positioned early in the build. Definitely wish I had done it sooner but it wasn't too bad.

121737

I also spent some time cleaning up the various wires and cables between the rear firewall and the engine. I kept saying I would clean them up later and I decided it was late enough...and then I thought this morning that it was too late. I realized I hadn't routed the parking brake cables consistently on each side, and I didn't like the way either side was actually done. So out came the seats again (!!! I have gotten really good at that now) to remove the brake lever and the housing. I am really happy with the way it all turned out though. All laid out symmetrically and out of the way of everything. And plenty of loop left so that the suspension can go through full travel.

I spent way too much time trying to figure out how to reuse the stock HVAC fan. I don't want AC, but I do like the idea of having air movement in the cabin to just keep things a little cooler. Massachusetts is hot in the summer, but not Arizona hot! I mounted it in the front and plumbed a 2" pipe into each side of the cabin. It actually works really well....better than I was expecting. And it doesn't look too hacked up. I am going to replace the white pipe with black, it just hasn't arrived yet.

121735121736

I placed the two side panels into position to be able to claim that I started on the body today. And I definitely agree with the advice from Mike (ipassgas) to put that bracket that goes behind the striker in place now. It is one of the defining points for positioning the side panel apparently. Putting it in later would be frustrating.

121734

[sgarrett]

I have a couple of questions seeking advice from you guys.

1. Now that I see how the rear quarter panel is positioned in front of the gas filler tube it looks like I placed it wrong. I have it routed below my coolant tube. But it looks like this is going to prevent it from reaching all the way up to the place where it is supposed to attach on the fender. Did you guys route it above or below the coolant tube? I don't have much gas in the tank but I am worried how much is going to come out if i disconnect the gas tube and move it above the coolant tube (I am NOT taking off those darn coolant tubes again!).

121742

2. I think this is an easy question, but I assume I am supposed to trim off excess fiberglass on panels like this one here. I assume I cut it down to be flush with the frame. It gets covered up anyway, but what it the best way you guys have found to cut these panels cleanly?

121743

3. It says to position the front of the side panel 5/8" from the front edge of the frame. No problem, I understand that. But in the picture in the manual there is some excess fiberglass that has been removed. I point at it with the yellow arrow in my picture below. I see in some builds that people leave that on there but it has definitely been removed in the manual. If I leave it on, I would shorten it to be only 5/8", but then it will end up being sandwiched between the frame and the piece of aluminum that makes the back wall of the wheel well. What do you guys recommend?

121744

As always, any help is greatly appreciated!

[STiPWRD]

1. Sorry, can't help. I have the Boyd tank and the filler tube is in a different location.

2. Yes, just about every fiberglass panel needs trimming. For cutting fiberglass, I typically use a 4.5" disc on an angle grinder but you can also use a small reciprocating air saw (for example Ingersoll Rand 529). Definitely wear a mask and eye protection, you don't want to be breathing that stuff.

3. I left the fiberglass and sandwiched it. I just trimmed the forward edge to be flush with the frame. The wheel well aluminum also sandwiches the piece of fiberglass above the door bracket.

[sgarrett]

Thanks! Do you have a trick to keep the angle grinder straight when cutting a long straight line?

Will definitely use mask, gloves, eye protection....and long sleeves. Remember mainly sleepless nights with super itchy arms after sanding down the Corvette panels!

I ended up removing the gas filler and only a small amount of gas came out. Turns out I really can't get it above the coolant tube but it looks like I can remount the coolant tube a little higher and still miss the fiberglass on the side sill. If it is a little higher then all is good I think.

[STiPWRD]

Thanks! Do you have a trick to keep the angle grinder straight when cutting a long straight line?
Mostly just practice but a straight cut line with a sharpie helps a lot. I'll usually score the cut line with the angle grinder and then go back and cut all the way through. I also try to steady the angle grinder hand against a flat surface if possible, sort of like when welding.

[aquillen]

I use the air saw about half the time on aluminum sheet and fiberglass or a multi-tool (where the saw blade vibrates left and right). Either one works great. Long straight cuts are easier with the multi, curves and detail work use the air saw. Angle grinder is super fast, easy to gouge if not careful, and throws the dust so hard almost impossible to catch it with a vacuum. The other two I can hold vacuum in one hand, saw in the other. Still have the mask because none get all that dust.

Nice job on the console by the way...

[sgarrett]

I was very excited to start putting on the body panels. It has been almost three years since I got the donor. I thought I would be done in three years! But getting to the body really feels like progress.

