Aj's 818S in Houston

[Ajzride]

Not sure where you found that chart Bob, but it's exactly what I needed. Thanks

[aquillen]

Forgot condenser is separate. I recall that map too - good thing Bob is on the ball as usual...

[Ajzride]

I got the de-pinning tool from Brian at iWire. I figured I needed it to make my 2006 to 2004 swap harness. Before I started on that though, I wanted to clean up my existing wiring. I did not trim any wires from the ECU to the engine bay, so there was a lot of tangled up mess and it was an eyesore and hard to work with. It took almost 9 hours, but I made it a lot better. I pulled every wire, put a heat-shrink labeled on it, and then when they were all loose, I stretched them out and routed them one by one into the ECU plug. I didn't order any extra pins from iWire (they are awfully pricey), so I couldn't shorten any of the wires. In retrospect if I was going to spend 9 hours cleaning it up, I should have spent $100 on pins so that I could shorten the ones that needed it and make it even cleaner.

Before I started de-tangling, but everything de-pinned and labeled:

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And After:

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After I was finished and with some trial and error, everything is functioning cleanly. Hopefully tomorrow I will finish the swap harness and can test the 04FXT ECU.

[Ajzride]

When I picked up the car, it was in roller form and all of the suspension was assembled. i did go through the build manual and make sure that all of the steps looked like they had been followed, and I torqued all of the bolts, but I did not give much thought to the way it was put together. The only thing I really paid any attention to was installing the Baer bump steer kit.

I took my car in for an alignment last week, and they couldn't get any negative camber on the front, and said I need to make a change to the rear to allow for toe adjustment.

On the front, they suggested moving my control arm to lowest outer hole on the frame to add some negative camber. The manual seems to indicate that the two outer holes are for mounting RS2.5 and Wagon LCA. I'm not even sure if the hole is the proper diameter for the bolt. Has anyone moved the LCA out to achieve their negative camber? Here are pics of the UCA showing it's adjustment after alignment, and then the LCA mount:

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On the rear, they suggested I move the link to the bottom set of holes and install the eccentric to allow for adjustment of toe. The build manual is very vague on this item.

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Regards

[Rogier]

Aj both the rear wheel links should be mounted to the lower holes. The upper are for the 818R . The eccentric bolt washer you can buy from Subaru you will need 2 washers and + 2 bolts with eccenter. Alternative you could upgrade to the adjustable length rear suspension tubes from FF5. Or buy these
GSP REAR ADJUSTABLE LATERAL LINKS ARMS SET KIT FOR 93-07 SUBARU WRX (eBay)

[Ajzride]

Thanks Rogier.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

I took my car in for an alignment last week, and they couldn't get any negative camber on the front,
Regards

AJ
To get negative camber on the front wheels, adjust the turnbuckle bolts in the upper control arm.
Check to see if you are close to these rough numbers.

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Notes:
The long turnbuckle is toward the front of the car.
The bolt that bolt the strut to the hub need to be 14 and 16mm so there is no play.
Some early kits needed to modify the ball joint mount to get these numbers.
I'll explain more if need be.
Bob

[Ajzride]

Bob

I went and pulled my measurements, and currently I'm setup with my UCA much shorter than yours. Your picture calls for 122.89/166.19/185.81 and I have 111.32/163.51/187.325.

What confuses me is that I would think pushing the UCA out would push the top of the tire out and cause more positive camber, not negative camber. It seems like my LCA is too far inboard (or too short) if my UCA needs to be that far out.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Bob

I went and pulled my measurements, and currently I'm setup with my UCA much shorter than yours. Your picture calls for 122.89/166.19/185.81 and I have 111.32/163.51/187.325.

What confuses me is that I would think pushing the UCA out would push the top of the tire out and cause more positive camber, not negative camber. It seems like my LCA is too far inboard (or too short) if my UCA needs to be that far out.

Your not confused, what you are saying is correct.
What is the serrial# of your chassis? Early chassis had a mistake in hole locations.
If you put a digital lever vertically on the tire, what is your reading now?
Any chance you have wagon LCA installed in the inner holes?
Bob

[Ajzride]

Pretty sure I'm Number 136, not sure if that qualifies as an "early chassis". I'm not sure what you mean by LCA installed in the inner hole. There are 3 holes, one larger one on the inside for the coupe arms, and two smaller ones top and outside for the RS and wagon arms. See pic attached.

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[Bob_n_Cincy]

Pretty sure I'm Number 136, not sure if that qualifies as an "early chassis". I'm not sure what you mean by LCA installed in the inner hole. There are 3 holes, one larger one on the inside for the coupe arms, and two smaller ones top and outside for the RS and wagon arms.


You are assembled correctly for the arms you are using.
I really can't compare it to my car as I went way "off-script" with my front suspension.
Bob

[idf]

Pretty sure I'm Number 136, not sure if that qualifies as an "early chassis". I'm not sure what you mean by LCA installed in the inner hole. There are 3 holes, one larger one on the inside for the coupe arms, and two smaller ones top and outside for the RS and wagon arms. See pic attached.

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Yours would qualify as an older chassis. There are a number of older (2014 and earlier) posts on this forum that deal with the modifications needed to get proper alignment. I don't recall whose exactly but likely include Quinny, Metros, perhaps Mike Everson. I substantially shortened both the sleeves and the threaded ends of the upper control arm adjusters to get both adequate caster and camber on the front. Photo attached. Getting the rear correct was easy with adjustable aftermarket lateral links. I probably have a set of the cam bolts if you want them.126304

[Ajzride]

Thanks, I'll dig into the old threads and figure out which path to take on getting alignment.

[fletch]

Thanks, I'll dig into the old threads and figure out which path to take on getting alignment.

I'll be following closely. We've got to get over this hurdle soon with our "early chassis" (#21)!

[Ajzride]

After making 3 bone headed mistakes in 30 minutes on building the swap harness for the 2004 ECU, I decided to put that on the shelf for a week and focus on something else.

A few months ago I had broken my stock shifter while working out the kinks in my manual linkage, a fellow forum member was nice enough to send me another one, and I went through great pains to make sure I didn't trim so much away this time and leave it with plenty of structure to prevent another crack. However, this created an interference with the linkage that operates the in and out motion when it was swinging side to side. I could get to all 5 gears, but 1st and Reverse required some work. Last week I saw Adam's K-Tuned shifter and I realized that it would be perfect to work with my mechanical linkage because there is no frame on the back to interfere with the tubing. The price of a k-tuned is way more than I was willing to spend, so I started pricing out aluminum plates and making arrangements to use get access to a mill. On a whim I hit up eBay to see if I could find a deal on a used one before I started trying to fabricate something on my on. While I didn't find any good deals on a K-tuned, I did find a plethora of knock-offs (I jokingly call it a J-Tuned) at a third the price. They are not fully adjustable like a K-tuned, but they are billet and have an open frame on the back. Since I have plenty of adjustment in my linkage and bell cranks, this would work pretty good for me. I hit the buy it now button and had it in 3 days. Pretty awesome considering how things are delayed at the moment.

Here is the unit fresh out of the box:

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I installed it as-is to figure out how to mount it and hook it up to the linkage:

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The rotating motion linkage bolted up exactly like the stock one. For the in and out linkage, I simply cut a 1"x1"x3" piece of scrap aluminum, and drilled a hole to bolt it into the bottom of the lever which was already tapped, and then drilled a hole for the rod-end. Once I knew it worked, I pulled it out to address the aesthetics. First thing I did was trim off a large portion from the front that only existed to hold the cables in a cable-shift front engine installation. Then I took on the color. Chrome and billet aren't really my style. Everything in the engine bay or the frame is powder coated or painted. I'm not 100% sure the shifter or the linkage will be visible when I'm done with the interior, they might both go under the console and a boot, but for now I'm going to try and work them in as styling elements. I did want something a little more than all blacked out, so I decided to powder coat the two side frame rails in copper to match the valve covers. I topped it off with a 450g black knob.

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[Bob_n_Cincy]

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Great looking shifter.

In the picture above, I noticed your upper control arm assembly.
The long turnbuckle should be toward the front of the car.
The best I can tell from that picture, you have a short one in front.
Bob

[Ajzride]

I think it is an optical illusion, here is a straight on picture of the UCA

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[idf]

Bob

I went and pulled my measurements , and currently I'm setup with my UCA much shorter than yours. Your picture calls for 122.89/166.19/185.81 and I have 111.32/163.51/187.325.

What confuses me is that I would think pushing the UCA out would push the top of the tire out and cause more positive camber, not negative camber. It seems like my LCA is too far inboard (or too short) if my UCA needs to be that far out.


I measured (street 818S) my UCA set up as follows: 110.37/154/180 mm, so shorter than yours. Many installed a spacer (5/16, as I recall) between the rear lower control arm and its mount, but I did not. With this set up I have 4.9 deg caster, 1 deg neg camber and 3/32 toe in each side (3/16 total toe). I was able to eliminate almost 100% of the bump steer. (With 16 pages of notes to get there).

In the rear I have 1 deg negative camber and 1/4 in toe, virtually no bump steer.

With this set up the car is very comfortable and neutral to drive.

[Ajzride]

Well....

It took me almost 4 hours, but I believe I found all of the information on the LCA/UCA, early chassis problems, and tips and tricks.

Of note, I believe the issue that Bob was referring to about a problem with the chassis jig is noted here:

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?10649-RM1Sepex-Build-Thread&p=111448&viewfull=1#post111448

It is related to how the rear of the LCA mounts to the frame near the firewall. My chassis does not appear to have this issue, as the LCA is installed properly there.

The other item of note is Wayne's instructions on how to trim the UCA, noted here:

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?11115-818-assembly-tips-add-yours&p=111559&viewfull=1#post111559

I will have to tear my UCA apart this weekend and measure it to see if the PO made this modification. If he did, then I'll be back to the drawing board, if he did not I can hopefully make it and get some negative camber.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Of note, I believe the issue that Bob was referring to about a problem with the chassis jig is noted here:


The holes for mounting the wagon vs sedan LCA are supposed to be 10mm apart. Yours are 20mm apart.
Early frames the steering rack was not in the middle of the car, It was off by 10mm.
It was also difficult to mount the rear LCA brackets. Oblonging (if that is a word) the holes fixed that.
The long stud on the upper ball joints needs 3/4" cut off.
Bob

[Ajzride]

The holes for mounting the wagon vs sedan LCA are supposed to be 10mm apart. Yours are 20mm apart.

Unless I'm missing something, that's not affecting me though, right?


Early frames the steering rack was not in the middle of the car, It was off by 10mm.

Kind of hard to measure with the radiator and hoses and what not in, but it appears my rack is dead center.


It was also difficult to mount the rear LCA brackets. Oblonging (if that is a word) the holes fixed that.

This appears to be taken care of.


The long stud on the upper ball joints needs 3/4" cut off

Hope to check that tomorrow.

I also found this post today from Wayne on Hindsight's build thread suggesting to install the stock eccentric bolt into the spindle to allow for some negative camber addition. If I can't get what I need by shortening the UCA, this might be next on my list.

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?15217-Hindsight-s-build-thread&p=248779&viewfull=1#post248779


https://youtu.be/VUOq6wtXHFo

[Ajzride]

Hope to check that tomorrow.


or maybe I'll get impatient and check tonight. My threaded stud measures 1.1" with the nut fully threaded. Wayne had said to cut 1.1" off so 0.8" remain. Looks like my UCA is new enough that it doesn't need 1.1" trimmed off, although I might could trim 0.3" off. I'm not seeing how it would help though. I have plenty of adjustment left in my long section, it is the short section that is bottomed out. I either need to shorten the already short one, or try the eccentric install to see if I can get enough negative camber out of that.

[Ajzride]

I measured (street 818S) my UCA set up as follows: 110.37/154/180 mm, so shorter than yours. Many installed a spacer (5/16, as I recall) between the rear lower control arm and its mount, but I did not. With this set up I have 4.9 deg caster, 1 deg neg camber and 3/32 toe in each side (3/16 total toe). I was able to eliminate almost 100% of the bump steer. (With 16 pages of notes to get there).

In the rear I have 1 deg negative camber and 1/4 in toe, virtually no bump steer.

With this set up the car is very comfortable and neutral to drive.

I will certainly aim for these settings, they are not far off from what Hindsight suggested, so it seems like a good ballpark to be in. I'm going to try the eccentric before I take to cutting up my UCAs, seems easier to undo (just roll it back to zero and lock it). I'm going to go by the storage unit tomorrow and see if the PO saved them.

[Ajzride]

I'm not getting enough sleep, I measured the wrong side of the UCA. I do need to trim mine down per Wayne's instructions.

[Ajzride]

The PO did not keep the camber bolts, I ordered a new set of front and back bolts. Got the drivers UCA trimmed yesterday, will trim the passenger sometime this weekend and then install the camber bolts when they arrive next week. I also ordered some alignment plates so I can try to get the alignment done myself, it would get expensive going back and forth to the shop every time I make a tweak.

[idf]

The PO did not keep the camber bolts, I ordered a new set of front and back bolts. Got the drivers UCA trimmed yesterday, will trim the passenger sometime this weekend and then install the camber bolts when they arrive next week. I also ordered some alignment plates so I can try to get the alignment done myself, it would get expensive going back and forth to the shop every time I make a tweak.

I likely have those bolts if it's not too late. As for alignment, I'm not sure what you refer to as plates, but typically they let you set total toe, but not caster and camber. For that you'll need a decent camber gauge. Tenhulzen Automotive makes a digital one that is reasonably priced. You can learn to do this yourself, but it takes a fair amount of practice before you can get reproducible results. The classic reference is Carroll Smith's "Prepare to Win", but lots of other options.

[Ajzride]

I likely have those bolts if it's not too late. As for alignment, I'm not sure what you refer to as plates, but typically they let you set total toe, but not caster and camber. For that you'll need a decent camber gauge. Tenhulzen Automotive makes a digital one that is reasonably priced. You can learn to do this yourself, but it takes a fair amount of practice before you can get reproducible results. The classic reference is Carroll Smith's "Prepare to Win", but lots of other options.

The Tenhulzen are what I ordered. Thanks for the offer on the camber bolts, they were not that expensive and shipping was quick, so I just went ahead and picked them up since I was ordering some other stuff as well.

[Ajzride]

While digging through the old threads looking into the suspension issues, I ran across several posts where people made the claim that the braces in front the seat pan were not needed, and that FFR even confirmed it. Has anyone actually cut them out? I'd love to at least shorten them so that I can make a wider center console, even if I don't completely remove them.

[Ajzride]

Bob

I have the diagram, maybe I am reading it wrong. I read it as the GB wire is a signal to the ECU to let it know that the blower is on. It's open when the blower is off and grounded when it is on. My question is based on the logic in the ECU. Is that same GB signal the one that the ECU uses to determine if it needs to turn on the radiator fan because the A/C is running? I would think that a signal from the pressure switch/clutch would be a better signal to base that logic on (the BrB maybe?). I could read these diagrams a lot better if they had an arrow showing information flow direction. So I guess maybe my real question is.. the BrB wire a signal to the ECU that the A/C clutch is engaged, or is it a signal from the ECU to allow the clutch to engage. The 2006 diagram is a little more confusing since it has a binary switch instead of a trinary. The switch I have at the moment is a binary, I can upgrade to a trinary if I need to.

