Frank818 -1993 VW VR6 Turbo donor- Build Thread

[Frank818]

Hey SpeedyElectricPower!

That's true, the pressure that is in there has probably already taken into account so it would only recirculate that pressure, but is it? Instead of going into the cylinders it would go into the oil evap and back again in the turbo. Not sure how that works.

I do not use a MAF, I use a MAP, so my control totally depends on the pressure in the intake manif, no matter how much volume or speed the air flow has.

I wanted to weigh everything!!! But it takes time and some parts can't be handled by hand or hardly (engine, tranny). Since my mech has caused me 3 months delay already and he's got 1 month left before I get the car back home, it would have stupid of me to use that time to weigh the parts instead of fitting everything in. So I had to sacrifice that part of the build and let go. I will try to weigh the entire assembly together though, engine and tranny fitted. That might be possible without losing too much time. With my corner scales it's easy to weigh, now. Just takes time to fit things on the scales, but once everything is ready, just before bolting it in place in the engine bay I will try.

BTW, with that KEP adapter plate the OEM front engine mount bracket does not fit at all. Since I have removed the PS pump, we will try to use the PS alu bracket and fit the OEM mount bracket on it. More custom stuff and like I said, 1 month left and my mech is super slow. I hope he'll make it on time. I am so angry at him since last July, oh well. If there is one mistake I made about this project it's not trying to fit the VR6 in, it's having the car at my mech shop for the last 6.5 months. Should have been at my home. Anyway, can't go back.

The Porsche flywheel weighs a little more than my lightened Autotech flywheel. If I recall my VR6 flywheel was about 12lbs, I believe the Porsche is around 15-16lbs. Too late to weigh it alone, now, but like I said, I only care about having the engine in before I take the car back home. The rest has to be low priority, unfortunately.

[Speedy G]

Yeah, if the air doesn't leave and just gets recirculated it's been accounted for. I figured you'd be using a MAP. If the MAP is after the PCV connection to the intake, you shouldn't have any issues.

The cool thing about your setup is just the gobs of torque that you'll be having, so I'd think the flywheel weight is secondary. You just need it to hold, which from the looks of it, it will.

I hope you can finish up before first snow... or is it snowing up there yet?

Speedy G

[Frank818]

In my area I haven't seen snow yet, but in the 25km round there has been, which melted at the contact of tarmac. Still 11C tomorrow, but it's been around 4-5C lately and then 0-3C for the rest of the week. Temps always play yo-yo a lot in QC and winters suck. loll

My MAP is located directly on my intake manifold and my manifold is a log type (I think I have a pic of my engine in my first posts? I'll check), so basically you can say that my MAP gets its source maybe 3in before the intake runners on the head. Besides, I have no PCV valve, just the overflow nipple and connected directly to the turbo's inlet pipe through a short hose.


EDIT: Wow, no picture of my engine when it was in the Corrado. Well if it may help I'll post up one for ya tonight.

[Frank818]

God damn... lost a full month cuz of my mechanic's bad decisions wrt tasks management and since he doesn't want to listen to me, I ended up in trouble again.

But, I am getting the car back home tomorrow. Gotta put an end to that ridiculous way of working and unnecessary lost time. More on that tomorrow night, there is a surprise I am not disclosing now.


In the meantime, we test fitted the VR6 in order to really see what needs to be modified and done to make that great engine fit into a frame that, I repeat, has really been designed to the H4 configuration's sizes and all unnecessary space has been reduced to its minimum, giving no chance to bolt-on something really different. I said "bolt-on". There is a chance, but you need to modify a lot of things.

The engine now sits tilted, cuz I need to cut the v-bar at the top to give clearance for the overflow.
2014-11-25 16.30.33.jpg

Why that? Cuz of this:
2014-11-25 16.31.08.jpg

Simply put, the adapter plate is too wide and sits lower than the transaxle, so we have to bring everything up in order to make the adapter go over the transverse bar. There was no way to know that before hand. Such a little detail which complicates the fitting of this non-std engine.

