Rear brake adapter, exhaust and rear seat frame

What happened this weekend:

The rear brake adapters from the mill, still needs a bit finishing.

The adapter and other rear brake parts being installed.

The disc with calipers on the car. And to the left a picture of the discrete exhaust tip location, no twin exhaust, sorry.

We spent some time thinking about what way to draw the exhaust tube. We chose the shortest way.

The exhaust without the side skirt. The tube is 3" inside diameter, can't wait to hear how it sounds!

The frame for the rear seats, under which the fuel cell will be located. The fuel cell is a temporary solution, because we didn't have the time to make our own tank that will be located between under the car on the right side. The current location for the fuel cell will need a refill hole on the outside. Luckily we can use the refill hole for the dry sump system when we have the time to make the modifications to the engine.

Update, It's been a while since last time

It's been a bit slow on the bus front.
Two weeks ago I was four days in a optimumg seminar in Estonia, the subject was racecar vehicle dynamics and data acquisition. Feels like the more you find out about how suspensions work, the less you know. And last week I was sick. So I think it's time to become active again...

16th February was supposed to be the deadline for the car. We didn't make it. We were supposed to make the car driveable before the final target that is American Car Show (the biggest car show in the nordic countries, not just americans). We decided that it's not worth it to just try to get the car driveable. Building the car has progressed well. But the finishing of it, which we don't have time for, seems to take the most time.

Once in a while a pic of the whole car to the blog.

A picture of the enginebay. Just starting to make the wiring.

The upper mount for the front coil over.

We thought that this would be a nice spot for the fuse box. It's well hidden from outside, but still easy to access while driving. The dashboard will be kept as stock as possible, to keep some of the car's original identity.

The coolant lines are all connected and ready to go. The engine "just" needs a couple wires and fuel. The ECU doesn't really need much, if it gets + and - it's almost ready to go, so making the wiring for the engine isn't that a big job. But making a sense of the stock subaru wiring harness is difficult and time consuming, it looks quite intimidating when you pull it out from the donor car.

Some cool new parts

I tried to think of something more cool than a half meter long carbon fiber gear shifter, but couldn't think of anything.

A picture of the parts. To the right is the carbon fiber tube, in the middle the aluminium thread insert that connects to the shifter knob and to the left a stainless insert that will be welded to the gear shifter joint. This will be glued together once I get the right angle to drill the hole into the stainless insert.

Everyone who has driven one of these know how enjoyable changing gears is, hopefully with these parts it can be done in style.

Another gear box, installing the rear coil overs

The computer trouble has continued. I just broke another computer and the homepage ratataksi.com has been mostly down for over a week now because of the internet provider's server troubles.

RJES bell housing changed to another gear box that has a limited slip differential. We also cleaned and greased the other CV-joints that were luckily in good shape. I noticed that the stock drive shafts feel soft, so they will be monitored for twist.

The coil over installation at the rear. The lower mounting point is the stock shock mounting point and the upper point is relocated.

We had to make this special tool to remove the oil cooler. It's an 1/2 inch socket that has been lengthened with a piece of roll cage tubing.

Last Sunday another car joined the family.

New parts for engine and some computer trouble

We got a couple parts for the engine. Mainly a oil filter relocation kit and a replacement for the intake silencer.

Lower in the picture is the part that replaces the intake silencer. The stock plastic box doesn't look like it has a purpose in the engine bay of a sporty transporter, so we had to get something different instead. It works with the stock intake tubing, it's just a bit shorter than the silencer.

The parts to relocate the oil filter and oil/water heat exhanger. These parts are probably made in china, but how can you complain with the price of 55 dollars and excellent quality? It has also mounting points for oil pressure and temperature, so these gauges will be very easy to install.

I really like the oil/water cooler in these subaru engines. Cooling the oil with the same water that cools the engine means that the faster heating water helps to heat the oil when the engine warms up. This makes the oil reach operating temperature quicker than normally. I'm still a bit worried how it will work in our use, because might be that the oil is kept too cool if it follows the water temperature, but I'm sure the japanese engineers have thought of this.

The broken water tubes were replaced and the engine mount is painted. Next up will be starting with the electricity of the car, which have been already almost planned.

On the internet side there has been some problems. The day before yesterday our service provider decided to block everyone's access to our homepage because the server it's on was attacked. This means that many of the people who tried to access our site yesterday or the day before can't (ever?) get in, me included. I'll wait over this weekend and send another email if they don't get it fixed. The traffic on the site is starting to get back to normal, but as long as I can't get in, probably someone can't get in either, which is a bit troublesome. So I refuse to send them my internet address so that they can fix only my problem.

The laptop I've been using for all this internet work also broke. Luckily I have everything backed up, but I still need to reinstall all the programs I've used on another computer.