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The Blue/Yellow wire between the ECU and the Thermostat switch is a 12+ signal to the ECU letting it know that the A.C is trying to run. When this is high the ECU will start the radiator fan. Confirmed this today. The Green/Red wire from the blower doesn't do anything best I can tell, except maybe try to increase idle a tiny bit. The Brown wire is what locks out the A/C clutch when the ECU doesn't want it to run. I opted to hook up the Blue/Yellow so that the radiator fan comes on automatically (and the ECU can idle up when starting A/C), but I did not hook up the wire to allow the ECU to lock the A/C out. Acceleration will never be more important to me than cold air. The restomod A/C system has a VFD for the blower, so I don't really have a Blower Hi signal to send to the ECU.

[Ajzride]

Unless someone sounds an alarm bell today, the frame braces in front of the seats are coming out tomorrow, those things are driving me nuts.

[Rob T]

Just check where you might want to jack the car from some day.

[Ajzride]

Just check where you might want to jack the car from some day.

I guess I'm a little perplexed. I'm talking about the braces inside the cockpit that run from the side rail down to the floor right in front of the seats, making a triangle at the front of the seat pan. Not sure how those would affect jacking the car up, unless you are saying I should be concerned about the folding in towards the cockpit if I use the wrong jacking point. If that is the case, I should be safe, I would always jack it up at the front or rear firewall, not in the center where the seats are.

[Ajzride]

I’m using the stock seat belts, but they just flop around on the floor. Because they have the 90 degree bracket on the bottom, they won’t fit in any of the traditional sleeves. Made up some quick 3D printed sleeves to keep them where I want them.

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[aquillen]

You've just about got me talked into adding a 3D printer to my hoard. Been resisting for sooo long.

[Ajzride]

There's so much stuff I don't put on here too, it's invaluable. I made a quick bracket to mount the AC Drier today, took less than 15 minutes to CAD and 20 minutes to print. I couldn't do another car without it.

[Rob T]

I misunderstood the part you were talking about. I successfully jack the car at that point, as did Chad. You can get both wheels off the ground at the same time. The lift point is right at the place where all of those parts come together. I am not qualified to make any comments about the impact on structural integrity or stiffness.

[Ajzride]

I had hoped to finish the AC lines and pull a vacuum + charge this weekend, but alas it was not meant to be. I had made a trip to the junk yard a few weeks ago to pick up some factory hoses that connect to the compressor because it appears to be a proprietary connection, and I had ordered some bead-lock to bulkhead fittings so that I could crimp them on and then connect to the rest of the AC system with standard o-ring connectors. But the actual rubber hose on the factory lines is some oddball size, at least the bigger one is. The smaller one was a #8 reduced barrier, but the larger line was bigger than a #10 and smaller than a #12 in reduced barrier, and bigger than a #8 and smaller than a #10 on standard barrier hoses. I wound up leaving them with the hose shop and they are going to cut the hard pipe and weld on a #8 and #10 nipple for me so that I can connect them to the rest of the system.

Today I focused on the cooling system, I went through a bunch of trial and error stuff, but in the end I drilled six holes in my thermostat and it is working, although at the moment my heater core is bypassed, so I still have to hook that back up and rebleed the system. I've ordered some high temp clear silicone hose that I'm going to put on the inlet and outlet of the block for the heater loop so that I can always monitor the flow, it should be here by next weekend.

Here is half of the holes I drilled in the thermostat:

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Turns out I probably would have been good with only 3 holes, but due to getting myself confused and not doing things in proper order, I convinced myself I needed more, so doubled it. with six holes it takes 16 minutes at idle to warm up enough for the fan to come on.

While I was messing with all this, I noticed my valve covers are getting grimy, it looks like oil mist, not a real leak. Anyone have any pointers on where to look, or is this just normal for a subaru?

127595

[Ajzride]

I've tried not to post a bunch of mundane stuff in the build thread, a lot of the stuff I'm doing has been covered by others over the years, so I've tried to stick to the stuff where I go off script, or where I'm needing help. Today I got the AC system charged after I got the welded fittings back from the hydraulic shop. Nothing very fancy about it, it just works and I'm glad to be very close to moving into the next phase of the build. I still have to finish the suspension modifications of trimming the passengers upper control arm and installing the camber bolts, perhaps I'll get to that tomorrow, but then I should be mostly complete with mechanicals and starting on the litany of custom stuff I'm going to be working on. First up will be finishing the electronics for the electric parking brake, that is actually almost done, I just need to 3D print a case, add some terminal strips and get it mounted and do a big write up on it. Then it will be mounting the factory dash, which I will probably be narrowing so that I don't have to trim the door panel. After that I will work on the custom center console before starting on the body mods. I'm looking for a little advice here on which order to attack things in.

I'm thinking I should start with the side panels, get the scoops enlarged and get those mounted, and then moving on to the doors. For the doors I'm going to be either ordering the FFR coupe door frame and window kit, or trying to retrofit some glass and regulators from a porsche boxster. I'm also planning to flip the latches around so that the striker is on the door and the latch mechanism is on the body, this way I can have all of the electronics for the door poppers mounted in the body and not swinging in the door. If you have watched FastThings GTM build on youtube, this is how he tackled it and i think it worked out well. However this is an 818 and not a GTM so if anyone thinks this is a bad idea please let me know. Once the doors are modified with glass and poppers, then I can mount the windshield frame and start working on the hood/fenders/nose, which is where 90% of the customization will be at.

Thoughts?

[Ajzride]

This is the point where frustration builds, dejection sets in, and the build gets stuck in a storage unit and not touched for years. Ive now been fighting overheating for 105 days. Yesterday I made some modifications to the cooling system to try and help with filling the block/radiator/HVAC all at once with the thermostat installed. My change was to put a fill neck right where the coolant exits the block. Other than the degas tank, this is the highest point in the system, it has an unimpeded path to the radiator and the block. I then tapped that fill neck (on the bottom) and installed a 5/8 nipple which I used a TEE to connect to the heater supply line. In that line between the new filler cap and the TEE, I installed a shutoff valve. So I can fill the system at this new spot, from the highest point, and it connects directly to all 3 coolant reservoirs. Once the system is filled I shut off the valve feeding the heater line TEE, and the system functions as normal. After all of that, the heater still wasn't working, and I relized there is an issue with the heater valve not opening. I had thought it was open because when I pulled a vacuum on the system the hoses would collapse, but apparently that just means the valve is water tight but not air tight.

Jump back to today, I just want to be able to go-kart the car for the memorial day weekend, so I put the U-hose back on the heater inlet/out and completely bypass the heater core, and vacuum/fill the block and radiator. I also removed the thermostat during my troubleshooting and have not reinstalled it yet, so no reason I should have any trouble keeping the car cool. However, I'm still seeing bizzare behavior. The car takes a long time to warm up (expected with the thermostat removed) and you can hear water running through the radiator (sounds like a garden fountain), but once the car gets hot, the water seems to stop moving. After you hit about 200, the temperature starts to take off really fast and if the car is left at idle(750 - 800 RPM) it will overheat pretty quick. If I rev the car up to about 1500 RPM, the temperatures will drop like a rock from 235 back down to 165 in a matter of 30 seconds. It's like the water is just sitting in the radiator getting cold until you rev it up and then it dumps all the cold water into the block.. It's really strange because it was obviously flowing really well until it got hot, there was a nice even temperature profile around the entire system, and it took a long time to heat up.

I'm completely stumped, is this is a symptom of still not burped, or could this be a symptom of a bad water pump that won't push flow at low RPMs once the system starts to build pressure?

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Alan,
give me a call, I'll help you get the cooling system fixed.
With the mods I did, I just fill it at the degas tank, rev it up a couple of seconds 3 times. Then top it off, and I am golden.
Bob

[Ajzride]

Alan,
give me a call, I'll help you get the cooling system fixed.
With the mods I did, I just fill it at the degas tank, rev it up a couple of seconds 3 times. Then top it off, and I am golden.
Bob

Thanks for the offer Bob, I promised the family I wouldn't work on the car over the holiday, so I'll touch base next week.

[Frank818]

Oh man AJ I understand so damn much how you feel. :( I know Bob will fix your problem, he's a coolant expert, so you can sleep well over the Holiday.

[grabera7]

Alan,
give me a call, I'll help you get the cooling system fixed.
With the mods I did, I just fill it at the degas tank, rev it up a couple of seconds 3 times. Then top it off, and I am golden.
Bob

Bob, can you link to a post for your coolant mods?

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Bob, can you link to a post for your coolant mods?

The basics
A> radiator should be coolant in high and out low.
B> I blocked of the fill cap on the top of my radiator. Some Subaru radiators don't even have a cap. https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=8610900&cc=1428780&jsn=4183&_nck=ZExt1ysfqhqWnq%2BEvUNdS3Txyey60IDtnjPWF5UU9J0 BWQv7pvqZbkEUk86%2BAYIh3BPX4eQfsOjaO7VUVwbfZA98YEL Snyue9JTA7WPNMM5FH54%2FymdK6ZKvFAaA5%2BVp%2Bm4s%2B 3%2FA7mFurB5cWJOa9CHfl2Ht1UpWeQbT5ZKW%2FxMv0hLsGMk dbbhS%2BLrAZwV%2FOkHKdl2QuxUP3%2FYPhupuHWEe%2BUWQI Gzo0ocEyt%2FtYrQzABzffnUN6lY8EAgOv5p65f%2BhO2z76Ep Lo0QbZxcdXOib9O3UGHsvOi4GniwbeZH6mtcObB1xnEUbqKVuT uvko1l4eNOPoqxPQ8PzEgrUAnkAzV47ibjr
C> On the top of my radiator, on the discharge side ,I have a 5/16 bleed hose connected at the highest point..
D> On the discharge hose off the top of the engine, I have a 5/16 bleed hose connected at the highest point.
E> in hose "D" above I have a pill ,with 1/8" hole, in the hose to limit flow.
F> Hose "C' and "D" connect together with a "Y" just before going into the top of the degas tank.
G> Try not to have any of the coolant system hoses have a high spot that will accumulate air bubbles.
H> A small 1/8" hole in the thermostat will help clear any air in the radiator hose going to the engine. I did not do this.
I> running without a thermostat may cause the system above not work to clear the air in the radiator.



The pressure in the system is highest right after the pump. This setup will have a small flow off the top of the engine and radiator back to the degas tank. So any air in the system accumulates in the degas tank. You should check and top of the degas tank after some heat cycles. The degas tank will self refill on every heat cycle as long as you have fluid in the overflow bottle. you overflow bottle will tell you what happening. If it goes down on a daily basis, you are getting more air out of the system. If it goes up. more air is accumulating in the system, and you are getting into trouble.

My system is based of the Pantera system (mid engine car) without a swirl tank

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Here is my thread when I was testing my system.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?12534-MRG-MotorSports-818S-Build&p=228056&viewfull=1#post228056

On a side note. If you go through exotic measures to bleed air from your car. You are asking for trouble down the road. Small air bubbles will travel through you system. The will eventually accumulate in the radiator. Slowly defeating the radiator cooling effectiveness and causing you to overheat.

[Ajzride]

Bob

Did you mean to include a picture that has hose C and D on it, or were you referring to my diagram?


NVM: I get you were referring to you bullet list. DOH!!

So a few questions.

C> The bleed hose on the discharge is at the top of the radiator, or the top of the discharge hose?
D> It seems like this is very close to where you put Wayne's mod. I already have Wayne's mod, could I just Y that into the bleed from the radiator, or do I need both? Any pictures of how you are adding a 5/16 tap into a coolant hose would be nice. I didn't see any reading your thread from the link you gave us, forwards about 4 pages.
E > Not sure what a pill is, google was not helpful either, probably because I don't know how to phrase my search.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

C> The bleed hose on the discharge is at the top of the radiator, or the top of the discharge hose?
D> It seems like this is very close to where you put Wayne's mod. I already have Wayne's mod, could I just Y that into the bleed from the radiator, or do I need both? Any pictures of how you are adding a 5/16 tap into a coolant hose would be nice. I didn't see any reading your thread from the link you gave us, forwards about 4 pages.
E > Not sure what a pill is, google was not helpful either, probably because I don't know how to phrase my search.

Hose "C" needs to be at the highest point of the radiator, So pressure from the water pump pushes any air in the top of the radiator back to the degas tank.
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Wayne's mod is OK. It would be better if it was on the top and the highest point. I would use something like this right after the top of the engine. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/uro-1j0121087b

I made m own "pill" out of a piece of 5/16 rod 1/2" long. With a 1/8" drilled the long way. Put this in your hoses and air will go through pretty fast, but it will really restrict fluid flow.

[Ajzride]

Thanks Bob, here are my thoughts:

A) Putting a 0 PSI radiator cap on the radiator, and use the overflow nipple for the vent, it's definitely the highest point of the radiator, run that back to the degas tank.
B) For the vent on the rear, I installed an inline radiator filler neck (see below) even with the top line of the engine, I can put 0 PSI cap there and use the vent nipple back to Y into the radiator vent and take back to the degas tank. I think this gives me the same result as the Yipe you linked.
C) Since I would be using the vent nipples, they are smaller than your 5/16 line, I might not need a pill?

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SR3BRWQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Thanks Bob, here are my thoughts:

A) Putting a 0 PSI radiator cap on the radiator, and use the overflow nipple for the vent, it's definitely the highest point of the radiator, run that back to the degas tank.
B) For the vent on the rear, I installed an inline radiator filler neck (see below) even with the top line of the engine, I can put 0 PSI cap there and use the vent nipple back to Y into the radiator vent and take back to the degas tank. I think this gives me the same result as the Yipe you linked.
C) Since I would be using the vent nipples, they are smaller than your 5/16 line, I might not need a pill?

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SR3BRWQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I would still put a pill in it. With a pill, both engine and radiator will be cleared of any air.

[Ajzride]

So this week I worked through the following modifications:

>> Put a 0-PSI cap on the radiator and used the vent nipple to run a 5/16 line from the radiator to the expansion tank. Added a pill to the line on the radiator end
>> Put a 0-PSI cap on the filler neck that I added right where the return line exits the block and used the vent nipple to run a 5/16 line to to the expansion tank. Added a pill to the line near the nipple
>> Added tee to the heater core supply line right where it exits the block. Used the tee to add a 5/16 line with a pill in it running to the expansion tank.
>> Installed the overflow tank and connected it to the expansion tank. Previously the expansion tank vent nipple had just been blocked off.