I was happy to see that there were no critters that had taken up permanent residence in the hardtop. I had to store it under my screen porch covered in a blue tarp for the past few years. Except for lots of spider webs and some dust, it is in great shape. I clamped the side panels, rear fenders, and tail all into place and then put the top onto them. Wow...they all lined up really well. I need to do a few adjustments but nothing major. Not too much warping on the back edge of the hard top after storage and I used a 2x4 between the windshield mounts to keep them at the right spacing for the past few years.

122043

But I was concerned to see that the windshield shroud completely covers the caps for the reservoirs.

122044

Do you guys cut anything back in that area to still give you access? Or do I need to pull the dash to be able to get to them in the future?

I also started to place the front fenders on just to see how close/easy those are going to be since I have definitely read about how those aren't so easy.

122045

It looks great from a distance, but uh oh....

122046

Yeah....that is going to take some careful and thoughtful cutting to get it all to fit nicely with each other.

My strategy is going to be to make sure the sides, rear fenders, tail, and top all are aligned. Then I'm going to roughly line up the front fenders, nose insert, and hood without the top to see how they fit. Then work on adjusting the fenders to line up with the top. I have a good picture of how the sample car in the FFR showroom was finished and I've looked at a lot of your photos here on the forums. Hopefully I won't have to go down the path of laying up more fiberglass like some of you have done.

[AZPete]

"But I was concerned to see that the windshield shroud completely covers the caps for the reservoirs"
You can cut almost all of the windshield shroud off. Leave 1/2 - 3/4 inch of the shroud so the apron will keep it's shape.

[idf]

I used Mike Everson's reservoir relocation kit. I think I read that it is no longer available, but it is still listed on his website. Maybe he can be persuaded to make another run.

[sgarrett]

After spending more hours looking at previous build posts I see that I still have lots of finessing to do with these pieces!

[sgarrett]

I started a new job in the middle of February so that slowed things down for a while. And now I am trying to figure out how to do that job from home, so that is taking up my time. But I have snuck out to the garage a few times in an attempt to make a little progress.

It is shocking to me just how many degrees of freedom we have to get the body panels to all line up with each other. Every time I thought I had it perfect I would try to add the next piece and discover I need to adjust the things I have already done. Rather than locking things down like they suggest in the manual, I took a step back and am using clamps and tape to hold things in place as I move to the next thing to add. It is working much better since it is easy to adjust things slightly then re-tape. I now actually think I have the side rails, rear panel, top/hatch all aligned well. Finally!

Here are some examples of my taping prowess. I used the tape to hold things in place and to help me eyeball the center of the roof.

125766125767125768

Although you can't see them, the gaps are all actually pretty good. My only troublesome spots are the middle of the rear fenders where they need to be pushed in to align with the side of the top. It is right in the spot where you add the bolt to attach the fender to the frame. I found that I needed to modify the mounting surface a bit to prevent it from rubbing against the underside of the fender.

125769

I think I need to take off a little more to get the fender in another 0.10 inches or so.

I also cut out the area under the windshield.

125770

I had to get creative because one brake line was just a little bit too high. And the reservoir was sitting just a little bit too far forward.....until I discovered I needed to adjust the top. I may have been able to avoid cutting to make clearance for it now that I have the top actually aligned correctly.

In hindsight, I should've paid more attention to getting the top to line up perfectly with the fender right at the top/rear edge of the door. I see now that you really don't want any step or misalignment there at all.

[sgarrett]

I started to tackle the doors with great fear and trepidation. Yep...right off the bat I discovered I needed to go back and readjust things with the alignment between the top and the driver side rear fender. I despaired that I had the worst kit ever made with no possibility of me EVER getting the door frame to line up with the striker. But wait, we have a nearly infinite number of adjustments on this door frame! I followed the suggestions in the tips and tricks and it actually lined up really well!

I taped my striker into the middle of its adjustment range, attached the hinges and door latch to the door frame and closed it on the striker, then mounted the hinges to the chassis. Wow. It worked. But this is when I discovered my roof was still too far back about about .25". Once I moved it forward and got the edge of it lined up with the door opening I think I am in business!

I also followed the suggestion to line up the door frame so that it is parallel to the body. In the picture, I marked that with 2 green lines. Are those the parts that should be parallel? If I had just done it without considering that I would've made the door frame come in closer to the body as it goes from front of the car toward the rear.