There is about 3-3.5 fat fingers (not mine) of space here, we will push the engine fwd so that about 1 finger remains. I will need to fab a firewall that will be bolted from the inside of the frame (just back of the tank) and not directly on the frame from inside the engine bay.
2014-11-25 16.30.45.jpg

Overall view and pardon the wires all over the place:
2014-11-25 16.31.47.jpg

Another view of the engine:
2014-11-25 16.35.21.jpg

And from behind, with the transaxle not centered. I admit the look will be cool though:
2014-11-25 17.24.57.jpg

This is when I torqued the spline/CV/stub inside the hub, that little lip crushes on the spindle and makes the wheel very hard to turn. It gets a bit better after you manually turn the wheel, but has anyone got that issue? Those are OEM parts! I have that issue on the 2 front wheels as well, but not the left rear, cuz the metal lip is non-existent:
2014-11-25 17.25.09.jpg2014-11-25 17.25.16.jpg

Really weird.



I figured out some other stuff for later:
- Intake piping will probably run down and back of the oil pan within the depression that you see on a pic and then up on the left side and into the cooler which will be bolted either on the left side tubes or on the transaxle, left rear.
- The water cooler tank will be fitted over the rear of the transaxle, like some here fit their VCP cooler.
- For that reason, no trunk will be fabed.
- The shifter cables will run on the left side, about at the height of crankshaft's center line. I need around 103" long cables.
- The coolant lines will all run on that same left side of the engine, apart from the coolant tubes along the sides of the car (door sides).
- The turbo's inlet is quite close to the right side fender scoop, it's possible I will simply bolt the filter right on the turbo and fab a deflector from the scoop (I always said an opened scoop is not that good unless you somehow redirect the flow where you really want it to) + put some heat shield panel on the other side of the filter so that the filter doesn't suck up hot air (my goal is cool everything like metal is doing, I am a freak of cooling things and keeping temps right on operation temps).
- I will have to re-route slightly the fuel line and FPR, as the FPR is fitted on the fuel rail right now but protrudes too much forward. Either I re-route and fix the FPR on a frame tube or something, or I change the fuel lines and FPR for those race type braided lines and AN fittings.


Now, question for BODY guys around: how much space is there between the v-bars on top of the engine bay and the double hump deck lid once this one is properly seated in place? Does the lid sit on the v-bars or a few inches over it? Is there any clearance or it sits flush, that's what I'm asking.


More on the surprise tomorrow night.

[Frank818]

There you go. 7 months exactly, day for day, after I picked up the car from the Factory, it's now sitting in my garage. On Thanksgiving (for US people). What were the damn odds...

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Yes the garage floor will always stay that clean.
Oh where's the engine? That's the catch. No engine. I left it at the shop, cuz my mech obviously couldn't be ready for me to pick it up with the car. So the engine will stay there the whole winter, we will work on little things to do on the engine so that next spring when I go back to the shop, we will simply slide it in and connect everything around. And fab the engine mounts, of course.

The car is low, I know I have not adjusted ride height, but still I can touch the ground with my fingers through the center tunnel when I sit on the seat!

Now I look at it and... I don't know what's next! I don't know what to work on the car, that's weird. So much to do but I don't know where to start. I'll look at the manual to give me ideas and I guess tonight or later this week I'll start working on it.

[Brando]

I'll look at the manual to give me ideas

Whaaat? I thought you didn't do that.

[Frank818]

True! I don't! I just want ideas on what to do next, but not how to do it. lolll

[svanlare]

I could only wish my garage was that clean. Every time I clean some space something moves in to fill it.

congrats on getting it home.

[wleehendrick]

There you go. 7 months exactly, day for day, after I picked up the car from the Factory, it's now sitting in my garage. On Thanksgiving (for US people). What were the damn odds...

Congrats, Frank... Home for the Holidays!

I'll be trailering mine home soon to finish up. I've been building in a friend's garage and know how much a pain it is to work on when it's not at home.

[Frank818]

Yeah it's totally not the same game, after just an afternoon and evening I see a HUGE difference.

How far is your friend's? My mech's shop is at 20mins, but double that so I can come back, sometimes traffic, rain, you forget something home, come back, go back, or do nothing, come back, need to check on something on the car, takes 2sec, but it's 40mins back and forth... never ends.

Happy tnxgiving to all.

[Speedy G]

Hey at least now you'll make some progress. You could finish up the wiring, front end, and interior. The interior you want to take your time with anyway.

[Frank818]

Ok I have started using my Lincoln MIG140, Nolan has the same (if it's the 140).