I had never installed the overflow tank because I didn't realize it was actually integral to the cooling system. On my last build (65 mustang), you just had a puke bag, and all of the expansion, contraction, and burping happens at the radiator. Having installed it and watched the system work, I can now it is very important to the Subaru setup. You can watch it while you are warming the car up and see all of the air bubbling through it as the system bleeds and burps.

I spent a long time yesterday chasing down perhaps a phantom leak. I could not get the vacuum system to pull a vacuum, it would max out at 5 inHg. However when I pressured the system up to 25psi, it held and didn't leak, so I'm kind of confused. Perhaps there was just a lot of water in the system still that was boiling off.

The car is heating and cooling well now, but I still don't have any flow through my heater core, I think it is still full of air. I have a leaking AN fitting at the bulkhead on the inside so I have to pull that anyway, I may try to pre-fill the heater core with coolant while I have that line loose.

thanks to Bob very much for his advice on setting up a vent system, and to Pete for keying me in to how important the overflow tank is. Also big shout out to KC for making up some pills on the lathe for me, it would have take half a day to make those with only a drill press and bench belt sander.

Going to try and figure out the heater core today, and once I know have it all working, then I have to drain the whole thing and fill it with real coolant. I've filled and drained so many times in the last 3 months I started using straight water so I wasn't putting so much ethelyne gycol down into the storm drains.

[Ajzride]

I'm pretty sure I have a bad water valve. It's a 4-way valve that is supposed to handle recirculation for the motor when the heater core is closed off, but I took it off the car and tested it with a water hose (5/8" just like a heater hose), and any back pressure at all, even just turning the valve on its end so that that gravity is fighting against it, and the water just recirculates and does not take the path for the heater core, no matter what position the valve is in. I think the flapper is loose on the shaft or something. I can't get it to flow through the heater lines. I know they are full of water and free of air because I filled and purged them manually. I'm going to look into how to make my own bypass and use the 2-way ball valve, it will seal much better.

[Ajzride]

The 4-way valve I bought from restomod air was labeled as a "Coyote" valve, because the Ford 5.0 requires the same constant cooling loop that the Subaru does. So I headed over to the Cobra section of the forum to see what those guys were using to accomplish this.

A lot of them use a 1996 Ford Ranger 4-way valve. This is controlled by a vacuum canister that can either be rigged up to a vacuum solenoid, or remove the canister and hook up a cable. That solution doesn't really appeal to me because I want to keep it integrated with the logic for the rest of the HVAC system. The other option they were using was an H pipe with a crossover that is smaller than the supply and return. The theory is that the 5/8 line that goes to the heater core and back should be less restrictive than the smaller crossover pipe, and therefore flow should choose that path when the valve is open, but still use the crossover to recirculate when the valve is closed.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/vta-344470?seid=srese1&gclid=CjwKCAjwiMj2BRBFEiwAYfTbCiTXrdpbKaOXo93x0amr W2SiO-0xw9Vguk1yeouCeQkvAmagtd6iRBoCbCEQAvD_BwE

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I'm not really in the mood to wait 10 days for something to show up, and also I'd hate to waste another $40 if it didn't work. However I figured I could probably find enough stuff laying around plus a cheap trip to Ace to make something up and test the theory. What I wound up with was two 5/8 x 5/8 x 3/8 Tees which I fashioned into an H-pipe, and then installed in-between the block and the 2-way heater valve (The tee in the top line is the bleed line with a pill in it):

129269

This proved as fruitless as everything else I have tried. At this point I just don't understand why I can't get hot water to flow to the heater core. I can trace the hose from the block to the heater core, and it starts out nice and hot, and cools off as you move along it until you to about halfway down the passenger side, then it is ambient temperature. I know the heater core works because while I was doing some troubleshooting I blocked of the recirculation line of the 4-way, which forced the water to go through the heater core, and the hoses got hot and warm air started blowing.

I really am completely stumped as to why I can't get the flow to choose the heater core over the recirculation line. I would think that maybe it wasn't taking the recirculation line either, except that I was able to force it through the heater core by blocking that off.

At this point, I'm exhausted, my hands are raw from wrestling hoses and hose clamps all day, and I'm ready to just sell the damn thing for $500. I use the stepless clamps because I hate the worm gears, but I blew through 40 of them today between moving the heater valve twice and then replacing it with the two way. Also, make sure you have all of your work along the firewall done before you install the windshield surround. I put it on about a week ago to check how the 2010 dash fit against it, and it made working on the heater valve and bulkheads a huge nightmare.

[Ajzride]

A 1996 ranger valve is only $12. I ordered one to see if I can make the actuator I have work with it.

[lsfourwheeler]

I'm running a Vintage Air H-pipe on my car and am not having any issues with heat. Looks identical to the Summit picture you posted. Once the car is up to temp, hot coolant flows through the heater core just fine. You sure you've gotten all the air out of your system?

[Ajzride]

I'm running a Vintage Air H-pipe on my car and am not having any issues with heat. Looks identical to the Summit picture you posted. Once the car is up to temp, hot coolant flows through the heater core just fine. You sure you've gotten all the air out of your system?

No I’m not, but I have no clue how to get it out if it is still there.

[Ajzride]

The Ranger valve came in today, It's identical to the Restomod air valve except it has a vacuum actuator on it instead of an electrical one. I tested it with the water hose and it sealed perfectly. So I started looking at how to move the electric actuator to the Ranger valve, and when I took it off, I found that Restomod air had just cut the metal arm from a vacuum actuated valve off short, made a small adapter from metal and ran a set screw through it. A little playing around I realized there was nothing wrong with the restomod air valve, it sealed just fine with the actuator disconnected and turning the shaft by hand. It appears the issue is getting the actuator which has a 90 degree movement lined up exactly with the valve that also has a 90 degree movement. Any misalignment and the actuator will over travel, sense high amps, and back off. It's incredibly difficult to line the actuator up with the valve perfectly because the set-screw can only be accessed to tighten at certain positions, and full open or closed are not in that range of motion. After fighting with it for about 4 hours, I've given up on trying to align it using the set screw, I've put a little JB Weld on the shaft and stuck it together at full open, and once that sets up I will rotate it and tighten the set screw. Maybe that will fix the valve sealing.

Still not convinced that is all of my problems though, because under the current circumstances, I will only be able to have full heating or full cooling, If the valve is anywhere in between, all of the water will go through the recirculation line and nothing to the heater core. Very confused about that, and why the H-pipe doesn't work. I still think I have a bad water pump that doesn't make sufficient head.

[Ajzride]

I just can't get the 4 way valve to work with the electronic actuator, and I'm not sure it ever will work right based on how an electric actuator works and how the valve is designed to be held tight with a spring. I did however make some more progress today and might actually be getting close to a resolution.

It appears that part of my issue was not following Bob's directions to T, and trying to expand on them. I placed a bleed line on the outlet of the block going to the heater core so that it would bleed off any air leaving the block and heading to the heater core. I figured this would actually catch a ton of air because when the engine is cold, this is the primary circulation path for the coolant until the thermostat opens up. Well I tested the entire heater circuit today with the water hose, and it appears that a 5/16th line with a 1/8 pill in it has less resistance than a heater core. The water flowing up out of the bleed line instead of going through the heater core. I was able to solve this by moving the tee for the bleed line to the return circuit of the heater core, although now any air that is in the system will have to make it's way through the heater core before it can bleed off. I'm not overly concerned about this because that is exactly what would happen if there was no bleed line there at all.

The next experiment I worked on was using the 2-way water valve with no h-pipe. The theory behind the h-pipe is to allow coolant to recirculate when you close off the heater core so that thermostat can still get hot water and open up. Since I drilled two 15/64" holes in my thermostat, I postulated that I might have enough coolant flow even with the heater valve closed to warm up the thermostat. This proved successful today (85 degrees and sunny). I will want to try this at least two more times to verify that there are no issues. Once it was warmed up I opened the valve and got plenty of hot water all the way through the heater core and very warm air from the unit. If I can indeed use the two way heater valve with no h-pipe and count on the holes in the thermostat for circulation, I will be at the end of my misery for the coolant system. If this does not prove to be 100% reliable to open the thermostat, then I will be back to figuring out why I can't get an h-pipe to work. My best guess at the moment is that the heater core from restomod air as a lot of small tubes versus fewer big tubes (compared to the vintage air unit or the Subaru unit) and it is requiring much more pressure to push through the core.

[aquillen]

Every time I read through this I get the feeling your heater core is partially plugged shut by a defect in the core. No heater core I can imagine should have more flow resistance than a 1/8" pill hole. You said the 1/8 pill flows more than the core which just can't be right to me. Your successful testing could also come out just as you say in post 306 with a blockage going on in that core, but it won't heat like it should in real use due to low flow = low thermal transfer capacity. Even if it was constructed with a lot of small tubes inside, it would be built that way with a header on each side of the tubes and in the end would flow very freely due to the multitude of tubes in parallel. If it is a single multi-loop tube it may be kinked or otherwise bad somewhere inside there. Such a blockage in the heater would also inhibit the H-pipe setup from working as intended.

From guesswork only, I'd think a typical heater core would pass a strong flow if connected to a 20# to 40# water hose running from your tap water and certainly more than a 1/8" pill blocked hose. Can you get some cover off that heater and inspect the tubing/assy from the outside at least?

If you cannot get access to the heater inside to look over the tubing, I can suggest a rather crude but probably realistic test. The internal length of the core's piping is probably an effective length of about 10 feet. Get that length of cheap hardware store plastic tubing in the same ID. Connect each to tap water supply (if well water - check what pressure you are using during each test). Run water into a bucket for X seconds and compare the performance of each. Should be in the same ballpark. Without two cores to compare this is pretty crude but I would expect the flow rates to be maybe 50% apart or less.

[Ajzride]

Every time I read through this I get the feeling your heater core is partially plugged shut by a defect in the core.

That thought had not occurred to me since it is a brand new unit, but would make more sense than a water pump that is not generating enough head (but still manages to cool the car just fine). I think I should probably call the vendor and ask them if they have a prescribed method of testing it, I wouldn't want to do anything that would void my warranty, which I should still be under. There is certainly no way to test it without dumping my freon charge, although that wouldn't be the end of the world.

If the rain blows out of here this afternoon I'll make a video showing the test with a hose.

[Ajzride]

Recreated the test on heater core flow and videoed it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKxCw2g0GM8&feature=youtu.be

[Jetfuel]

Are you holding the nozzle with some force to keep it from blowing back?
Restriction to flow makes pressure

[Ajzride]

Yes, I'm holding tight. When I did the initial experiment I wasn't using the spray gun, I cut the hose and stuck it on the barb with a clamp, so no extra pressure. That had the same result. I just didn't feel like cutting my hose and replacing the tip again (it needed to be done yesterday).

[aquillen]

Good test in your video. But that valve you have in there may be complicating the results. I suggest you remove the valve and connect your source water directly to the heater core line just past the valve. No vent line or pill at all in the next test. See if you get large flow (you should) or still get a trickle out of the core (= core/hose problem).

In your video, either the heater core or that valve is restricting the flow which is why you are getting very little flow through the core. This is also why you get nothing out of the vent line in the last part of your test where you went "backward". In other words, feeding in the normal direction, the restriction in the heater section causes plenty of pressure at the vent - pill line and you see high flow there. Whatever it is, it is that same restriction in the other direction that drops pressure before it gets to the pill so there is not enough left to push any water out that line. You are showing that you have a restriction in the main flow path - valve or core. And that does not look like a ball valve (may be a globe valve). Ball valve would be a much better choice if it is not one now and you need to have it in there.

[jforand]

I think I would put my vote in for the bad heater core. There should be no restriction to flow as aquillen suggests, especially at the flow rate your hose was producing. I have chased this on other cars and spent days trying to dissolve out deposits and then of course deposits that were flaking off all piled up in the heater core as the lowest and most remote part of the system.

I know you say your core is new, but I think it is defective. Likely excess solder that has clogged a bunch of the flow. I am thinking you have little choice but to pull it and test the flow directly. Again, they are designed to introduce near zero pressure drop at the nominal flows they see, which is not dissimilar to your hose.

[aquillen]

jforand has it. But I would say as long as you ONLY have a correct size hose into and back out of the heater core you can test it for good flow using those lines, just don't have other things in the path like that valve, the T to the pill and so on. If you still have low flow in that straight forward path in and out of the heater then pull it and plead your case with mfgr.

[Ajzride]

I can pull the valve but I don't think it is the issue. I'm thinking what I will do tomorrow is perform the same test at the bulkhead, eliminating all hoses, valves, etc (everything except the heater core).

[jforand]

If going to the bulkhead cuts everything out except a straight hose path, as aquillen suggests, you will get the answer on the core.

Good luck, hope it locks things in for you.

[Ajzride]

Well I certainly didn't get the results I expected. The summary is that there is no flow drop through the heater core, and a moderate drop through the entire circuit at a high flow rate (4GPM) but virtually no drop through the entire circuit at the flow rates the water pump produces (1.15GPM).

I'm not sure if I should be chasing the flow drop I'm seeing, or marking it up as acceptable and focusing on the overall low flow rate, or just saying it is all good and moving on with my life.

Here is a chart summarizing my results:

129515

I started out with what i thought was a reasonable flow (3 GPM) and tested the flow drop through the core itself, which was nothing. Next I started chasing flow drop through the circuit thinking all of the 90s I had added to keep the hose routing clean might be causing an issue. There are 3 on each line so a total of 6 on a round trip. While this did add up to a 21% loss, it didn't feel like it should be enough to justify what I was seeing with the water wanting to jump through the air bleed line instead of the heater core circuit. I decided to check how much water the circuit actually flowed while at idle, and it came out to roughly 1.15 GPM (albeit inconsistent). So I rechecked the entire circuit at 1.15 and only came up with a 4% loss. This actually makes sense to me based on the 1 fluid mechanics class I had in college, because pressure drop through fittings is exponential with flow rate, especially if you cross over from laminar to turbulent flow.

I'm utterly confused and have no answers. Since the heater is blowing hot air (126 F) and the system is cooling, I could just walk away from it, but I'm afraid it might come back to bite me in the rear later since I know it's not functioning as designed.

Certainly open to observations I might have missed or suggestions.

here is a video of all the testing if you are inclined to watch and ensure I didn't do anything stupid.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-5VRh7FR7c

[jforand]

Hmm, it might be time for me to step out of the conversation as I have not covered any of this ground yet. Just mounted my water pump to my engine rebuild:D

My final thoughts:

I will say that the water pump is pretty small in comparison to many other engines. I am actually quite surprised that it works well at all for our 818's. You mentioned the 90s which are certainly a source of head loss, but the line is as well. In the OEM world everything was up front and very short tubing runs. Here we have the engine behind the driver and the radiator and heater core very far forward. There is tons of tubing (and fittings) added to the system over what the OEM design was. The pump will reduce flow as the head loss in the system increases as you noted. Most people think that to deadhead a pump you must cap off the tube, but in reality you can dead head a pump if you hook a long enough (and/or small enough) tube to it. When the system losses exceed the pump's head you get no flow. One way to get a quick demonstration of the phenomenon is to take one of your long brake lines and try to manually blow out the tube from one end (something you do when cutting and flaring). You will quickly find it is pretty impossible and you need the additional pressure a compressor provides.