125771

Being emboldened by what I am hoping is lasting success on the door, I thought I would tackle the window. Being the smart and careful car builder I am, I left the paper on the window to protect it. As I held it next to the spot I am supposed to mount it to on the power window track I despaired because the mount is at and angle but the bottom of my window is flat. After an hour looking at the window track and a sleepless night thinking about what I did wrong, I picked the window back up to see if I was missing something and discovered the bottom of the window has a cutout to make it align with the slide. The paper was covering it so I didn't notice. Good grief. I am an idiot....again!

Truthfully, it took all of about ten minutes of tweaking to put the glass in and align it with the roof. At this point it goes up and down into position perfectly. And it looks like there is a theoretical possibility I could cut a slot in the door that it would be able to go up and down through without binding. I am not counting my chickens yet since they haven't hatched, but I don't feel horribly full of despair right now about my window future.

125772

A skilled observer may note that I inadvertently used the front door latch instead of the rear door latch....need to go back and fix that....

So the next thing is going to be the front fender and the whole intersection point at the A-pillar. My philosophy is to not cut anything until I have spent countless hours and days to try to get it to align since it seems like I can eventually get things to fit without cutting. But in this case I think it has to be cut. I cross-hatched a section of the top lip of the passenger side fender in the picture below.

125774

Did you guys cut out this section? If I don't it seems to prevent the fender from sitting down all the way.

[aquillen]

Looks to me like your body panels fit better than mine out of the "box". And your sequence of the last two posts are deja vue for me - same process, if not better luck with the windows. Especially investigate your window seals to the upper frame fitment - will they seal/drag/slide ok(?) before deciding that you have it. One smart move was to center the latch to the bracket, I didn't use that method and wish my bracket was not as deep in as I made it.

As for cutting that section of the hood-fender corner, I don't see how you get around that. I've been saving it on mine, even with with my clamshell hood version, but eventually it will have to be trimmed and probably glassed to look better. Be sure to review Mechie's recent post refresh from the original post by Blwalker105 in the Body section, "Fiberglass tips...". Top notch info there.

[sgarrett]

Thanks Art. I did read over the repost from Mechie. I agree....great info.

[sgarrett]

I got the drivers side door hung last weekend. I used my ‘lots of tape to hold things in place’ method again and it worked pretty well. I also used someone’s recommendation to use corrugated cardboard for defining the gaps. It worked well but in the end I needed to pull up on the door frame at the striker end when tightening the bolts. There is a little play in the hinges that I needed to account for.

126426126427126428

I think the gaps all lined up pretty well. The lower front edge of the door skin will have a better gap once I bolt it to the frame. It is just taped in place now and the tape has loosened up, I also made sure there was enough room still for the side view mirror mount.

126429126430126431

[jbs72697]

Hi
I just stumbled upon your build thread. Looks like some nice work and lots of fun.
I’ve been down to FFR a couple times myself to the showroom and tours and the 818 is the car I’m planning to build in the next year or so. I’ve begun looking for donors now though.
Looking forward to reading more of your posts and pictures as it goes along..

[sgarrett]

I made great progress this weekend. I now have both doors hung and aligned pretty darn well! I also got the driver's side fender aligned up at the A-pillar. I assume there will be a little more adjusting as I try to align the front too. On first glance it looks like the passenger fender will line up at the A-pillar well also.

128139128140128142128141

I was also wondering how much stuff you guys have cut away from the A pillar area. The one at FFR has a lot of stuff cut away which makes for some pretty big gaps.

In the picture below, I think I need to cut off the flange in the yellow 'square' roughly where I have a silver line drawn. I also assume I need to cut back on the lip around the end of the fender that I am pointing out with the arrow. Is that what others have done? How much lip on the end of the fender did you leave?

Thanks.

128143

[AZPete]

Don't cut on the silver line. The black FFR 818C has an early hardtop, like my early hardtop, and they cut the A pillars too short. The newer hardtops, like yours, have a longer A pillar to cover the gap. You'll want to trim the back and bottom edges of the squarish tab to your liking, but don't lop it off at your silver line. Since my hardtop had the early short A pillar and a big gap, I had to extend the A pillars with fiberglass.

[sgarrett]

Great! Thanks for the advice. I figured it was there for a reason, but it really looks bad the way it is shaped now. I will 'sculpt' it accordingly.

[lsfourwheeler]

Cool to see there's a few coupe builds all at this bodyworking stage. Looks like yours is coming along well!