I like welding, it's cool, the tictictictic, the sparkles, the odor is less. loll And it's totally resistance-less during the weld process, just like if you are moving your hand in the air.

Damn my welds look so bad!!!! lol

I have followed the recommended setups on the machine, I believe my voltage is fine if I check the metal color changing on the opposite side. But what am I doing wrong? Am I moving my hands too fast? Too wide movements? Too far away from the metal (more than 3/8)?

This is flux core, to practice and cuz that's what the mig recommends for 1/8. .035 wire, 25% wire speed, 100% voltage and my hand technique is O's, not C's, J's or other.
I don't wanna weld my shifter brackets like that. lol

Any comments, tips, causes, root causes, etc. very well appreciated! I totally need to greatly improve that skill, it's required.

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This is a rolling stool (not rolling STONE!) I built with only scrap parts. 0 cost and works very well. Plz laugh at it, it's ugly, but it's free!

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[K3LAG]

It's hard to tell for sure but it looks like your metal wasn't clean. Be sure to use a wire brush and clean your metal well. If there is any oil or grease on it, but sure to remove that with a degreaser of some kind. It also looks like your travel speed may have been too high. Make sure you are seeing a nice puddle form before moving then keep your wire in the front edge of the puddle and maintain your stick out at about 3/8". If you are getting a lot of popping, check material cleanliness and your stick out may be too much. Concentrate on the puddle. Practice laying down some beads on flat material before working joints. Flux Core will be more messy than MIG or other gas shielded processes. You should be able to get a decent bead, but it won't be as pretty as gas shielded. You'll get it, keep practicing.

If you haven't checked out http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com I suggest you do.

Larry

[metalmaker12]

Ditto, I second material looks like it had slag on it and you moved to fast. Establish a puddle and move forward. weldingtipsandtricks is very helpful site. If I get around to it I will post a video of using a small Lincoln, but with gas.

[Frank818]

The metal pieces were in bad conditions, I ground them off, wire wheeled them as best as I could but it was probably not enough. Since I had no experience, I couldn't define the "use clean parts" sentence every tip tells us. Now I think by "clean" they mean 99%+ clean. I will try to wire brush them more.

Those are the only pieces in "ok" condition I could find around without paying for new metal. Hope I can working something out.

I'll change my technique too and will try loops (U's overlapped) instead.

[RM1SepEx]

cut them smaller and the scraps will give you more surfaces to practice on.

[D Clary]

Take a class at your local community college, more wrong than dirty metal.

[C.Plavan]

Gas is your friend. Flux core is emergency only.

[STiPWRD]

I've heard it's a good idea to keep a dedicated wire brush for each metal being welded (aluminum, steel, etc). If you're using a wire wheel to clean welded parts, it may embed contaminants into the metal from other things you've cleaned.

[nkw8181]

As far as welding goes I'll default to these guys. They've said anything I could have only better.

[Scargo]

I have done a lot of welding but I'm not an expert. I taught others to do TIG 35 years ago. Frankly, flux-core is news to me. I always did MIG (with gas).

I do not feel this is a contamination issue. I agree that you need dedicated wire brushes for welding. I use SS ones.
Flux wire welding is known to be messy. I read that wire feed for FCAW needs to be slower than MIG. Again, I do not know FCAW but slowing the feed and lowering the amperage and moving slower might be in order. Practice/experiment. I wish you the best.

[Frank818]

Take a class at your local community college, more wrong than dirty metal.

Thought of it. But I prefer to see where I'm heading after some practice, tube videos and forum tips. I am not planning on welding many things but I might take a course if I plan on welding important stuff (engine mounts).

Gas is your friend. Flux core is emergency only.

I have to start with something for practice. I didn't want the hassle yet of gas to start with. Rent the bottle, pay to fill it, use it to practice, no more left, pay again to fill it, etc. It's possible to get something decent with flux, so I wanted to practice with that first and get the hang of the basics.

That being said, I think I got things better now. Of course my welds don't look that good, but I think they are solid enough to be called acceptable and that was my first step.

Dirty metal was probably the problem. I cleaned up manually with a wire brush and immediately I got better results. I admit I changed my technique and now am doing loops (overlapping U's). But boy that flux core is crap! Messy and messy and messy again. loll But I knew that before. Just practicing.

I watched a 25mins video of How NOT to weld and when the guy showed what was going on when you weld without gas (not flux core), I figured out the contaminants were my issue.