Not sure of the size tubing you are running, but as you go longer you would need to go larger to avoid adding head loss and of course each of the fittings is a sharp change in direction coupled with an inner diameter restriction.

I am thinking that you don't have enough pump to push all of the plumbing as it exists. The part that bugs me here is that others are saying they have no issues. Up'ing the RPMs increases pump pressure and will force more water flow. The heater core I talked about flushing was in a BMW Z3 and it clogged. Long story short, there was a bunch of scale in the system from lack of maintenance, when I did maintenance (new coolant and distilled water) the scale started to soften and break free. It basically all ended up in the heater core. The symptom was diminished heating. Eventually, the heat was gone at idle (sitting at a school bus stop) and would return if you rev'd the engine. We needed the excess pump pressure to push through and around all the gunk and debris. I know your system is clean so it is not a scale issue, but I think the head losses and pumping pressure is very much what you are dealing with.

[lance corsi]

I’m wondering if the addition of an external water pump would help. On my 818, I used a Stewart in-line 40 gpm pump but I removed the impeller from the stock pump before installing, thus rendering the pump to a pass-thru housing. Also, I removed the thermostat and am controlling the pump via a signal from the coolant temp sensor located on the upper crossover plenum.

[Ajzride]

This barb on the upper cross-over pipe is what used to feed the degas tank in the stock setup. That barb gets plugged when adding Wayne's mod.
124632

Turns out my crossover pipe doesn't look exactly like that, but it does have a barb (smaller and further right) that leaves the crossover pipe and connects to the hard pipe that returns the heater loop to the thermostat. So that line should be heating up my thermostat even if the heater doesn't flow.

[Ajzride]

One of the things I've been working on in the background and at night while I fight the cooling system if finishing up the arduinos. I could not find a box I liked that would fit in the space available (behind driver, above gas tank) so I fab'ed one up out of 16 gauge sheet metal. I chose 16 gauge because it is thick enough to tap for 8-32 bolts. I don't have a brake, so I had to bend it up with some 3/16 flat bar, vice grips, and C-clamps. Once I had it shaped and tapped it got powder coated. I am making a top that will screw on to mirror the top of the Coach-1 screw on lid.

The big board is the Mega 2560 that talks to the ECU and drives the gauge cluster. It uses a MC33660 to communicate SSM to the ECU, and then a serial over USB line to communicate to a tablet running RealDash. I have a thread dedicated to the effort here:

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?34088-Subaru-SSM-to-Can-Bus-Convertor-DIY

The smaller board is an Uno to drive the electric parking brakes. I had attempted to run it all from the Mega, but there is some funky code in the library.h that comes with the motor driver shields that keeps interrupting the timers and causing the SSM to abort communicating. It's probably better to separate the communications board from the higher power motor drivers anyway. The Mega is picking up the vehicle speed over SSM and sending it as a 0-5V signal to the Uno so that the emergency brake pressure can be decreased as speed increases, to prevent a total lock up if you try to use it as an emergency brake while moving. The Uno itself uses a VNH5019 motor driver shield to control the electric brakes. The shield can sense the amp draw from the motors, and it sends power until the desired amperage is hit, then it cuts the power. I have it setup to use a single ground signal as a toggle to set/release the electric brakes. The speed signal from the Mega will be used to linearly scale the max amps.

I have a little more testing to do before I can finish shrink-wrapping all of the wires and make it look cleaner.

129610

129611

[aquillen]

Very cool.

[Ajzride]

Decided to move forwards with the cooling system for now. It seems to work fine so today I drained the hose water and filled it up with coolant and started the painful process of trying to bleed all of the air out again. Car heats and cools fine in the driveway, but as soon as you start driving it around the block it overheats pretty quick. Try again tomorrow.

[Ajzride]

Overall it was a good day, albeit with some hiccups.

* Got all of the air out of the system. Drove for almost 20 minutes with no overheating at all.
* Started working on Alignment. My upper control arms have been modified per Wayne's tips for shortening the early UCAs. I installed the camber bolt per hindsights thread and now I have almost 1 degree of negative camber. Still need to check caster
* I reset the coil over ride height since I moved the rear mounting point to allow for camber bolts. Whoever designed the rear suspension is demonic, the adjustment for the coils over is right behind the lateral link, can you can't hardly get a grip on it, and there is no room to turn.
* Adjusted car to 1/8" toe front and back.
* Took the car for another 20 minute drive, it feels very unsettled. Likes to jump left and right, especially on uneven roads. I"m assuming this is bump-steer but I've never experienced it before so I'm not positive. I do have the Baer kit.
* Went to tidy up all of the heater and vent hoses I added, and found that one of the heater hoses had gotten into the passenger wheel. I had to cut out that hose and re-bleed the entire system.
* Took the car for a final drive to make sure all of the air was out. Coming up the drive way the drivers axle popped loose again (see video below from earlier this year). I'm not sure why I can't drive with that axle loose since I have a limited slip (Subaru OEM), but it wouldn't go anywhere. Wife had to help me push it up the driveway, I will never live this one down. I have to find out why this axle keep popping loose, it just feels like it is 1/2 inch too short. Has anyone else had problems with a short axle?


https://youtu.be/ZCZ4h0075Bc

[Hobby Racer]

* Adjusted car to 1/8" toe front and back.
* Took the car for another 20 minute drive, it feels very unsettled. Likes to jump left and right, especially on uneven roads. I"m assuming this is bump-steer but I've never experienced it before so I'm not positive. I do have the Baer kit.


You do mean 1/8" toe IN and not toe OUT, correct? Toe out would make the car dart from side to side and be unstable.



* Took the car for a final drive to make sure all of the air was out. Coming up the drive way the drivers axle popped loose again (see video below from earlier this year). I'm not sure why I can't drive with that axle loose since I have a limited slip (Subaru OEM), but it wouldn't go anywhere. Wife had to help me push it up the driveway, I will never live this one down. I have to find out why this axle keep popping loose, it just feels like it is 1/2 inch too short. Has anyone else had problems with a short axle?


Wow, didn't see that video before. It looks like the axles splines popped out of the Tri-Y lobe inside the half shaft assembly that goes into the trans. Is that what happened? If so you may have lost/broken the snap ring that retains the splines inside the Tr-Y lobe.

[Ajzride]

Yes, toe is 1/8 in for front and back.

I agree the Tri-lobe looks to have separated, will tear into it tomorrow and look at the snap ring. PO put the shaft together, so it’s an unknown quantity.

[lsfourwheeler]

If you're curious why you couldn't drive the car with the axle popped, the OEM Subaru LSD is a torsen or quaife unit. Which is a torque-biasing type differential. The quick version of how they work is they can send a multiple of one wheel torque to the wheel with more grip. This ratio is fixed depending on the differential. So your wheel with more grip could receive say 8 times the torque that the wheel with less grip is able to put to the road.

Unfortunately this means that if one wheel has 0 grip. Such as being in the air or disconnected from the axle, 0 times ~8 is still zero and you can't move. It is essentially an open diff at this point.

[Ajzride]

Unfortunately this means that if one wheel has 0 grip. Such as being in the air or disconnected from the axle, 0 times ~8 is still zero and you can't move. It is essentially an open diff at this point.

Well that sucks, but makes sense.

[Ajzride]

John Nailed it, the snap ring had come off the tri-lobe:

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The end of the axle was a little jacked up from spinning against the tri-lobe. I was able to clean it up with a small triangle file.

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Overall not as bad of a job as I had feared.

[AZPete]

Thanks for posting the cause and the fix. Useful to all in the future.

[Ajzride]

Got the electric brakes wired up, now I can stop carrying a wheel chock with me everywhere:


https://youtu.be/4K9qs53PbvU

[sgarrett]

I have been known to use one of my shoes as a wheel chock. I usually have one of those with me.... :D

Your solution is definitely better though.

[Ajzride]

My Android head unit that I will use for a gauge cluster arrive yesterday, so I started working out the details of where it will be mounted. My first thought was that I would mount it high enough that it was above the entire steering wheel, so that nothing blocked the view. However once I put it in a board and held it up there, I realized that would be blocking a huge swath of my view, and be unsafe and maybe even fail an inspection. So I then started to look at what it would take to get it low enough it fit behind the steering wheel (like a good gauge cluster should). My first attempt was probably acceptable, but i was looking for every little bit I could get, so I trimmed the bracket for the steering column a tiny bit to get another half inch drop:

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My silver line actually is a little lower than I cut, I cut the top side of the line so that I basically came straight off the dash frame and made it level (like it should have been from the factory)

I then built a temporary housing out of pink foam so that I can drive around with it for a little while and see if I can live with it:

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With this location, I think I can design my digital dash so that all of the information I want sits inside the steering wheel, and then put a few indicator lights in the upper corners above the steering wheel. If I decide I don't like it in this location, then I'm thinking about getting crazy and making a center mounted gauge cluster. Think BMW Z8, but digital and square instead of long and wide:

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[Ajzride]

Haven't made a lot of progress since my last post, 2 weeks of vacation and then I've been restoring a vintage drill press and bench grinder since I got back. The el-cheapo $95 Android head unit has already crapped out (USB port won't talk to anything), so I picked up a more expensive one from Amazon that will hopefully be better (at least an RMA will be easier).

4th of July marked 1 year since I brought the car home. I said at the beginning there was no timeline, but it would probably be a 2 year build. In my mind that was about 1 year of mechanical and 1 year of body work. So far I'm a few months behind that loose schedule. I certainly had no idea that the cooling system would kick my butt for 3 months, and the mechanical shift linkage took much longer than anticipated. I just need to get the alignment correct and then I will start working on body parts. I've already brought the side panels home from storage because modify the scoops and creating a plenum for my TMIC will be the first modification on the exterior. Hopefully that is only a few weeks away.

[Frank818]

What brand/model crapped out and what brand/model you got from Amazon afterwards?

[Ajzride]

The one from eBay was so cheap, it literally has no brand on the box or the device (Yikes!!). The one from Amazon is an MP5.

[Frank818]

Oops!!!! Ok no name crapping out makes sense. loll Sorry about that.

MP5... funny, this is what I get when I search Amazon for MP5: https://www.amazon.com/Crosman-DSBR-Powered-Full-Rifle/dp/B079VLFD7D/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=mp5&qid=1594425771&sr=8-2

lollllll + a bunch of ammunition. :)

However MP5 Tablet provides a better expected result, never heard of that brand but there are so many Android brands now... What screen size? Hopefully this one will last, or at least last sufficiently longer!

What if you need to replace again but can't get the proper overall size, will you still be able to make it fit or you'd have to to modify you cluster or "cluster casing"?

[Ajzride]

Both of the ones I have bough are 10.1" screens in a double-din radio mount. I'm not worried about not being able to find 10" android head units in a double-din mount for a long time.

I finished up the drill press today so I'll be back on the car tomorrow. First job is putting int he new screen and the second job is changing out the tie-rod ends to try and get rid of some more bump-steer.

[Ajzride]

After a two-week vacation, I've spent the last two weeks restoring an old bench grinder and drill press a family member gave me. This was very different than working not he 818, much more like restoring my mustang. Lots of rust, dust, and debris. Gunked up old oily junk etc. I blew both of them apart, wire wheeled them back to bare metal, and replaced anything that was a consumable. I managed to get away with painting nothing. The stuff that was too big for powder coat (or had bearings) got coated with Raptor liner (the grey in the pictures), everything else is powder coated (blue and black). The drill press was given to me because the motor was smoking, turns out it is a split phase (self starting() motor and there was a huge dirt dobber nest closing up the start release spring. As soon as I busted that out the motor worked perfectly. The drill press is a 1969 Craftsman, and the benchpress is a Diehl from probably the early 70s.

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I spent the first half of the day cleaning up all the dust from the restoration, and rearranging the garage to hold both of them, then I turned my attention to the gauge cluster. It looks like the second head unit I bought from amazon is the exact same thing as the one I had from eBay. The body is a different color, but the plugs are exactly the same, I didn't have to rewire anything. But as soon as I plugged it in, it worked perfect. In my last post, I had dropped the panel down low, right on top of the steering column so that the gauge was directly behind the steering wheel (like in most street cars), however this was much too low. After only one trip around the block, i realized I was looking down and having to take my eyes way to far off the road. So now I've raised it up so that it is just above the steering wheel:

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With it down low, I was using displays that had one round gauge in the middle, and then extra information on the sides. With it up top, I needed to go to a setup with two round gauges on the edges and extra information in the middle. This one is still very much a work in progress, but it is my first take on a from-scratch display:

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[Ajzride]

Like everyone else, it didn't take long for me to decide the bump steer was flat out dangerous on this car. I hit one bumpy section of road at 35 mph and almost found myself in a ditch. I have the Baer kit, but I could only get about 22mm of shims installed before I ran out of bolt. Hindsight said he had the best luck with 46mm, which required drilling out the spindle and buying a heavy duty 5/8"x4" bolt. I'm okay with doing that, I already have a 5/8 drill bit, but wanted to try something else first. Thanks to a tip for Rogier, I did some digging and found that speedway sells a 5/8 rod end for tie rods, and an assortment of spindle studs to go with it. The closest to what it looked like I needed was a 4" Pinto stud:

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The taper was really close, but not exact. I probably would have been fine to leave it like it was, but I thought I could do better, even without a lathe. I took the taper, colored it with a sharpie, inserted it into the spindle and tightened the nut on top finger tight, then spun the stud with a wrench. When I pulled the stud out, I could see on the taper where the marker had worn off, and knew what my contact patch was. Then I put the stud in my drill press, let is spin while I lightly held a very small jewlers file up against it to start adjusting the taper:

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I'm not sure if it really comes across in the pictures, but I feel like I have a really solid contact patch across the entire profile of the stud. I'll keep an eye on it and if I see any abnormal wear, then I'll just have to drill it out for a 5/8 bolt.

Once I had the taper matched up, I cut a 46mm spacer from some thick walled tubing, reamed it with a 5/8 drill bit, and put it all back together. With a 46mm spacer, I just barely have 3 threads sticking through the nylon lock nut at the top and bottom:

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Unfortunately I didn't get to really test out the improvement in bump-steer because of a few problems. First the fuel pump module appears to be gone. At first I thought the immobilizer was acting up again because when I turned the car on I didn't hear the fuel pump prime. I even went through all the trouble of hooking back up the factory dash to see if the immobile light was turned on (I probably need to install a standalone LED for that), but it wasn't, so I bypassed the FPCM and just let the pump run anytime the ignition was on, and the car started up and idled fine. Next I disconnected the battery again for 30 minutes so I could follow the instruction linked below to re-learn the idle (since I always keep the battery disconnected).

https://www.subaruforester.org/threads/how-to-idle-re-learn-after-battery-disconnect.154161/

However, going through that process made the car run like absolute garbage. In addition to dying anytime you coasted to a stop (which it always does, and I've always thought it was the idle learn being skipped), it ran like total crap. It was spitting, sputtering, bucking, surging and pretty much underivable, it took a ton of work just to get it around the block and back to the house. I'm wondering if the problem is my car taking so long to warm up while it is trying to learn idle, or could it be a fuel supply problem with having the fuel pump running at full speed all the time (it shouldn't have a fuel pressure regulator tied into a return line). Or could the FPCM not turning on be a sign of a bigger problem I need to look into? Still trying to learn these Subarus. Other than dying at idle, the car has always run pretty well until today.