[SnyderJD]

Correct across the board! I also notched the aluminum in a few spots to clear lines and had to extend it on some of the more forward splash guards where it didn't line up well (passenger side so I don't have pics). The small panels do go inside the frame but by the time I got to those it was very cramped and I could only get about 4 rivets to attach those.
114554114555114556

The aluminum that site over the upper control arm in post 111, is that from Forma or new parts from FFR?

[STiPWRD]

The aluminum that site over the upper control arm in post 111, is that from Forma or new parts from FFR?

Those were from Forma, they definitely help finish out the front area.

[sgarrett]

I've had my eye on those parts from Forma. I figured I would order them once I got to the point where I could really see how they are going to fit in....I am now getting much closer!

I did fit in those aluminum pieces previously but since I didn't have fenders on atthe time I really don't know how they fit with them yet. I assumed I would need to trim.

[sgarrett]

Well....I feel like I have made a ton of progress over the past week. I felt a bit of momentum because I felt like I was close to hitting a milestone, which I did last night. I believe I now have all of the fiberglass panels in position and ready to be locked down. By that, I mean I need to now commit to their alignment. In a lot of spots I am still using tape and clamps to hold then in position since each time I added something new I needed to adjust something else and I was tired of drilling out rivets.

Yay.....here it is! The hood was the last thing I put on, and with two tweaks to the fenders it fit right into place. What a great feeling. I see where i need to sand down its lip if I want it to sit flush with the fender height. But my gaps all seem pretty good.

128622

The previous few days were another episode in frustration with door alignment though. I didn't like where the passenger door had ended up. There was a very uneven gap between the bottom of the door and the sail. It was really tight at the rear and about 5/8" gap at the front. So I started tweaking and completely lost any sort of alignment. It truly looked like the door physically would never be able to fit properly. Imagine the outside shape of the door as a rectangle and the opening created by the sail/fender/top as a squished trapezoid. I thought I was doomed. But I just started over.

I made sure the door frame (without the skin) fit up near the A-pillar and aligned with the middle part of the striker range. I figured out the striker range by shining a light through the back and then marking where the slots were at the highest and lowest part of the range. The two black x's are my target for where I want the striker to be. I also moved the top as far forward as possible while lining it up with the back of the sail. The silver line next to the mounting point shows how far back I originally had it. I also had it pushed down to its lowest setting originally.

128621128620128618

But even with all of that the back of the door was being pushed up into the top. I didn't have enough range of adjustment to tip the back down without also having the front tip down. So I cheated. I added spacers between the top hinge (not the bottom one) and the door frame. It worked perfectly! You can see the gaps I ended up with and the only thing I changed was adding these spacers to only the top hinge. That caused enough rotation to line things up! I just about fainted when I saw the final result!

128616128617128619

I know there are a lot of us going thru this phase right now and it is not easy. All I can say is convince yourself it is possible to get these things to line up. If they aren't lining up, pause before doing anything drastic to modify the parts. Just back track until you find something that can be adjusted. It might be as far back as the rear bumper! Anything that you have already locked down, un-lock it. You need as many degrees of freedom as possible. I do hope that my striker strategy still plays out properly because I haven't tried to actually install it yet.

I also spent time lining up the body lines between the doors and the fenders as you can see in this picture.

128614

I thought it looked great. But that made the opening too narrow for the hood. I needed to space the top of the fenders apart a little and then the hood fit perfectly. And the whole alignment between the fenders/doors/a-pillar also is much better now. I guess I didn't need to take quite so much material off of the fender lip. But of course, now my body lines aren't lined up so elegantly any more.

128615

I tried to pull the door skin out at the mirror mount, but then it interferes with the little wing on the top coming down off of the a-pillar.

My question to the group: Were you able to line up the body line in the door with the line in the fender so that it all looks continuous or did you end up with something misaligned more like I have?

[aquillen]

It is amazing - you just keep fiddling and it starts to fit. I found that pulling the bottom of the sail - under the door - down and then getting the underside fastened to the bottom of the car - improves the clearance along the bottom of the door. Until I did that the bottom clearance for the door was not good. The top of the sail all along under the door was angled up so it was higher = closer to the door skin the further you came out away from the center of the car. I drilled and tapped for 10-32 screws along there instead of riveting.

[sgarrett]

It is amazing - you just keep fiddling and it starts to fit. I found that pulling the bottom of the sail - under the door - down and then getting the underside fastened to the bottom of the car - improves the clearance along the bottom of the door. Until I did that the bottom clearance for the door was not good. The top of the sail all along under the door was angled up so it was higher = closer to the door skin the further you came out away from the center of the car. I drilled and tapped for 10-32 screws along there instead of riveting.