In here you see a tack I did and then 3 beads. Top to bottom, 50% volts, 75% and 100%, only 30% wire speed. Or was it 25. And from underneath, reverse order. I believe the middle one seems the best setup.

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And after cleaning the metal, my first corner weld practice at 75% volt:

2014-12-02 17.02.20.jpg

This one I think had a little too much voltage:

2014-12-02 17.02.27.jpg2014-12-02 17.02.35.jpg

And finally, I gave it a try on welding Wayne's shifter brackets. Welding upwards in this case. I did poke a small hole through the FFR tubing at one place, no pic cuz I wasn't proud of that one lolll, but I think I did 2 mistakes here, 1- I forgot to think that the FFR small tubing probably is thinner than the bracket's and 2- cuz of (1) I should have traveled more wire on the bracket and less on the tubing, or reduce voltage.

But I used a hammer and couldn't make the brackets to move. I think for brackets that won't hold a lot of force it's fine.

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I like welding, it's fun. I'm am rotten cuz I start, but I like it.

[nkw8181]

Frank I hadn't welded in a few years and after I got reacquainted with it I find myself looking for reasons to weld something :-)

[Frank818]

I hear ya Nolan, I believe the same might happen to me at some point, so I better do things right.

In the meantime, here's my first Multi-pass Overhead lay-down-under-the-car weld. 3 passes. I still have issues judging when my welds have good or no good penetration, but I think this one isn't too bad. My biggest problem is I have the tendency to travel too fast.

2014-12-03 17.00.28.jpg

[RM1SepEx]

Frank, you are getting better! When you have 2 diff thicknesses you need to angle the weld twoards the thicker material and kind of sweep in and out over the thinner to avoid burn throughs... your welds already look better that the first ones that we saw before you bought your welder!

Try to practice off the car and get some experience at the different situations, looks like you are well on your way

you can fill in the hole, just turn the power down and generate small short arcs to avoid burning through again... do the edges, cool a bit, more edge, fill till center is filled

again practice is the answer and steel scraps are easy to find! I keep a pile of junk in the corner of my garage, you never know when you may need that 3/16 piece that is 2 inches square to make a bracket

I just had a friend use his new miller with a spool gun to weld my aluminum IC bracket, I have spool gun envy! I can't justify one tho when he only lives 3-4 miles away... new mig, add'l gas tank, spool gun aluminum wire $$$

[metalmaker12]

I hear ya Nolan, I believe the same might happen to me at some point, so I better do things right.

In the meantime, here's my first Multi-pass Overhead lay-down-under-the-car weld. 3 passes. I still have issues judging when my welds have good or no good penetration, but I think this one isn't too bad. My biggest problem is I have the tendency to travel too fast.

2014-12-03 17.00.28.jpg

It looks like your not establishing a puddle and just jumping into it. Start with a little O get it red hot and than little backward c's right to left or forward c's left to right. Almost like a j weave works well with short arc. And use gas, it will hold up better.

[Frank818]

Tnx for all the feedbacks.

Yeah Chris that's what I said and you just confirmed it, I think I travel way too fast and I start traveling way too early. I guess if I can get that better it should be a great step forward. Of course gas will help, it's my next step, once I feel I'm ready I'll get a gas tank. Soon enough!

Dan, I thought exactly that after I finished welding the shifter brackets. Doh! But I think I am on the right track and not regressing. I'll get more metal and practice and get a tank.

[nkw8181]

Traveling fast is a good thing (on the track) but not so much for welds. Gas is also important unless your car is electric. My theory is you're thinking about driving the car when welding ;-) ;-)

[Frank818]

Nolan... theory proven.


Well the past week has been a disassembly progress and not a build progress. Removed front rad frame with rad, removed steering column, unbolted steering rack, unbolted LCAs, removed gas pedal, removed shifter and console, removed gas tank... not much left hey?

Doing this cuz my mech did a few things wrong that I don't like so I am fixing, some previous installation I didn't like, some wrong configurations, some preparation for welding (welding done) and installing my Ez-Cool heat/sound insulation, solution to stiffen the gas pedal mount and some adjustments required on the column length due to shifter installation and bad adjustment on my reclining seat.