[aquillen]

Press and grinder - beautiful resto work. That drill press I'd bet is more solid and tighter runout than anything you could buy today in any box store. Especially aggravating is both my presses have vertical "slop" so that when a drill bites into stock it pulls/jumps up or down just a hair which can cause stalling and crappy drill work. (that's even after me trying to work them over).

Bump steer - like how you tackled the taper, just the kind of stuff I like to come up with too. Look forward to your result. I used that Pinto part as well, 818 friend loaned me a taper reamer that happens to match the Pinto. But I believe your method would have been easier because working that reamer by hand and getting it right in the process is not easy at all (at least not if on the car).

[Ajzride]

Yes, the drill press run very true and is far superior to the one I bought from Home Depot, and I bought the most expensive one they had :(

[Ajzride]

Today I set my mind to figure out why the car was running like garbage. This time, it didn't even wait until it was warmed up to act like an idiot, first fire after a week of being off and it was sputtering and spitting like a 65 nova with a cam two sizes too big. First thing I did was check the wiring on all of the sensors, and sure enough, I had missed plugging back in the O2 sensor when I installed some cooling stuff, but that didn't fix the problem. Next step was to start unplugging things to see if they made no difference (likely not working or connection issue) or made things better (not working). The first thing I unplugged was the MAF, instantly it started to run like a champ. Did a little reading, unplugging the MAF disables most of the air circuit, so it could be the MAF, O2 sensors, a few other items. But since the O2 had already been unplugged at one point, I decided to work on the MAF first. Cleaned it with some alcohol and a toothbrush and the problem seems to be solved. Ran for 60 minutes in the garage like perfectly and then went around the block twice with no issues. Once it cools off a little bit I'm going to take it for a longer drive and hit my bump-steer testing curve and see how it handles that.

While I had the car idling in the garage, I replaced the J-hooks on the battery with some 3/8-16 all thread. Battery feels much more secure now.

Still think my fuel pump control modules is bad, I have the pump tied directly to the relay running at full speed with key on for now. If anyone has a spare they can let me test with before I fork out cash for a new one, please let me know.

[Frank818]

MAF are sensitive to dirt and oil, usually cleaning it works, thank god that seemed to be the issue! Easy fixes are SO welcomed! :) I hate all those engine issues, I hate it so much when something goes wrong with the engine...

[Ajzride]

Bumpsteer appears to be resolved as well, the car is no longer scary. Tomorrow I will start on the drivers quarter panel modifications.

[Ajzride]

Started on body mods today. My first goal was to reshape and enlarge the scoop in the quarter panel, but that required relocating the gas cap. For now I just closed in the existing hole, will mark where I want the new hole once I have it on the chassis and my ducting routed.

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I want to change the shape of the scoop. Right now the top extends up towards the top of the car. It is supposed to match up with a body line on the door, but the body line on the door is so poorly defined it is basically invisible, and it leaves the scoop looking funny and small in my opinion. The scoop will now follow the body line of the quarter panel:

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A little work with the body saw and I'm ready for new glass:

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I'm also going to push in the scoop to make it much deeper (about 5 inches deeper):

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I glassed in the bottom (since it was just bridging a gap) and will let that cure for a couple of days, then I will need to fab up a form from foam, cardboard, or 3D print for the top.

[Ajzride]

Body work will definitely take a year. I'm sure I'll get better and faster the more I do it, but fiberglass only cures so fast. 3 days just to get one scoop roughed in.

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[aquillen]

It'll be worth the effort. Like your plans -

[Ajzride]

It'll be worth the effort. Like your plans -

Speaking of my plans... I just realized the only rendering I've posted is 16 months old. My youtube channel has a whole video dedicated to my cosmetic plans, but I never updated here. Needless to say, I've been through dozens of design iterations since I started, but hopefully now that I'm actually cutting things up, I've got it mostly nailed down.

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The key things:

- Quarter panel scoops reshaped and enlarged. One side will feed a plenum on TMIC, other side will feed the CAI
- Hood reworked to have one hole, used to exhaust radiator air
- Lower bumper completely reworked
- Toyota Celica headlights
- Custom Engine cover that comes all the way up over the roll bar and has a sealing surface for a hand-made targa top.

I think the side scoops and the hood scoop will be the most tedious, because I'm working within existing structure. For the engine cover and lower bumper, I can start from scratch and 3D print a buck to lay the fiberglass on.

[Frank818]

So it will look like that rendering?
Get it done now. :)

[Ajzride]

I'm catching up on a YouTube channel with a guy building a Tesla powered K-1 Attack. It's crazy how much better then K-1 looks than the 818, given the exact same wheelbase.

[Ajzride]

Well, the new head unit has already started having issues. White streaks running up and down the left side of the screen. Already on it's way back. I took the time to do some reading on what a good brand for Android head units would be, since they all seem to be fly by night chinese junk, and it seems that Joying is the market leader and Pumpkin is viewed as a good economy line. The Joying unit was $369 and the Pumpkin was $283. Since it seemed most of the extra money on the Joying was for audio features i won't use and a higher resolution screen I don't need, I decided to try the Pumpkin unit. Should be here Sunday and I'll post an update.

[Ajzride]

Drivers side quarter is modified. The panel is not prepped for paint yet, and the fiberglass work is pretty much at the same level of finish as the factory five fiberglass is (so full of pinholes). I won't start prepping panels for paint until I've had them all fitted and adjusted.

The plan for the passenger side is to fill the drivers side up with expanding foam, pull the plug out, 3D scan it, invert it, and then 3D print the passenger side. Should be much easier than forming it all by hand.

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[Frank818]

What's the black stuff on the driver's panel?

[Ajzride]

What's the black stuff on the driver's panel?

Just spray can primer so it was all one color.

[Flamshackle]

Aj I can’t wait to see how this comes together! Love the idea for the body and thinking similar things myself.

[Ajzride]

I saw all the fun the coupe guys were having getting their windows to work, and I just had to join in. Placed an order to with FFR for the new door frames and all the power window and glass components so I can have side windows on my car.

[Ajzride]

It's just temporary, but the car finally has a panel on it. I'm using 8-32 machine screws and tapping the frame rather than using rivets. I want the panels to be removable for paint.

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[Hobby Racer]

It's just temporary, but the car finally has a panel on it. I'm using 8-32 machine screws and tapping the frame rather than using rivets. I want the panels to be removable for paint.

All my panels are attached with 1/4"-20 flange button head socket cap screws that go into rivet nuts. I can't tell you how many times I have taken all the panels off my car!

You won't regret making them removable, trust me.

[aquillen]

The front firewall sheet bits I riveted. Everything else either rivnut or drill/tapped, depending on if it was thick enough metal. Mostly 10-32 and some 1/4-28 here and there. For the aluminum rivnuts I use alloy steel screws to hopefully avoid corrosion galling problems. Where tapped threads directly into the steel frame, etc., then I use stainless. I've had most everything on and off, sometimes way too many times to count.... :)

Now and then I did put a rivet, then next thing that happened seems it was drilled out for some reason.

[Ajzride]

The quarter panels are dragging out. I had thought the second one would be easier because i knew what I was doing, but it's taking longer because I keep having to go back and measure and make updates to ensure symmetry. I'm also spending a lot of time waiting on fiberglass to cure, so I started on the next project, MKZ tail lights.

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[Jetfuel]

Darn AJ....I do like that setup...

Jet

[Ajzride]

After I closed in the holes from the old lights, I used some black primer to two-tone the recessed area (because that is how I will do my paint) so that I could get a feeling for exactly how I wanted to orient the tail lights. I used red construction paper to make a template of the lights and taped it to the tail. Once I had it on there, I realized that I probably needed to adjust my plans for the two-tone, but rather than spray more paint, I just used photoshop to adjust the colors and make sure I was happy.

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Using the same construction paper template, I cut the holes out using a body saw.

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Then I used some cardboard to frame up a bucket around the lights and glassed it all together. I didn't get any pictures of that, but there is plenty of video on my youtube channel. The lights are recessed about 1/4" because they are not perfectly flat, but you can't really tell when you look at them. I still have to put a coat of body filler on it to clean up the cutouts, but this is as far as I'm going until I start prepping the panels for paint.

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It looks like there is a big black space around the lights, but that's just the kitty hair filler that I used to fill in the gaps between the panel and headlight bucket. Once it all gets primed the same color it will be much easier to see what it really looks like.

[aquillen]

Nice job going on there with the lights. As you know I've not been thrilled with the backside view. Will have my body on and post my final this week.

[Ajzride]

It still feels a little plain. I don’t want to do the Kia mod because I want to keep a diffuser, so I’m open to suggestions.

[Ajzride]

I’m thinking the two-tone coupled with really over sizing the lower vent will look good:

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[Frank818]

I vote for 2-tone, it will definitely provide a different look than same plain color, given your MKZ lights aren't that big either, they don't take a lot of space in that bumper. And then the oversized lower vent helps the visual cut at the bottom, yeah I like that idea.

[Ajzride]

I'm going to shift away from fiberglass work for a few weeks, it's too freaking hot to be outside sanding (102F with 95% humidity). I'm going to focus on building an exhaust now that I know where the rear bumper will live, wiring up the rear lights, and building a dust collection and filtration system so I can do bodywork in the AC. If anyone has any suggestions on indoor body work air handling, I'd love to hear them. Right now I'm considering using a shop vac fitted to 5-gallon cyclone separator. In addition to that I'm looking at a 1044 CFM dual cartridge hanging air filter that should change over the air in my 1-bay garage every 80 seconds.

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00004R9LO/?coliid=I151BFXKW77RO6&colid=2KU499GG4K942&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07BY8BZ3K/?coliid=I3SM50BM9F3XLM&colid=2KU499GG4K942&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B002GZLCHM/?coliid=I3QK45CDUOD7XW&colid=2KU499GG4K942&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01N7ONJUA/?coliid=I1NTX1QWF8O7O&colid=2KU499GG4K942&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07PDF2C4X/?coliid=I39VYJY58UZUZI&colid=2KU499GG4K942&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

[Ajzride]

I decided that a shop vac wouldn't cut it, so I bought the cheap harbor freight 2HP dust collector. I'm going to try just venting it outside and see if I have a problem with air management. My guess is the AC might struggle to keep up with me pulling in warm air from the outside while I'm pumping dust to the outside. If that is the case, then I'll add the cyclone separator and filters so I can keep the air in the shop.

In the mean time, I built my exhaust. Nothing exotic, just a generic high flow cat tied to a Flowmaster HP-2 muffler. I opted for the center mount exhaust because I think it looks better and doesn't require me to cut the fiberglass. I know there have been issues with exhaust smell in the cabin, but I'll be modifying the roofline enough I'm hoping it won't happen to me. If it doesn't i can alway throw a 90 in and turn it out the side. It's not really much quieter (10DB according to an iPhone app) than the stock cat, but the sound is much deeper and more mellow, so it sounds less shrill and is easier on the ears.

All of my welds were butt welds... butt ugly welds. The cat and the muffler were to different grades of SS, my miter cut was not square because I had to free hand it with a side grinder, and the slip fit 45 I bought left some wiggle around the cat, so I had more gaps to fill. It is however air tight, and will never be seen once the body and trunk go on. I also welded a support that comes off the bottom of the muffler and bolts to the transmission support with a rubber washer in between for support. I'm considering replacing the rubber washer with a spring for more flex.


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-BxFOdVc0M

[Frank818]

It's hard to have a shorter exhaust, isn't it? lolll

The HP-2 should help keeping it quiet. I love the deep and smooth tone, you're on my TOP3 Subaru exhaust for sure!

When you cranked it, was the engine already warm? Cuz it cranked in less than HALF a second!!! I'm really jealous! :)

[Ajzride]

That was cold, but I had let the fuel pump prime for 30 seconds

[Ajzride]

The first half of the dust collection system in in. I have no clue if it will work or if I will like it’s all just taped together for now. Waiting on blast gates and hoses to finish off the runs.

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[Rob T]

Hi; Not sure if it will be an issue here, but I have seen some video of some crazy dust explosions from a failure to ground properly. Dust, etc. moving through PVC can make some significant static voltage. I'm no expert, but did a fair bit of pneumatic conveying when I was working. Metal pipe, or spiral wire flexible tubing with grounding at both ends.

[Ajzride]

Rob

Thanks for looking out for me. I spent the first five years of my career in a granulation facility which had extensive powder handling equipment, and static explosions were a big concern (and we even had one). The grounding and bonding on those systems was very intense, but it was also highly flammable material being moved at thousands of pounds per hour rates. I wasn't initially concerned about it in my garage, but you prompted me to do a little research, and this is from Rockler, who makes a lot of money selling dust collection equipment:


Woodworking Question. I just got a dust collector for my home shop for Christmas. My shop isn't very elaborate (my wife calls it a "garage" - I call it my drive-in wood shop). While researching how to build up my system of tubes, I noticed most of the name-brand woodworking shops sell plastic dust collection tubing. Especially during the winter, the static electricity that builds up in this plastic is incredible and -- growing up near coalmines -- I learned that flammable dust and sparks don't mix. To avoid the possibility of blowing up, is it worth the time and money to set up a metal-based dust collection system, or just go with the fancy plastic stuff and ground it?

For that matter, should all the woodworkers out there with PVC systems put more effort into grounding them? A recent article showed a shop-built downdraft table hooked up to a plastic dust hose … is this a time-saver or time bomb? Then again, is metal tubing connected to a dust collector sitting on rubber casters really grounded or just a suspended capacitor looking for a ground?

Answer from Michael Dresdner: "This issue is one of the most hotly debated on Internet message boards. The best information from the most reliable sources I have seen is that, in most cases, you are perfectly safe running plastic pipe. Admittedly, if you can afford it, metal pipe is better. Plastic pipe may give you a shock, just like a shag rug paired with a wooly sweater, but it is not likely to generate a spark capable of starting an explosion."

Answer from Rob Johnstone: "Let me start out by saying that, in over 25 years of woodworking, I have never heard of an actual explosion or fire resulting from the 'static electricity on the plastic dust collection tubes' danger. Tons of ink (both real and virtual) have been spilled discussing and debating this 'issue.' With that said, if you are concerned about it ... ground the tubes with a wire running through the system. You'll feel better, the electrical supply company will thank you, and you can then be considered an expert during the next online 'discussion.' Did I mention that I have never heard of a problem with static electricity exploding dust in a plastic tubed system?"