Yes! I found exactly the same thing. And I plan to use screws instead of rivets too. But I bought some 10-32 inserts I am going to use.

[Ajzride]

Yes! I found exactly the same thing. And I plan to use screws instead of rivets too. But I bought some 10-32 inserts I am going to use.

I would just tap the frame rather than using the inserts. The inserts will stick up and and not fit flush with the frame, but the metal is plenty thick enough to tap.

[sgarrett]

I would just tap the frame rather than using the inserts. The inserts will stick up and and not fit flush with the frame, but the metal is plenty thick enough to tap.

Great advice. Thanks.

[sgarrett]

Well....it has been a while. Job and family taking over my time. But I have been able to make a little progress.

I can now officially say I believe aligning the doors is worse than the wiring harness. Good grief. I kept thinking I could make the passenger door a little bit better, so I just kept fiddling. After many hours of tightening and loosening you truly get a good feel for how the door can be moved around. I finally got it into a position where I think it is as good as it can be. I will need to put a 1/8" spacer between the top and the side sail behind the passenger door to make sure I have clearance for the back edge of the door. Since there is a bracket there that attaches the two together that should be easy.

Although I am not designing my own taillights, I did get the rear all assembled and illuminated. I added a high-mount brake light (I 3D printed the bezel for it) and got some smaller LEDs to illuminate the license plate. I also have the rear view camera wired and working.

133686

I grew up in Wyoming so used one of my old plates for now....

I also finished getting all of the body panels mounted and attached. For the front, I followed the approach in the manual (started with the grill and the fenders) but then struggled getting everything centered and still having the hood fit. When the fenders and grill are centered, the top corners of the hood don't meet the top rear of the fenders in the same spots. When I shifted the grill towards the drivers side then I could get the hood aligned....but it was obvious the front of the car was twisted. I vaguely remembered others posting that the two front fenders aren't the same size so I started measuring. Yep, drivers side is about 3/4" longer. That is exactly the difference in where the top two corners of the hood sit. So I centered everything back up and am going to celebrate a non-symmetric hood.

133687133688133689

I really like how the nose turned out. Much better than I was expecting. Once I trim down the side edge of the hood it will sit lower and the lower edge of the hood nose will align better with the fenders.

I did finally get around to installing the Micro Latches and the springs. They worked really well.

133690

Definitely happy with those.

Need to install the Micro Latches for the top next and put in the door strikes.

[sgarrett]

It was a satisfying moment for me this weekend! I was able to get the car off the jacks and out of the garage under its own power with the body panels all attached.


https://youtu.be/g0AmPyGh5cM

It was surprising just how low the nose is once its off those jack stands! And in the video it kind of looks like a go-kart with some fiberglass panels on it. Then I realized it is basically a go-kart with some fiberglass panels on it! But what is satisfying is that I was the one who did it.

Hope to keep making progress.....I think I am going to order the tires finally and rent a trailer to go get it aligned and tuned before winter.

[AZPete]

Congrats! Sounds good, moves on its own, and no lost parts in the driveway means you did hundreds of things right. I like your description about it being a go-kart with panels because that's how it will drive when you get finished. At shows, many guys asked me, "how's it drive?" and I'd tell the truth: like a go-kart - quick and responsive..

[aquillen]

Ahhh but you can't go anywhere you want on a go-kart. Looking great even with light shining through the door :)

[Ajzride]

I'm so jealous, congrats.

[sgarrett]

Looking great even with light shining through the door :)

LOL...Yes....that looked very silly in hindsight. I do plan on coating the inside of the doors and then adding a square of sound mat. But it certainly is lighter this way!

I'm using Boig's exhaust on it with just the cat (no muffler). Although I still pefer the sound of a big V8, this sounds pretty good and I like how I can hear the turbo spin up.

[aquillen]

I keep reading about new sports cars where interior sound of the exhaust is enhanced using the audio system. Maybe we can come up with a Ferrari sound (inside the car)...

[FFRWRX]

Not only interior sound. I was watching a video review on the BMW i8 and it has dual exhaust. One pipe is exhaust and one is a speaker for everyone outside the car to enjoy the sporty sound.....which the 3 cylinder engine certainly isn’t making. So don’t limit yourself to the Ferrari sound just inside the car!

[Ajzride]

My F150 Ecoboost had that feature, it sounded like a V8, which I knew wasn't right. I disabled it with a programmer and bought new exhaust.

