Time attack beetle

[-Alex-]

Looks very nice I cannot even imagine the powerlevels



But looks like you have mounted upside down the uniball housing If you are riding a lower rear height, you should try the uniball housing so the uniball joint is higher like remmele kits here:

[Humble]

Good eyes! I was hoping nobody would notice, but I did have to flop them around on sat. I wish these had the double-adjuster like the remmele units but the only ones I can find are in standard sizes not metric :P

[-Alex-]

I would also prefer that connecting rod with left and right hand threads - but it would require also left hand threads to uniball joint or to arm bracket. At the moment i dont have left hand taps. At small quantities it is not cost effective to make this change. I could make these at near future, but it would rise the total kit price about 40-50 euros. I have to think this at next time.

To ease the adjustment, i made all three bolt holes to same diameter at bracket, and not like remmele bracket or stock springplate, which have one large bolt hole.

[Humble]

Lots of little projects to keep me busy while I wait on money and parts. I worked on getting the new fuel tank frame fabbed up and painted. It'll hold the larger 15 gal fuel tank in the stock location (which is higher than I want), and do to the slight angle I should have better fuel pickup but slightly less capacity.









I want to get a stock dash back in the car, to clean it up, and because one of the classes I want to run in requires it. I bought this one a while ago but only unwrapped it this weekend and it was a mess. A lot of rust and dirt from sitting and the dash pad was cracked. I threw some paint on it to make it a bit more pleasing to the eye and I'll clean it up later. The metal dash strip in the original from the car and has the correct VIN, I saved it just in case I wanted to put a dash back in the car.



Installed the mendeola stiffy brace and got the suspension bolted back in to make sure everything cleared alright. I also replaced the brake line I cut through when I was cutting the flap for the transmission nose cone. I also tested fitted a modded down pipe from a previous project to get an idea of routing for the exhaust. While everything was in place I measured for the new axle length I'll need and it's 18 3/4" which I'll need to order from sway-a-way.







You probably noticed the trans fluid and catch pan under the car in those last pics. I turned the motor over with the trans in gear to make sure everything was still good and one of the axle seals started leaking. It's about a drip a second which is pretty bad, so I think the retaining spring came off the inside of the seal. I'm going to have to pull the trans back out of the car to fix it which is a pain, but better to do it now than later.

[-Alex-]

Is 14" open lenght QA1 a good fit with 944 alu rear arms? Atleast the rear ride height looks nice, is there how much shock travel left?

[Humble]

Alex,
The QA1 work great and if I had to guess, I think I have about 2.5-3" of bump and 1.5-1" of droop.

Took a long weekend to work on the bug, the big task on hand was pulling the motor/trans to replace the leaking axle seal. Surprisingly, I was able to pull the motor/trans very quickly by leaving the trans mount and engine cradle in place. Not that I plan to make use of that feature very often, but it is handy. The longest part of the job was running down to the subaru dealership to get parts. I sent more time in traffic than I did on the whole axle seal job. So here's a shot of a beautiful, not-leaking, reversed R&P 5spd (the stain is from the previously munged axle seal)



I also got an email from the folks over at subarugears.com regarding the oil level and potential future leaks. Since the center diff housing is cut in half, and the trans doesn't sit at the same angle it does in the subaru, it's necessary to put the full amount of gear oil in to get good coverage on 5th gear. This does put the oil level about 1/3 up the axle seal and while it's okay for street use, under race conditions I'll need to vent the case to prevent oil from blowing out. I'll probably use the whole I accidentally ground through the case for the breather which should be above the oil level. They did mention not to use the dipstick tube because the bottom of that is below the oil level and could cause problems.