All that said, since i have a metal pipe on my discharge, it would be easy for me to ground it, so I will probably do so.

[Rob T]

Awesome. My company was in the process of eliminating all standard shop vacs and replacing them with explosion proof units. The requirements for an explosion are the spark, oxygen and the proper density of fuel. From what I remember from most of the dusts I worked with, the cloud was so thick it was hard to see through. That would only happen in a dust collection system if you were picking up a big pile of something. Obviously, based on “real world” uses millions of times per day, nothing ever really happens, which is good.

[Frank818]

That's a nice setup, AJ!!

Rob, "requirement for explosion are the spark, O2 and fuel"... sounds like an engine to me! :)

[Ajzride]

I wanted to start working the doors, so I mounted my new frames from FFR that came with the power window kit, spent 2 hours digging through boxes to find the mounting plates and hardware, and then got the frame mounted with the latch installed. Then I went to install latch, and the bracket was no where near close, it was bent (turns out that is common, found a lot of posts on that), but in addition to being bent, it is positioned way too low. I was about to get busy hacking it and welding it when I decided to do some more forum reading. Seems the best practice is to make sure the quarters are 100% installed with the engine cover and deck lid before starting the doors. So I went back and made sure all both the side panes were installed exactly per the FFR instructions, and then put the tail back on I've been working on it on the side to clean up the body work). I also re-drilled all of the body bolts from 8-32 to 1/4-20 to give me a better selection of fasteners.

Now I have to get busy reading on getting the engine cover and deckled to fit, because mine are no where close.

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[Frank818]

True, the doors are pretty much the last body parts to align. They are twitchy in clearance.

[Ajzride]

After reading THE 818 Body Fitting Thread... I went back out today and started over. I clamped on all of the pieces then removed all of my fasteners. I ended up pushing the side panels back another quarter inch (7/8" back from front firewall) to get the rear wheels centered in the hole. After that I got the tailpiece to line up on all the body lines, then clamped in the engine cover. When held in place with clamps, the engine cover develops it's bow and fits pretty nicely. Lastly I put in the deck lid. Still have to get the rear fenders set side to side, I can tell Im a little too far to the drivers side, but I will need a helper to hold one side while I work the other. I'm also going to make a rear fender brace similar to the ZDB turnbuckle to allow me to fine tune the width of the rear fenders.

[Ajzride]

I attempted to put the door latch in the side panel and the striker on the door frame. I did this so it would be easier to run a hidden manual release to the door latch because I will be using electronic poppers to activate the doors. It didn't work out, the latch does not protrude through the fiberglass enough to engage the striker. It would have been massive surgery that would have looked terrible if I continued down that path. I did consider using some latches from a 65 mustang (I have them on hand and they stick out an extra inch), but that was going to introduce more issues, so I'm just going to install the latch like FFR intended. Lots of details on youtube if you are interested.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTfu69lWr4Q&list=PLzWG4OlH1D_nSAfKf59TXBpFlld_lpnft&index=55&t=0s

[Frank818]

I had a lot of issues with the FFR bracket, I needed to trick its installation using shims and fit it at an angle, both on the striker side and square bolts-frame side.
I also needed to use shims between the fiberglass and striker, on the outside (the door's side). That way I was able to make the striker taller and have a better reach on the latch, which allowed for better clearances on the backside and bottom of door.

[Ajzride]

Today I decided to get the side panels set in final position so I could return to the doors. As an aside, I know doors should really be last after the fenders, but since I'm going to be making so many modifications to the front, I decided I would just align the doors to the side panels and the engine cover and then make the fenders fit the doors when I hack them up.

To get the side panels in final position, I decided I needed a fender brace similar to what ZDB sells. However since I'm going to be modifying the deck lid and engine cover to accommodate my targa top, I decided not spend money on a nice one or even invest too much time in one until I know exactly what I need. To get my side panels in place, I simply took my harness bar (which I'm not using because I have street seat belts) and make some crappy brackets to bolt to the end so that I could get the side panels pulled in tight.

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Once I had the spacing set perfectly to the engine cover, I drilled the holes for the shock tower mount and bolted them tight in place. This allowed me to return my attention to the door. I'm not sure if everyone who moved their side pods back to center the wheel had issues with the striker brace not fitting, but mine would not go back far enough, so I had to extend the slots of the holes in the frame almost 1/2".

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With that modification and some time in the vice with a 5lb hammer and some vice grips to adjust the bend, I was able to get the striker brace to fit nicely.

With the the striker plate now set, I focused on the door frame and the latch. I've got a very early chassis (106), but brand new door frames, so I'm not sure if that is making my issues worse, or if I brought this all on myself my sliding the side pods back. Even with the door frame slid as far back to the tail of the car as possible in the slotted holes, I was still 3/8" too far towards the front of the car. I didn't see that there was really enough room to slot those holes any further, so I used a 1/2" piece of aluminum to make a spacer between the hinges and the frame. This got the latch all the way back to the striker. I know some people made longer strikers, or spacers for the striker, but I needed to move the hole frame back or I was going to have a massive door gap with the shell on.

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I've bolted the door shell to the frame above and below the striker, and I'm working on trying to mark the holes on the bottom front of the door so I can bolt those in, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

[Ajzride]

Both doors are hung. Great gaps, open and close smoothly with no rubbing. Took a lot of modifications to get there. I had to extend the slots on the frame for the striker on both sides because the striker was too far forwards. Also had to extend the slots for the hinges on passenger frame because the frame was sitting too low. Drivers side needed a spacer between the hinges and frame because the door was too far forwards. Now that the doors are hung, I can install my power windows that will roll up into thin air, and then start building a body around them.

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[Ajzride]

The MKV lights turned out to be not only a pain to install into the body, but also to wire up. I had used a 12V power supply and probed the 4 pins and figured out which pin was ground, parking, tail-lights, and brakes. However when I wired it all up at once, the brake lights was feeding back through the tail-lights. Must be a diode internally, because it does not feed through the other way. I tried adding zener diode on the taillight feed, but that just made the feedback dimmer. It turns out that even though the Lincoln wiring diagram looks like a traditional hookup, it's actually using the BCM to do PWM control of the LED lights. Apparently a constant 12V on the brake channel simulates close enough to one of the PWM settings that it tries to pass that power on to something else, most likely the side marker/blinker. I thought about trying to figure out the PWM thresholds and setting up my onboard arduino to control the taillights, but since I knew I could make it do what I wanted with just 12V signals (as long as I could isolate them), I decided to try and avoid that. I initially hooked up a relay to the taillight feed and that stopped the brake back feeding into it, but was messy and was going to be hard to make look clean. I went back and re-visited the diode. With the assumption that no diode is perfect, and that mine was doing something since the back feed light was much dimmer, I put them of them in series and added a resistor to bleed off any excess current, and that fixed the problem.

[aquillen]

I see you are having all kinds of fun - keep at it, looking good.

[Ajzride]

I'll start linking the youtube videos here in case anyone


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRnnu3sIkvw

[Ajzride]

Dust collector install and adventures taillight wiring:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs-WD46g5Pk

[Ajzride]

Now that I have mufflers, I can hear the turbo:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9_UTS8WLMQ&feature=youtu.be

[Frank818]

Wow, that's a turbo sound I've never heard before! Sounds like a mad V8 Texas Hennessey supercharger! :) I like that. Actually, you could get your 818 powered by Hennessey, but I think I'd need 2 engines for that. :)

Is dust that much of a problem in Houston?

[Ajzride]

Is dust that much of a problem in Houston?

It is if cut, grind, and sand fiberglass inside.

[Mechie3]

I'm kinda late to the party, but my first thought when I saw your side sails was to say "rig up something to pull them together", then I see you did just that. It certainly makes it easier. I couldn't get my trunk and engine cover to find how I wanted to I made them into one piece and cut lots of stuff off. My trunk wouldn't even fit between the sidesails where it met the bumper. For my door striker, I had to cut the right angle bracket that bolts on right along the bend, then bend it and reweld. The angle of teh bracket was off by about 10 degrees relative to the angle on the sidesail.

[Ajzride]

For my door striker, I had to cut the right angle bracket that bolts on right along the bend, then bend it and reweld. The angle of teh bracket was off by about 10 degrees relative to the angle on the sidesail.

Yes, I reviewed your thread as well as Hindsights's when I was fighting mine. Thankfully I was able to get there with a vise and a 5lb hammer and didn't need a welding machine.

[Ajzride]

Started working on the heavy modifications to the rear for a full time, weather proof targa top. I started out by bonding the trunk cover and engine cover together so that I could then cut them back apart differently, as noted by the sharpie markings:

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I put the center of the decklid into storage for now, and began working on how I wanted the back and top to come together. I started with the corner that was left from the old engine cover, and then used masking tape to help me define the shape:

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I took a picture of the tape, and marked it up on my tablet to get a better feel for how it will look before I committed to it. I actually wound up with several revisions of the tape and renderings before I was happy with the size of the flying buttress:

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Lastly I started playing with some foam to see which mediums and application techniques I like best. I probably won't be able to use anything from this experimentation, but hopefully I learn something.

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[AZPete]

That's why I love this place! Even though I don't currently have an FFR build, I love the creativity, skills, and courage like Aj's targa.

[DSR-3]

Great project. I look forward to the process and results.

*I recently did a big airbox plug from 2 part foam in multiple pours. I learned that after shaping and finishing the foam plug that some areas shrunk/collapsed just before I made the mold. I may have been guilty of less than 100% mix on a layer...

[aquillen]

Just told Jet yersteday when he visited here, if I had it to do over, I'd have not bought the hardtop add on (I started with an S kit). I'd have gone with a DIY targa. Liking your plan all the way.

[Ajzride]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

A rasp makes quick work of the foam.


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[Ajzride]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X8hIBrt92k

[Ajzride]

Does anyone know for certain if the windshield is the same between the coupe and the roadster? I’m trying to fit my windows (against air!!) and it certainly feels like the coupe windshield is narrower and more curved than the roadster. That feeling comes from looking at the gap between the windows, windshield, and back edge of the door.

[aquillen]

I have one of each. The first (roadster) was from 4 years back, the second (coupe) from 2 years back. The first one cracked in a month sitting in the corner. But I used it to check fit on the frame last month. SAME.

[Ajzride]

Thanks Art, there must be an optical illusion playing havoc on me when looking at pics, since I don't have a coupe to look at.

Looking at this picture, it looks like the back of the window is about 1" from the back of the door, and the front of the window is about 4" from the windshield.

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But looking at mine, I feel like the back of the window is lined up 1" from the back of the door, but my front is about 8" from the windshield.

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[AZPete]

Comparing the windshield angle of my roadster which I converted to a coupe, the angle looks about the same. Of course, the S windshield can be adjusted but the C windshield is fixed and the C includes a triangle at the A pillar. I know for sure that the glass is from a 2004 Toyota MR2 because I had to replace it.

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=135534&d=1601144270

[Ajzride]

Thanks Pete, your coupe picture helps some, I can see the white fiberglass that closes part of the gap, but also a black section, which might be rubber, but takes up some room outside the glass as well it looks like.

[Ajzride]

Is anyone else having issues accessing the forum? For about ten days now it has been down more than up for me. It wasn't really a problem, until this weekend when I was in the middle of trying to cut up my doors and couldn't get on to look at some pictures I had bookmarked. I've tried a couple of times today to post some updates, but it always goes offline again before I can get the pictures uploaded and posted.

[aquillen]

Not had a glitch, poke around in here about every day.

[Ajzride]

It appears to be an AT&T fiber issue, website loads quickly from my Verizon based phone (if I turn off the wifi).

With one window installed, I was able to use some more tape to further define the shape of the sail panel:


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I stretched some thin cloth across the tape and applied resin, then a layer of fiberglass mat. Now I will be using foam, plaster, and body filler to finish the plug.

[FFRWRX]

This is very cool!

[Ajzride]

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Test


Weird, I couldn't even post a comment earlier this morning. I'm still having lots of trouble with the forum, I think getting there from my phone one time was a fluke. Perhaps it is a regional server issue. Anyone else in the Southeast noticed any problems?

[Frank818]

I have had that issue on your screenshot earlier this summer. In my case there were 2-3 words in a specific sentence that when I was removing them I was able to post, but if I was adding them back, it was preventing me from posting. Those words were totally legit.

I contacted the Moderator (David Hodgkins) and sent him screenshots. I suggest you do the same, that way he will know I was not the only one and that there is "something" spooky about the forum.

[Ajzride]

Updates will probably be really slow as this process is very iterative and time consuming, does not lend itself well to a hoppin' thread. Made a new form from the thicker felt and then started laying on plaster to fill in low spots and smooth it out. Probably need 1 or 2 more coats of plaster before I'm ready to move onto the seal around the window.

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[Ajzride]

I've been trying to post this link since Sunday and the server wouldn't cooperate. Highly annoying.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdbFymCTp7o

[Frank818]

Double thumbs up on your wife starting the video!

[Ajzride]

My wife is camera shy, had to talk my girlfriend into making the intro.

[Frank818]

AJ, girlfriend aside, how difficult, compared to the rest of the build, would you rate that body work you're doing now? There seems to be quite a lot of stuff to create there.

[Ajzride]

Creating these panels that don't exist from scratch is certainly a whole new level compared to putting together the parts that are there, or even modifying the existing panels. It's getting easier as I learn what works for me and what doesn't, but it will easily double the build time by taking this on. Not only does it take a lot of extra hours, but there are times when I lose a whole day of work waiting on fiberglass to cure. Hopefully next weekend I"ll get to where the sail panel is ready for me to start working on the window mating surface.

[Frank818]

Oh yeah I remember that lost time waiting for the glass to cure! True, it takes quite some time and from scratch it really is a challenge when you're not a pro into it. I also much better understand the dust extraction system you built! Gotta build tools yourself to do the work you want to do... I know how you'll feel once everything is on the road, just wait for it, you'll see. :)
I mean, don't "wait" for it, but "work" for it. loll

[Ajzride]

Progress is really slow,


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVFUL_yW3vc

[Jetfuel]

AJ..check your PM

Jet

[Ajzride]

This weekend I got the lip to hold the weatherstripping against the window built. I used a piece of aluminum flat bar that I bent to match the curvature of my top, and then bolted it to the structure while I bonded it in place. The weather seal I have is a bulb type with a windlace attachment. I missed getting a few pictures, but basically I bolted the flat bar to the body with shims in-between to set the spacing, then I filled the gap with duraglass, once the filler set, I used fiberglass matting to securely attach the metal strip.


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baIdehP1vj0

[Ajzride]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYT1cIYcwJc

[Ajzride]

Very little progress worthy of a video or a post. Using sheetrock mud to help shape custom panels is way cheaper than using body filler, but it takes 8 hours to dry instead of 20 minutes. Since I have a lot of side projects for work, house, holidays, I'm using the mud. I did however get my radiator updated. I could never find one that fit like I wanted and had the inlet/outlet on the proper side so I was using crossover pipes in front of the battery, it was messy and had extra connections which I was concerned would leak eventually. My dad had a friend who can weld aluminum, so he swapped the inlet and outlet for me. Much cleaner now.

