Squishy, dry-sumped 2276 build thread

[Crawdad]

I ditched by bling CB pump cover for a couple of reasons. First, it's aluminum, and second it sticks out so far it requires use of a pulley that I believe is even smaller than a power pulley. Instead I followed FJ Camper in using a cheap Empi steel cover, which I sanded flat on the glass and countersunk the mounting holes so I can use countersunk bolts. The result should be low-profile enough that I can use a stock-sized pulley.

[Crawdad]

At this point I am just waiting for the flywheel that will allow me to mate this motor to the Subaru five-speed I have lying on the shop floor. I need the flywheel so I can have the whole rotating assembly balanced, before I assemble it. It's been about five months since I ordered everything from SubaruGears.

[Clatter]

Said it already,
But,
Love this build...

[Steve Arndt]

I just clocked a little over 7500 hard miles on my squishy build. I have set #1 of the pistons.

[Crawdad]

Good to hear from you, Steve. Team Squishy! And thanks for the kind word, Clatter. This build has gone dormant while I continue to wait for that flywheel from SubaruGears, or at least a response to my emails. I wonder if everything is OK down under? In the meantime I am doing body work, which comes after an eight-year saga of rust repair.

[porkchop-rob]

Any update?

[Crawdad]

The short version is that SubaruGears eventually sent me a flywheel, and it was wrong in several respects. It is now clear that mine must be the first case of someone mating a Subaru box to a Type 1 motor? Anyhow, after that inauspicious beginning Todd had me make a bunch of measurements of the case, the gland nut and washer, the thrust surfaces of the flywheel-end main bearing, and a Type 1 flywheel I had on hand. (He said he didn't have any VW motors on hand to make such measurements from himself.) He modeled the whole mess up in CAD and sent me a 3-D printed prototype. I bolted it up and starting checking clearances. The model needed some further adjusting, which he then entered into the CAD. Last I checked in with him, he said he had gotten the new flywheel machined (in metal) and was going to check it before sending it. If I had been in a hurry, I might be bitter that this has taken over a year since paying in full. But I'm not in a hurry. It's been a product-development experience, which is actually kind of cool. I may post my drawings of the flywheel and other relevant dimensions in the "conversion perversions" forum, in the hope they will be useful to someone else.

[Crawdad]

Here are some drawings and a picture of the 3-D printed flywheel prototype. Todd wanted dimensions in mm.

[Steve Arndt]

Cool

[Crawdad]

In case anyone is interested, and at the risk of going way off topic, here are some photos of the larger process of building this car, which has been a colossal undertaking. I began with the worst possible starting point (a rusted-out POS), and for the usual reasons: a friend was selling it, I fell victim to wishful thinking and didn't pull up the carpet, etc.. ("Mistakes we knew we were making" was the title of a chapter in a pretty good book.)

[Crawdad]

The process of figuring what you need to fabricate to replace the rot is an interesting one. I had NO IDEA what a corner like this is was supposed to look like.

[Crawdad]

It's a process of removing crap (heater channel, other bits that don't even have names) and then making something that works.

[Crawdad]

Essentially, the entire bottom 6-12 inches of the car needed to be reconstructed. And after using a few aftermarket pre-fab panels, I gave up and decided to make my own. It's less time consuming than doing all the massaging and adjusting you need to do to get the aftermarket stuff to fit.

[Crawdad]

More disgusting metal removed. Just getting to a gaping void like this is real progress, because at the beginning you can't even tell where the layers of seam sealer, carpet mastic, rust, undercoating, etc. end, and the metal begins.

[Crawdad]

Before cutting out the heater channels I made a jig that serves both to brace the door opening, and to locate the edge where the new heater channel needs to line up so the door closes properly.