[jbs72697]

Looks and sounds great! Nice work

[sgarrett]

I'm still here! Like everyone, life sometimes slows down the builds...or at least the updates.

I will post more soon. I did get the car aligned and have all of the body panels properly fitted (for better or worse). The #$&@#%!! windows really slowed me down. I did get the passenger side done, but now have some fiberglass work to do since I made the opening on top too big...I had a feeling I was going to do that!

I have been tying up the loose ends that I sort of skipped over during the build while I build up motivation again after the darn window frustration....so I dove into the headlight wiring. Great, that isn't exactly easy either!

I did figure out how to get everything working with a relay and a diode (I will summarize that for future builders) and huge thanks to everyone who had posted about that previously. Very helpful to me.

But something I am struggling with now is the parking/clearance lights. They light up fine, and when I use the original incandescent bulbs they are fine. But the LED lights for the kit start out bright and then get very dim when the headlights are on. I still have full voltage going into them, but they just don't want to light up after about 5 minutes. Once I turn off the headlights they start to come back to their 'normal' brightness. Has anyone else dealt with this issue yet?

[Frank818]

"Welcome back"! loll

'bout those LEDs... I have dealt with a few super super weird issues with the rear turn signals/backup lights in the past. Turns out it was just a matter of swapping out the bulbs with some that decided to work. I had to try about 5 or 6 different sets but eventually it worked. Never understood why, probably related to how the bulbs are designed internally, or how they fit when you screw them in the sockets or something super fishy like that.

If you have other sets of bulbs, or if you are willing to spend a few bucks or a few 10s of bucks to source in other sets, I'd try that first. If after 3-4 sets they ALL behave the same then it's probably somewhere else.

Mine were extremely sensitive, some sets never worked and others were even intermittent: they worked when I was looking at them, but they stopped working when I was not or when driving. Very funny.... after a while I found some good quality bulbs (USA made btw, how interesting) and NEVER had the issues again. 1.5 years later and still perfect.


There are a few people very very knowledgeable in electronics here, maybe they will suggest something else to try before spending money, but on the other hand it's not "that" much money to try different sets of bulbs.

[RPGs818SNA]

Sgarrett, A marginal ground for the headlights and parking lights would cause those symptoms. I would compare the voltage on the headlights and parking light ground wires to battery ground when both are turned on. If you see more than a few tenths of a volt, I'd follow the grounds back through the switches to the frame and battery ground. If less than that, the bulbs may be sensitive to heat. I'd go with Frank's suggestion to try different (better) bulbs.
Good luck,
RPG

[sgarrett]

I am becoming a bit obsessed over this. got out of bed to measure the ground voltage....that is fine. Then I discovered that the relay wasn't needed anymore for the high beam shutter (what?!), and the LEDs wouldn't come on AT ALL. Of course the incandescent bulb still works in place of the LEDs.

Then I discovered that I had the fog light switch in the 'off' position. In the 'on' position it makes the high beam shutter latch open and I need the relay. I also discovered I had drained my battery down to less than 10 volts. The LEDs won't come on with that low a voltage.

So...need to back burner this till next week now, but it looks like the root of my problem lies somewhere in the fog light circuit....maybe I will just go back to the windows....

[RPGs818SNA]

Great job finding the low battery. That would cause the same symptoms. Now the "fog light turned on makes the high beam shutter latch open" doesn't seem right. How is your high beam shutter wired?
Thanks for all your body panel postings. I'm about to get started on them. I hope they aren't as hard as the wiring was.
RPG

[sgarrett]

I didn't think the panels were as hard as the wiring.....but the windows seem to have been the toughest for me so far. Of course, now I am finding wiring issues so perhaps that moves back to the top of the list!

Definitely dumb of me to have tried to debug all of this with a bad battery and ineffective charger. With the car running the wiring that I started with many many many hours ago works fine. I hooked one side of the low beams to ground (my yellow with red wires) and the blue with white wires to the other side of the low beam and also to the high beam shutter. Hook the red wire to the other wire on the high beam shutter. Everything works perfectly. No need for relays or diodes apparently. But at too low a voltage the shutters seem to stick open.

But what was killing me was the fog light switch. I didn't realize it was on. If it is off everything is fine. If it is on the high beam shutter locks open. That is what I have been chasing for a few weeks elapsed time. I am measuring 2volts across the fog light ground to the battery ground when it is on. That seems to prevent the high beam from going off. Need to trace it now and find the issue. Time to take the interior out again!