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[Ajzride]

Hurricane's, holiday's, decorating, house projects, waiting on gypsum and fiberglass to cure..... Progress has been really slow. I have two cruise sail panels and they are connected together. Hopefully the week between Christmas and New Years will see a whole lot of progress made.


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaJ6Zc8MZqE

[Ajzride]

Holding spot for an image:

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[beeman]

Some of the measurements are to radii, so are not super precise, let me know if you need anything clarified. 1994 Del Sol.
A 54"
B 39.5"
C glass size 27.5 at side, 31 3/8 at windshield center
D 2 side windows, pics attached
E 25 3/4
F 41
G not kept
H not kept
I if you look at the rear of the del sol door, it curves up. window height is 17" at the center of the window from the bodywork with a 1"wipe/seal so 16" above the seal
J 47.5
K 22.5

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[beeman]

Keeping the window heights on the GTM would have looked awful, so I 'chopped' the roof by bringing up the bodywork and the inner door card a few inches. Big pain but gives it a more exotic look.

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[Ajzride]

Thanks so much, I’ll be home Tuesday and I’ll mock these measurements up on the 818 to see how it compares.

[Ajzride]

So to add some back story and explain what got thrown up over the holidays... I was re-reading beeman's build thread, and saw that he grafted the top, windshield, doors, and side windows from a del sol onto his GTM to fix the issues that the GTM has with door/glass fitment, and also to add a targa top.

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?23183-Making-progress-on-my-build

This got me thinking that a similar approach could be a possible solution for me on the 818, and save me having to make so much stuff from scratch. Based on his measurements above, the Del Sol front windshield is almost an exact match for the 818, but the doors are about 5" too long, and the upper section is actually pretty square, meaning that is is almost the same width at the front windshield and the back glass. This looks pretty good on the GTM because the car itself is a lot longer and wider than an 818. I'm afraid on the 818 it will look very boxy if the back of the top doesn't taper in and follow the roll bar much closer. Right now with the direction I have been going, the top is almost 8 inches narrower in the back than at the front.

[Ajzride]

A realistic time frame for finishing the targa top is probably late summer or into next fall if I continue to dedicate my Friday's and Saturday's to the effort. I really didn't realize what I was biting off when I started this project. I'm learning a lot that will help me in my ultimate goal of a car with a 100% custom body, but I have to say that I think just making one piece is actually harder. If I were to be making a fully custom body I would choose a frame that either didn't have a lot of frame protrusions to interfere with my body, or one that I was comfortable modifying the frame on. With the 818 there are so many frame rails that stick out in places that you have to build around them, and you can't really do a lot of fabrication off of the car. You are constantly putting what you are working on back on the car to make sure it clears the frame. Also since I'm tying one panel into existing panels, I have to work to make sure it all lines up. With a custom body I could just cut the whole thing from a foam buck and lay glass over it, and then cut the panel parting lines wherever made sense. Anyway, here's a short update showing the small progress on the targa top.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx5afq7NH0E

[Ajzride]

3 Months of working on the Targa, and I felt like I was spinning my wheels. I was very happy with the drivers side, but the fiberglass skills and techniques to create symmetry on the passenger side were eluding me. I bit the bullet and hunkered down to research what it would take to get this into CAD so I could 3D print a skeleton to work off of ensuring symmetry. What I would up with was a convoluted process that probably was not the most efficient path, but was how I stumbled through it with given I have no training in this type of stuff.

I used GravitySketch running on an Occulus Quest 2 (virtual reality headset) to trace out the drivers side of the part I have been working on. This allowed me to ensure the dimensions were perfect and that all of the curves were accurate. Once I had a wire frame build in GravitySketch, I put some surfaces on it did some smoothing, then I exported the project as a mesh and imported it into Fusion360. You can't do much with a mesh in Fusion, but you can snap to it, so I was able to quickly build some 3D sketches around the mesh, patch the surfaces, and then thicken the surfaces to get solid bodies I could work with in Fusion. Added on the flanges for weather stripping and then mirrored it so that I have a full piece. Now I'm in the process of cutting it up in Fusion into pieces that will fit on the 3D printer, and then I have a solid week of printing to do before I can start gluing it together. I know there are a few areas that I will still have to tweak by hand with some body filler, but this should get me to about 90% point with good symmetry between both sides. While the printer is busy churning out parts, I think I am going to start work on covering the front end to a clamshell this weekend.

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[flynntuna]

I'm really enjoying your build. I'd like to incorporate some of the ideas you are using in your targa design on my car eventually. From what you have done so far I can see that it will look amazing. I wish I could put in 12 hrs a week like you are. I'm lucky right now to get 12hrs a month in��.

[Ajzride]

I'm on reduced hours due to economic impact of COVID. At some point things will pick back up and I'll be back to half a Saturday per week. Until then I'm going to keep plugging away. Digging through all the boxes looking for all the brackets to mount front fenders and nose today.


At the end of the this process I should have a mold for all of the Targa components, which I have no desire to keep in storage. Anyone who might be interested can start thinking about that.

[Ajzride]

While I have my 3D printer running around the clock pumping out a skeleton for the targa top, I decided to start on the front and get the clamshell going. Almost two years ago I got this thread started by starting to hack up my nose to change out the headlights, before realizing I couldn't do that without the nose and fenders and hood all put on the car. Well, that is making things a little more difficult now, because I'm missing a surface that would have been really good for bonding the nose to the hood on one side.

I looked closely at Art's thread where he did his clamshell, and while some of the concepts are the same, the old style nose is much more difficult to work with. The fenders, nose, and hood rarely ever touch, the headlight bucket is what holds almost all of it together. I can't even find my headlight buckets because I had no intention of using them and so I haven't kept track of them. While Art made an external frame to line his parts up, I thought it was going a better path forward on the old style nose to start bolting things to the frame with spacers to hold them exactly where I want them. I used various blocks of wood ranging from 1/4" plywood to 1"x6" pine blocks to get everything shimmed where I wanted it. Once I was pretty happy with where everything sat, I bolted the fender to the side pod and the nose to the frame and glassed the nose and fenders together. I let that set overnight and then I came out this morning and got the hood sitting where I like it, then bolts it on all four corners to the fenders and glassed that in. I also put a little glass between the hose and the hood on the passenger side where I had not yet hacked up the nose. Next week I'll take it off the car, flip it over, and start adding more layers from the backside for strength.

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[aquillen]

You will probably love the clam. Working in there on anything and everything is so much easier.

[Ajzride]

Video on the 3D printing process:


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

[Ajzride]

I was able to trace out the front clip using the Oculus, then I made my first ever attempt at Sub-D modeling to give surfaces to the frame. It's pretty terrible, but it's a start. The blue lines are the wire frame I traced out and the red are the Sub-D surfaces I created.

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if anyone wants the raw .obj files of the mesh PM me or send me an email. I hope to get the entire body traced out eventually.

[Ajzride]

I've decided to move forwards with the Accord lights I started this thread with. I had strongly considered swapping to Celica lights which look much more like the Gen-2 nose, but I think I really like the horizontal lights better. I'm going to set them back up inside the nose a little bit (think early 90's Camaro). I used the quick model from earlier to mock up all my changes before I started any more cutting.

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[Ajzride]

Well after a few days of fighting with them, I've come to the conclusion that the Accord lights are too tall to fit and still allow me to make the modifications I want to make for the lower nose. The actual light area is fine, but the housing of the lights sticks out a ton on all sides and it just won't fit without either lowering them more than I want or making drastic changes to recurve the fender and accommodate them. I'm thinking of following Andrew's lead and using the Yamaha R1 headlights. I would set mine a little more inboard than he did:

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[Ajzride]

Video on the clamshell and some 3D printing troubles:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsYHTL3xvI

[Ajzride]

It might look a little rough, but it's light years ahead of where I started when I was doing it with tape, glass, and plaster. All of the flanges and angles are already built, all the panels are straight and flat with no large dips, and everything is symmetrical. I just have to put a layer of glass, then filler, then sand it smooth. The strips of fiberglass that are on there now are strategic to strengthen it up enough that I can move it to the saw horses for further work.


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[Jkviper]

AJ, glad to see you are making progress on the body work. I like the look of the new shape.

[Jetfuel]

That looks so good.
I think I speak for the collective in saying that we admire your dedication and perseverance

Jet

[Ajzride]

Obviously I didn't spend time on the car this week given the events in Houston, but by today everyone I knew had power and water, so I spent a little time body working the drivers sail panel. My focus was only from the door to the point of the flying buttress on the outside for now.

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I also 3D printed a backet to hold the R1 headlight in place while I build a surround for it. This bracket will get bonded to the bottom of the fender and the light will hang down from it.

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This week's video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OSTz-evJaw

[Ajzride]

I realized that I missed a segment explaining how the parts actually get from the printer to assembled pieces the car. So quick video to close the gap.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNP7DaQtwOA

[Ajzride]

Work has finally picked up and I've not had nearly enough time for the car lately, and it's getting worse. About to start 7-days a week 12-hours per day until late May. The passenger side was printed, glued together, skinned in glass, bonded to the drivers side, and got the first coat of filler. I did a better job gluing and glassing on this side, so much less filler and sanding. Still have to sand smooth and add some more filler to the backside of the whole structure.

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I also 3D printed a bracket that I bonded to the underside of the hood for the lights to mount to. Now I'm working on 3D printing a panel to wrap around the lights and fill the hole between the stock light size and the smaller Yamaha units.

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Hopefully I can get back on the car in June.

[Ajzride]

Well June came and went, and so did July and most of August, but I'm finally getting the project off of hiatus and working on it again. I had planned to finish the targa top when I got back on the project, but ever since I made the clamshell it is always in the way. You can tuck two fenders, a hood, and a nose in 4 different places and it's not that big of a deal, but when you put them all together permanently, they take up a ton of space. So I decided the best place to store it, is on the car. Car already takes up space, so it's a good solution. That means I need to make the front hinge and a latch assembly. I'll be mostly duplicating Art's efforts found here:

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?20434-Art-s-818-build&p=380606&viewfull=1#post380606

With the following exceptions:

- My gen-1 nose doesn't come with the braces that extend from the radiator support out to the nose, so I'll be having to make everything by hand instead of chopping up a FFR part.
- Instead of using a tightfiting hoop with a grease zerk, I'm using a tube with bearings on each end.

I spent some time trying to make the brackets by hand, but it was a huge time sink. Without a mill making brackets with slots for adjust meant just looks like crap when I do it. So I decided I'm going to have the brackets laser cut. I decided to 3D print them for mock up to make sure they are correct before I spend money on having them laser cut:

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The rectangular plate bolts to the radiator support, and allows for adjustment front to back. The other one will get welded to the tube with bearings, and then bolts into the slots on the rectangular one, allowing for adjustment up and down.

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The tube I'm using is actually a closet clothes hanger rod. It's what I could find locally that was a good fit for the bearings and was not galvanized. A 1/2" steel rod through the bearings will attached to the "wings" will go out and grab the nose at each front corner. The wings are what I hope to make progress on next weekend. Once those are made (because I think I'll need some plates cut for them), I'll have all the metal plates cut at once.

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[Ajzride]

I got my brackets from SendCutSend in today. Awesome service if you need something laser cut. I uploaded them on Monday and they were here Friday. Deburred and vacuum sealed to boot. I also got the bracket that will mount to the nose fabricated. It sits on the bottom edge below the headlights, and has an arm that reaches up and attaches to a stud that will get epoxied to the flat section on the one between the light and the bottom edge.

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That is as far as I got today, because when I went to back the car out to give myself more room to work in the garage, it wouldn't start. Electrical gremlins have crept in. I promise I am 100% certain I haven't touched anything in the car since the last time it ran... literally, I've been working too much to touch the car. But I do know the battery tender gave out, and the battery drained down to 2.3V. I put in a new battery but no joy. When I turn the key to ON or START the fan comes on at 100% immediately (almost like in test mode), and I've got no combustion. Not sure if it is from lack of fuel or spark. I can't connect to it with ROMRaider or the Aurdino to get a feel for what is going on. I thought for sure I had fried the ECU, but I pulled it and put it on the bench and RomRaider talks to it with no issues, so there is a wiring issue in the car causing the problem. I check the grounds as the manifold, frame, and ground bar, they are all clean and tight, so I'm a bit miffed. I guess I will start unplugging engine harness plugs one at a time until I find something hat makes the fan stop running at 100% and see if I can find something wrong in that harness. Perhaps something got pinched or melted last time I drove it.

[Rob T]

I hate to say this, but check for rodents as well. I had my truck parked at work one day, near a field and came out to a car that acted all sorts of crazy. The buggers chewed through a number of wires and the car needed a whole new wiring harness. Fingers crossed this is not your situation.

[Ajzride]

Thanks for the tip. I live in the middle of a pretty large and new neighborhood. So no fields, trees, or other typical homes for rodents around. Certainly still a possibility, but a low percentage. I looked all around the engine compartment and the front area yesterday looking for obvious loose grounds or grounded things that shouldn't be, and didn't see any signs of rodent damage, but it could be on the bottom. I'll find our more on Friday when I get to play with it again. If it is something that bad, then I'm biting the bullet and changing out for an aftermarket ECU while I'm rewiring.

[jforand]

So, it cranks but does not fire?

Not sure if you remember my posts a while back where I thought I killed the ECU by shorting the alternator lug to ground. I spent a hell of a lot of time chasing EVERYTHING. In the end, it was the first step in all the diagnostic procedures....fuel.

Do you have a gauge for fuel pressure and do you have something north of 40 when the key goes to ON? I can hear the pump run and then load up as it pressurizes. Not sure what you did for a fuel pump and plumbing solution, but the FFR supplied pump does not have a large enough bulge/barb on the end and easily slips off (gets pushed off)the hose.

Same as your story, drove the car for a while (hours over the course of weeks) and into the garage to park it. Did not turn the key again for a while and while sitting in the garage the fuel pump was squeezed out of the tubing. This literally coincided with the short while I was wrenching on something very minor. A pressure gauge (which I now have) would have saved me countless hours and stress. I could hear the pump running and fuel flowing so I thought it was good, but it was just blowing the fuel around the inside of the tank rather than up the discharge tubing to the engine.

As for the fans, I too experienced this to some degree. At times they do not come on at start up and other times they come on instantly. I really have no explanation for that. Perhaps it remembers some state from shutdown or something. Also, if the battery went stone dead as you say the ECU lost its brain and is starting off fresh so, all bets might be off until it runs a bit and relearns things.

Good luck in the hunt, hopes this helps.

Before...ziptie was completely inadequate
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After....pretty sure it is not going anywhere now. It is also a lot more linear and drops into the tank easier.
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[Ajzride]

I managed to track it down today. After all of my exotic stuff and pulling the ECU and making a test board…. It was just a blown fuse on the Coach1 panel. It was the one supplying 12+ to all the sensors in the engine bay. #facepalm.