I spent a little time upgrading my toolbox this weekend too. Yes, it's a cheapy harbor freight box, because I'd rather put 10k into my drivetrain and not my toolbox. I was using a 26" craftsman roller and top box but I out grew it a long time ago. The new 42" box can hold most of my tools plus my electrical/wiring tools, and a later side addition can hold the engine building and precision tools. I got some tool organizers as well so everything is easier to find which is part of what started this upgrade in the first place. I was just getting tired of having to search in 3 or 4 places to find the tools I needed. No toolbox is complete without some bling so I put a bunch of stickers on it to make it faster



Spent Saturday striping the wiring out of the bug and separating the harnesses. I put the dash in so I could figure out the new fusebox mount and wire routing. So far the chassis harness is ready to go (lights, wipers, horn, starter), and I got the engine ready for power wiring (alternator+, starter+, and battery+). Spent some time that night pouring over the subaru wiring diagrams to figure out alternator and coolant sensor wiring. Once the dash went in I realized how much the cage intruded into driver/passenger space, I can't wait until the new cage goes in this winter.





On Monday I dragged my laptop out into the garage and did a lot of measuring, head scratching and ordering parts. I ran out of, or didn't have the right AN fittings for the fuel system so I ordered those and moved on to coolant plumbing. I used some cut up radiator hoses for mock up and ordered the necessary silicone bends. I have some industrial gates hose I could use under the car but I would rather get some stainless 1.5" pipe for looks/lightness. A new throttle body, air/air intercooler, and intake/exhaust plumbing are all on order too.

I'm in a rush now to finish everything up before the rainy season starts, and last weekends storm was a reminder it's just around the corner.

[Humble]

Slow progress on the bug, a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. I'm working on wiring, plumbing, and exhaust at the same time as I run into blockages.

Wiring:
Fascinating and tedious, I love and hate wiring. I'm using the existing engine harness to create a new one using a couple weatherpak 22-pin connectors for quick disconnect. I'm on the first part of this which is simply figuring out what needs to be on the engine side of the bulkhead connectors and getting the ends terminated. COPs, injectors, cam angle sensors and crank angle sensor are done at the moment. Also related to wiring, I found a good deal on an open box Aim MXL Pista so I'll be using that for the dash. I like that it's compatible with the MS3X can-bus, a big factor in the decision, and I'm wondering if I can feed sensor data back to the MS3X from the Pista.

Plumbing:
I ordered a handful of 1.5" silicon bends and couplers for the cooling system, so those are ready and waiting. I want to pick up some stainless 1.5" pipe and get it bent to hug the underside of the bug, that will be lighter than the reinforced gates hydraulic hose I have I need to find a good diagram of the engine coolant routes to make sure the swirl pot and turbo are plumbed correctly. I've been waiting on a fuel surge tank, which finally arrived yesterday, to finish plumbing the fuel system. Now that it's here I can finish the AN hoses and be done with it. I've been on the lookout for ideas on how to plumb an accusump into the ej25 but still keep the oil/water cooler. Everything I see just replaces the oil cooler with a sandwich plate for the accusump.

Exhaust:
I bought way more than I need so I have plenty of materials to screw things up a couple times. Turbo back, the exhaust will only be about 2 ft. long at most. I got a 3" v-band output flange for the turbo, some 180 and 45 degree 3" pipe, a couple 3" v-band clamps, and a 3" Borla xr-1 oval muffler which hopefully takes some bite out of the exhaust volume. If not I think I might have a 3" supertrapp floating around which should do the job. Ideally, I need to be below 92db to run at Lagua Seca in my back yard, or shell out for no-limit days.

In racing news I had a great event a week ago Sunday. Event #8 autoxing with NorCalUFO in Marina, and it was a fairly fast but technical course that wasn't easy to read. I've been in a heated points battle with my nemesis all year, and this was his last chance to take the championship away from me. We ran in the afternoon and since we had a 2 driver car our tires were getting pretty hot. Ian (nemesis), on the other hand got screwed by the grid master, a newbie cutting in line, and the karts, so all his runs were basically on cold tires. I pulled a 48.1 to his 49.0 cinching the OSP championship points race. I'm currently 3rd overall with 2 races to go, not sure I can swing 2nd overall but it's worth a shot. The downside to this, is that the Cayman has killed my poor tires, so after this season it's time for another set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0qXe9IpJjg