[RPGs818SNA]

Wow, that was fun. After pouring over the schematics from the 06 model (couldn’t find the 02 schematics), I think I know what’s going on. The fog light relay and switch lamp pull their power through the high beam lamp when it is off, and get no power when the high beam is on, as the red green wire is grounded through the dimmer switch. That keeps the high beams and fog lights from being on at the same time. I don’t know if that’s to limit the light toward other drivers or to limit the current draw. However, with the new shutter design, when the fog light relay and switch lamp pulls current through the shutter relay, the shutter opens!

Since the headlights draw the same power whether on high or low, and the high beams shouldn’t be on with other cars approaching, I think it’s OK to defeat that mechanism. I suggest disconnecting the red green wires to the fog light relay and switch from the high beam relay pin 4 (also red green) and connecting them instead to pin 2 (green black) or any other convenient low current source from the ignition switch. Here's a schematic.

152729

The 2 volts on the fog light ground is probably an independent problem that should be easier to track. I hope you can get to it without much disassembly.

Thanks for catching this problem before it caught me. I can fix mine pretty easily at this stage.
RPG

[sgarrett]

Wow! Thanks for putting the time in to look at this! Huge help. I am away from the car until Sunday morning. The first thing I am going to do when I get back to it is to try this.

[sgarrett]

OK....so it seems like the errors were all on my side. My continuous lesson-learned so far has been "it really should work". In this case, I thought I was at wits end trying to figure this out, but it turns out I was simply witless!

The issues were:

1. My battery is hurting. I have drained it too many times and it just doesn't hold a charge, so it isn't good for testing. Even with a battery charger on it, and reading about 11V, that is not the same as having a fully functioning electrical system in the car. When the voltage is low, the LED lights used for the parking lights will not turn on. And as the battery drops they start getting dimmer and dimmer. I thought I was wiring them wrong, so wasted a ton of time coming up with different approaches. Of course, none of them worked. Supplying them with at least 12V (as intended) is a smart thing to do.

2. RPG's wiring diagram above is good. It is similar to Art's. But one thing to remember, if you don't delete the daytime running lights, then the low beams come on when the parking brake is not engaged. Yes, I have been doing all of my testing with the parking brake in random positions. When engaged, the parking lights don't come on but the headlights are always on. That messed me up since it wasn't expected behavior. Do the testing with the parking brake off!

3. RPG, you need to make a change to the diagram. You need to put one side of the low beam directly to ground instead of the the YR wire. My YR wire is now just floating around and not used.

4. In the process of shoving all my wires behind my center console, something got shorted. After entirely removing my center console, and jostling all the wires around, EVERYTHING works perfectly. The fog lights come on and off as expected when pushing the switch and also when activating the high beams. The high beam shutter opens and closes as expected, and I now measure about 0.1 volts across its ground to the battery. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what got fixed when I jostled everything around, so when I pull it out again to paint and wrap it I'll track down the culprit more carefully.

5. But wait! With the engine running (and brake off), the fog light is keeping the high beam shutter engaged! I still need to go back and look at doing the fog light mod on RPG's diagram now.

6. It is REALLY important to make fuse boxes and relays easily accessible. I did a good job with the fuse boxes but not the relays. It has been a pain to get to them.

I can finally wrap up the front end wiring now and mount the fenders/headlights (after doing the fog light mod...).

[RPGs818SNA]

Thanks for sharing so many good lessons learned with such thorough explanations.


1. My battery is hurting. I have drained it too many times and it just doesn't hold a charge, so it isn't good for testing. Even with a battery charger on it, and reading about 11V, that is not the same as having a fully functioning electrical system in the car. When the voltage is low, the LED lights used for the parking lights will not turn on. And as the battery drops they start getting dimmer and dimmer. I thought I was wiring them wrong, so wasted a ton of time coming up with different approaches. Of course, none of them worked. Supplying them with at least 12V (as intended) is a smart thing to do.

I had a similar experience with those LEDs. I tried every which way to figure out how to wire them using a voltmeter. Nothing worked until, in desperation, I connected one to the battery. Then there was light!


2. RPG's wiring diagram above is good. It is similar to Art's. But one thing to remember, if you don't delete the daytime running lights, then the low beams come on when the parking brake is not engaged. Yes, I have been doing all of my testing with the parking brake in random positions. When engaged, the parking lights don't come on but the headlights are always on. That messed me up since it wasn't expected behavior. Do the testing with the parking brake off!