Thanks for all the pointers guys.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

So, it cranks but does not fire?

As for the fans, I too experienced this to some degree. At times they do not come on at start up and other times they come on instantly. I really have no explanation for that. Perhaps it remembers some state from shutdown or something. Also, if the battery went stone dead as you say the ECU lost its brain and is starting off fresh so, all bets might be off until it runs a bit and relearns things.


A CEL (Check Engine Light) will often trigger the fans to come on and stay on at start up.
If your battery was disconnected or dead, the ECU must relearn the cam and crank sensor relationship. It usually takes an extra revolution to start.
I turn off my battery every night, so this is normal for me.
Any chance you plugged in the green connector?
Do you have multible wires connected to the battery? Maybe you misses one.
Bob

[Ajzride]

Bob, looks like we posted at almost the same time. The issue was the fuse on the 12+ that daisy chains it's way around the engine bay powering all the sensors was blown. Test mode was definitely not on, that was the first thing I checked.

I used to kill the battery every night, but I found that the car ran like dies every time I coast to a stop unless I did the long re-learn procedure every time I reconnected the battery, so I bought a battery tender and started leaving it hooked up. I think I'm going to put a cutoff on my keyless entry system, that is probably the only parasitic drain on the battery.

[J R Jones]

Aj, on the topic of fiberglass, I do quite a bit of that, creating panels and bodies from pre-formed sheet, tube and my inventory of interesting shapes.
Reviewing some of your posts I see glass mat but not cloth. The physical properties of cloth is different than mat or chopper gun. Cloth offers more strength especially in tension.
If my patch is to be thin I use cloth exclusively, or thicker applications, the cloth is the top layer.
My entire Dino body is made this way, because it was the major structure in it's original application. Backdraft Replicas layer cloth in the wheel openings to improve stiffness.
I prefer the smoother texture of cloth.
As a convenience cloth is made as 2in tape by the roll. The edges are finished, so no loose fibers. Perfect for joining edges. I get 50 ft rolls from Composite Envisions in Wausau WI. #F-514-2

I use epoxy exclusively, again for improved physical properties, also from Composite Envisions, I think their resin is common to their carbon fiber.
I also use PlioGrip panel bonder to pre-bond and gap fill, it is thick and does not run.
I joined two hoods and a body panel together last week and the gaps were up to 10mm wide. I lined the underside with high-end duct tape and squirted Pliogrip into the void. Next day the duct tape pulled-off; glass cloth tape on the outside and cloth tape and sheets on the inside.
BTW at the recent Iola show I bought a high speed (13,300rpm) course Strip it Disc for stripping paint. A VERY coarse scotch bright-like fiber. It removes gel coat very well.
jim

[Ajzride]

Thanks for the input Jim, I do have some cloth that I use when I'm making final pieces. Most of what I'm making right now are bucks to have molds taken off of them.

[J R Jones]

Aj, sounds like a business venture.
Local company Speedkore builds replica bodies in carbon fiber.
https://speedkore.com/
Referencing a recent article Speedkore make plugs and/or molds with NC cut aluminum or carbon fiber molds for strength.
Lots of dinaro.
jim
I reviewed your thread and see your Mustang resto-rod. Back in the day I raced Mustangs, including the Trans Am when it went to GT specs.

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[Ajzride]

Well right as I got started on the car again last fall (after a crazy year of work), my oldest daughter convinced me to take on what turned into a much more massive project than I thought it would be when I consented to it. She wanted me to make family halloween costumes since it was her last year trick or treating (She turns 13 this year and thinks she will be too old to go). I had no idea what i was getting myself into trying to 3D print all of the costumes, but it took every night, weekend, and even some lunch breaks to complete. The good news is I learned a ton more about 3D printing that should make the next round of 818 parts much better.

In the process of pulling this task off I ended up adding two more printers so that I can have different setups and not have to change nozzles and media so much (quick nozzle change setups are just now coming onto the market, and were not really around last fall). I now have one focused on large prints (400x400x700), one focused on small prints (200x200x220), and one focused on flexible prints which can do fairly large objects as well (400x400x450).

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I needed a place to put all of the printers, so I built the white table that the small one is sitting on out of an old bookshelf, and then I decided to build myself a new desk and move the table I had been using (which was oversized for a desk) to house the two large ones.

That meant I got to build myself a new desk, so I learned some woodworking for the bases and concrete and epoxy work for the top:

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The end results is the kids were really happy:

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After Halloween, work got really crazy again and I spent most of November - February in Lexington, KY.

But I'm back home now and it's time to make some progress again.

[Ajzride]

I really want to finish the Targa top, but I'm trying to figure out how to do all that body work and sanding without covering my neighbors cars and houses in body filler dust. The dust collector I have pulls plenty of suction, but the shrouds I have are not doing a great job of funneling the dust into it. So I decided to make more progress on the nose while I contemplate that problem.

I can't find the pictures from it, but I did get the hood hinge all welded together and functioning over Christmas break and now the clamshell is not in the way. Problem is now that I can't drive the car for fun around the neighborhood because the nose flops around and bounces like crazy. I began thinking about how I'm going to secure it, so I started with some hood bumpers at the front and rear where FFR has you place the hood pins. This stopped most of the bouncing and flopping, so score. Now I am working on latches, I'll probably have something very similar to Art to hold it down. Once problem I'm having is that it tends to slide side to side, so it is going to be really hard to line up where I want to epoxy the hooks for the latches. I wound up clipping a laser level to the garage door, and using to align with two marks on the frame that were a measured center, so that I could draw a center line down the entire front half to the car. Once I had center for the frame and body panels, I drilled a hole where the hood and cowl meet and stuck a long bolt through to hold it all centered. This is just temporary and will be closed up after the latches are installed to keep it all in place. Hope to get the latches designed this weekend.

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[Ajzride]

My mustang came from the factory with a hidden latch, and I tossed it in the garbage and put in hood pins because I thought they looked cool. My 818 that comes with factory hoods but I'm going to throw them away and build a hidden latch? How much of a contrarian am I? I decided that hood pins do look cool, just not the ones that FFR sent. I bought some of the same quick-latches like I used on my mustang. They always make me nervous because I've had someone who used them and they let go at 70mph, ripping the hood off and causing a repaint of the hood, cowl, and roof, plus a new windshield. I have a safety chain on my mustang just in case. But since I've convert this into a clamshell, the wind can't rip it open, so I'm not really worried about it.

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The next thing I tackled was gluing back in the pics of the nose I had cut out when trying to make the accord lights fit. Actually went back together better than I thought it would. A little starbond superglue with accelerator to hold in place, then a few layers of fiberglass on the back to strengthen it up. Just have to sand off DuraGlass now.

I had to re-do the 3D printed brackets I had designed for the Yamaha lights, They looked great in the clamshell all by itself, but when I went to put it on the car, they hit the radiator support. They are now moved slightly out and forward. I also redesigned them so that I can fully mount the lights from the back side, and have the front closed up really tight around the light.

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I used some thin cardboard to build a structure to glass around, just to get things close so that I could try to now down the shape:

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I glassed that from the back side

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Once that was fully cured, I pulled all of the cardboard out and cleaned up the edges and started on a final shape. I wound up using pottery clay from Hobby Lobby, and I was really impressed with how well it worked for the job. I just jammed it up all around the light, then used a piece of 1"x3" 18ga plate to sculpt it into shape. Once I was happy with the shape, I covered it all with packing tape and applied the glass. Still waiting on that to cure now.

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[aquillen]

You'll never regret doing the clamshell .

[Ajzride]

It's only taken five months, but I finally have both lights roughed in. Now for a whole lot of finesse to get it looking right.

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[Ajzride]

About 3 months ago I decided I never drive my 65 mustang because it is under the cover and getting it out gets me all hot and sweaty before I can go enjoy it. I decided since I'm going to get all hot and sweaty if I work on the 818 anyway, I should put it under the cover and put the mustang in the garage. So the 818 has sat under a cover for 3 months without moving. Today I decided I wanted to take it for a joy ride around the neighborhood...... Turns out sitting in the south texas heat for 3 months does a number on a project car. Zip ties melted, some of the off brand weatherpack style electrical connectors were melted, and any of the 3D printed body panels that hadn't 't been skinned in fiberglass yet were destroyed. I was able to replace the connector on the fuel pump that melted, fix some of the zip ties that were allowing the wires to hang down into the pulleys, and replace the 3D printed steering column spacer that had melted (I had already printed a new one in a high heat PETG material), but the car still stays in open loop, the throttle is in limp mode, and I have about 5 codes (O2 sensors, throttle voltage, MAF voltage low.... no telling what else is melted and needs to be fixed.

Just a PSA to you guys, make sure all of the stuff you put on your car can handle the heat.

[FFRWRX]

Zip ties and weatherpack connectors melted?! I did 3D print some stuff for the interior from PLA, which I always use. Some of the parts did distort even though the temperature was not Texas hot. Printing with PETG now. Turns out that PLA has a pretty low distortion temperature. Run it under hot water from a tap and it will get all soft.

[cob427sc]

Wow! Melted just sitting in the hot sun? Guess there are some advantageous to living in the cool Northeast!

[Ajzride]

The electrical connector was not melted like it was in an oven but it was definitely deformed enough to not make good connections. The zip ties you could tell had stretched and sagged. The PLA looked like a melted candle. It was 101+ for about 12 straight days in August and its under a waterproof car cover so it doens't breath at all, probably acts like a greenhouse letting heat in and not out. I'm guessing the temperatures inside cover probably got over 250 degrees. I'm using a waterproof cover instead of a breathable one because there is no paint to mess up, and obviously lots of open electronics on a partially finished car. I may have to rig up some kind of exhaust fan though to push hot air out during the summer.

[Ajzride]

I thought the targa top had survived the heat since it had been skinned in fiberglass, but apparently the glass wasn't thick enough to save it. I had to remove the targa to replace the MAF and the whole targa just crumbled into pieces. I'm left with starting over or buying a hardtop from FFR. I've checked and they have one available, and I'll be in New England for work next month so I will probably bite the bullet and buy it.

[Ajzride]

Well the guys on Mike's thread got me all motivated and I vowed to work on the car even if it was a107F today.

The good news is it was only 105F... at least in the shade according to the temperature probes on my smoker, I'm sure it was closer to 120F in my tent because it holds heat in:

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I did indeed wind up buying the FFR Coupe top after my 3D printed one melted and fell apart. I found myself on the east coast for work, so after I got off on Thursday afternoon, I drove up to Providence, getting there about 1AM. I got up at 7:30 the next morning to hit the Home Depot and buy some 2x4 and ratchet straps, and was at the FFR shop when they opened on Friday morning. I was in a rental Dodge Ram which only had a 5' bed, so I used the 2x4 to build a frame to support the top, strapped it down with ratchet straps and duct tape. I had checked my 18V driver and skill saw on my flight up and used those to construct the shipping frame in the parking lot of FFR. I pulled out of FFR about 9:30AM Friday morning, drove straight through to somewhere in Virginia just north of Knoxville, caught about 6 hours sleep and drove all the way home to Houston on Saturday by 8PM. It was without a doubt the most brutal drive I've ever made, back to back to back 16 hour days on the road. Oh and that Dodge Ram sucked, most uncomfortable seats I've been exposed to in years.

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My first priority was to remove the hideous roof scoop. I plan to make a louvered hatch piece to let heat out, and I will be bringing air in by adding large scoops to the quarter windows.

I started by cutting out the section that protruded above the rest of the roof line, then used play sand to fill in the recessed groove in the roof. I used tyvek tape to then cover the entire roof (which was now perfectly smooth because the sand was being used to fill in the recess), and laid 3 layers of fiberglass on top of the roof. That became a reverse mold for me.

I lost all the pictures from smoothing the top using sand and making my reverse mold, because that work got done back in March.

Today I flipped the roof upside-down and cut out the entire recessed section. After flipping it back over to secure my mold in place, I put it back upside down again and layed my fiberglass in from the bottom.

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Once that was done and I had turned it back right side. up and removed the mold, I needed a 1/4 coat of thickened resin on the top to handle a sag I somehow wound up with in the middle section. That really confused me because upside down a sag would have been a peak.. but it's there now and has to be dealt with.

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Tomorrow I need to sand off some peaks and blobs that I introduced while screeding the resin, then I can hit it with a skim coat of body filler to smooth it all out.

[lance corsi]

Wow! AJ that’s inspirational! Glad you got back into it.

[Ajzride]

I put seven hours in yesterday, I had a range day with the church this morning but thought I would get five hours in after lunch.

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It took about an hour to realize that the heat took too much out of me. I got one more layer of thickened resin on and that was it. After looking at the roof today in good light, I realized that I had gotten the sag out yesterday, but I actually need a peak, so I am working on building that up. Hopefully I can hit it early Friday before it gets too hot.

[Ajzride]

I got out early and put a gallon of thickened resin on the roof and used a shaped piece of wood to give the roof a perfect crown. After that kicked I managed to get two rounds of body filler smoothing the resin and was basically down to block sanding when the heat got unbearable. I wasn’t ready for wet sanding but I was sweat sanding involuntarily. I knew the tent I erected to keep the sanding dust off the neighbors cars would hold heat, but dang it is hot inside there. 120 degrees by 11:30AM.

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Maybe I’ll try working after the sun goes down a few evenings during the week.

[Scott Meyer]

And I thought it was hot in Florida along the gulf coast! My garage has a mini-split system and allows me to get some of the humidity out, and maybe lower the temp 10 degrees when it’s 92-95 outside.

Interesting mod to the coupe roof. Are you concerned at all with the extra weight at the top of the car going in with all that resin?

[Ajzride]

Interesting mod to the coupe roof. Are you concerned at all with the extra weight at the top of the car going in with all that resin?

I have thought about flipping it over and removing a lot of the fiberglass from the inside and then add one more layer of mat for strength. But then again I'm building the car as a comfortable cruiser, definitely going to be a heavy weight:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2mU6USTBRE

#facepalm

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[lance corsi]

The coupe roll center vs the roadster would naturally be higher but the additional weight added by AJ’s roof mod wouldn’t be noticeable unless the car was pushed to its limits as in race conditions and then probably only by a professional driver. As a street car, the difference would be negligible. Swapping the boxer motor for a more conventional I-4 engine would have a similar effect.
The best thing about building an 818 is that you can mod to your heart’s content without feeling you are violating some sort of guidelines as one would have by building a replica of an historical car such as the cobra. I’m anxious to see AJ’s final vision for the car.

[J R Jones]

I have built FRP body parts and assemblies using pre-formed sheet, tube and rod sections bonded together. Where contours are required, I use wood fixtures. I lean towards epoxy material for strength and thin section.
About 50% of this example is fabricated that way.
jim
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[Ajzride]

Probably need one more revision to get the shape perfect. These will bolt on with a second panel from behind the window that has the funnel to feed all the air to the A2A-IC.

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