I just found Art’s schematics at https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?20814-Complete-wiring-plans-for-818S-2002-EZ30-factory&highlight=ez30
They are terrific. Although focused on an 02, there’s a lot there that’s applicable to my 06. As for the daytime running lights, the 06 owner’s manual says:
Daytime running light system
WRX-STI:
The low beam headlights, tail lights, parking lights, and license plate lights will automatically come on when the engine has started, under the following conditions:
The parking brake is fully released.
The light switch is in the .OFF. or position 1 (Parking lights).
The automatic transmission selector lever is set at other than the Park position.

For Imprezas that are not WRX-STI:
The low beam headlights will automatically come on at reduced brightness when the engine has started, under the following conditions:
The parking brake is fully released.
The light switch is in the .OFF. or position 1 (Parking lights).
The automatic transmission selector lever is set at other than the Park position.

So if you don’t want the Daytime Running Light functionality, it’s fine to simplify things by grounding one side of the projector lamps. If so, the DRL relay can be removed as well. I’m keeping the DRF feature to help others see me and maybe reduce my insurance rate.


3. RPG, you need to make a change to the diagram. You need to put one side of the low beam directly to ground instead of the YR wire. My YR wire is now just floating around and not used.

That’s a good option if deleting the DRL feature.


4. In the process of shoving all my wires behind my center console, something got shorted. After entirely removing my center console, and jostling all the wires around, EVERYTHING works perfectly. The fog lights come on and off as expected when pushing the switch and also when activating the high beams. The high beam shutter opens and closes as expected, and I now measure about 0.1 volts across its ground to the battery. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what got fixed when I jostled everything around, so when I pull it out again to paint and wrap it I'll track down the culprit more carefully.

That’s a pain. I hope you can find it or it just doesn’t show up again. I would go ahead and trace the fog light ground wire to the frame to make sure it’s solid.


5. But wait! With the engine running (and brake off), the fog light is keeping the high beam shutter engaged! I still need to go back and look at doing the fog light mod on RPG's diagram now.

Wow, that’s odd. Perhaps the 14 volts with the engine running causes just enough extra current to go through the fog light relay coil and fog light ON lamp to keep the headlight shield open. The mod should fix that.


6. It is REALLY important to make fuse boxes and relays easily accessible. I did a good job with the fuse boxes but not the relays. It has been a pain to get to them.

That’s really good advice. Hope everything goes smoothly from here on.
RPG

[sgarrett]

Success! Spent about 5 hours pulling my seats and center console out again to find the wiring issue (about 8 various wires had gotten pinched between a couple of pieces of the aluminum center console. It cut thru the insulation....but it was a very easy fix) and also to trace the wires from my high beam relay. It was worth it. I implemented RPG's mod and voila! Everything works exactly as expected. Thank you very much for suggesting the green wiring mod on your diagram.

However....maybe it is different for '02 versus '06, but I do have to put one side of the low beam to ground. If I don't it turns off when the high beams go on. I did not delete the DRL feature (I agree with you...I like the increased visibility to other drivers). So I basically implemented your diagram without the red modifications and I put one side of the low beam to ground, leaving the YR wire unconnected.

[RPGs818SNA]

Congratulations on getting it all working! Well done.


However....maybe it is different for '02 versus '06, but I do have to put one side of the low beam to ground. If I don't it turns off when the high beams go on. I did not delete the DRL feature (I agree with you...I like the increased visibility to other drivers). So I basically implemented your diagram without the red modifications and I put one side of the low beam to ground, leaving the YR wire unconnected.

You’re right, I found the ’02 schematic and it is slightly different from the ’06. The ’06 runs the low beam YR wire through the DRL relay and either through the DRL resistor when the headlights are off or straight to ground when they are on. The ’02, however, runs the YR wire through the DRL relay and to the dimmer switch when the headlights are on. If the dimmer switch is set to low beams, YR is not grounded and the 818 projection lights won’t come on. See the schematics below.
152944

If the YR side of the headlight is wired straight to ground, the daytime running light function will work, but the lamps will burn at full intensity. If instead the orange mod shown above is implemented, the YR current will run through the DRL resistor and reduce the intensity of the headlight and current consumption. Either way will fix the ’02 high beam problem.

Thanks again for finding and sharing this issue. Now my fog light install will be easy.
RPG

[sgarrett]

RPG!!! You are awesome. Implemented the orange fix and it is perfect. Thanks for tracking that down.

And advice to future builders: figure all of this out before you tuck away your wiring harness!!! I had just assumed the wiring at the lights themselves was the same as the donor car.

Pictures coming soon....