I failed to lengthen the steering column, the shaft doesn't pry at all and I should get a good 1" out of it to the minimum. I don't know what to do. Very disappointed. Maybe I'll have to buy another column. Those are the costs I hate the most in these projects....

Anyone fitted a telescopic column yet?



What are you guys doing with these holes on the FFR floor? Can I block them off? I don't want air and sound to enter the cockpit from the floor and I don't want dirt (or water if I get caught) to enter the gas tank area, neither the cockpit.

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[wleehendrick]

Frank, I believe those are there to let fuel drain in case of a tank rupture or leak so it doesnt enter the passenger compartment. If you want, I guess you could rig a baffle underneath, but I wouldnt block them.

[Frank818]

Oh yeah! Those fuel leaks. Good point! Tnx for that, I will keep them and cut holes in my ez-cool insulation.

[Frank818]

Un-shorting the column

I made it! It required many hours of work, a lot of loud swears trying to tie up all this thing with only 2 hands without breaking anything on the column. A complex tie-down setup. And then a lot of force hammering on the U joint. I decided to use a wood block, soft enough to not dismantle the joint, yet hard enough to transfer the hammering power to the joint and pull that s*cker out.

Copy-paste is nice, but I won't paste the unintentional joke I made on the column thread in Steering section.
The column shaft might have been very tight within the column tube. I don't know. But it worked out.

I added almost 1-5/8" on the tube and a little more than 1" on the shaft. This way if I never need to add length, I won't need to hit on the tube. But that's the easy part anyway. I added a bit more so that if I need to adjust I will compress it a little again. Like longislandNYRangers said, it's a frickin lot easier to collapse than unshorten. Now the tube sits over the shaft. Not like OEM if I recall, but meh, it works.

The column also now sits on the bolt holes close to the sw, instead of those farther away up front. I found out too that these holes (farther ahead) are limiting movements cuz the nuts hit on the column's bracket.

Anyway, all that is sorted out now. But the short story is, yes, if you shorten it too much, you can unshorten it and it does not affect the column's behaviour (still turns no problem).

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Oh I made a little mod to my rolling stool!

2014-12-07 18.15.05.jpg

[Frank818]

Parking brake problem.

After seeing what others did or had, since my shifter is further back I thought I'd have issues with the OEM 2003 ugly ebrake handle.
So I mocked it up. Shifter and ebrake, OEM. It's close but it doesn't annoy my shifting at all. In fact I plan on mounting the handle under the small tunnel tubing (about 1/2-3/4" lower than FFR), instead of over it, just to make the handle lower and have a slicker look. The handle is 10.5" long, which is almost the same as the "short" Lokar, so it should fit cuz the Lokar fits pretty well (length wise).

But that's not my problem! My problem is I still can't bolt/mount the cables in place.

First of, the FFR handle bracket I don't have it or lost it. Second, I don't need it, I got flat steel/alu plates I can use. Third, I have some brackets which I don't undertand what they are, I think they are cable brackets. But they don't fit my cables. And if you look at the pictures below, you can see what I mean. I don't have the nice OEM brackets the guy is playing with, I only got the ones showed by the other arrow. And if you look at the cables, I need to grab those round metal pieces but I only got those small flat clips on the other end, for one is crimped in place.

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Should I go at the local dealer to buy those brackets?

If they can't be bought, I have a few ideas of how I could mount them, like taking a small rectangle alu plate and bending it into a U shape, then bolting both ends to the FFR rear cover. Can't tell if they'll be well aligned, though.

[Jaime]

Those are the door stops.

[Frank818]

Far from ebrake brackets. They should mark every single part, the bag wasn't marked either. Something went wrong in my parts list check-up, as I can't find those 2 parts :

80347 E-BRAKE HANDLE MOUNT EA 1.00
80373 E-BRAKE CABLE MOUNT EA 1.00

Anyone has a 02-04 donor and used those 2 parts? I would like a pic of the 80373, that might help me.

[Frank818]

Updates on the ebrake installation.

I went off to the local Subaru dealer and ordered the 2-piece cable mount brackets. Listen, those are 3 bucks total (CAD, even less in USD!) and the dealer is 8mins away by car. That dealer has been very useful to me up to date, they found every parts I was looking for within seconds. No more stress about that OEM cable mount. Believe it or not, I kept the nuts! But not the bracket... Doh!

Now I need to figure out what the above FFR parts are and if I really need them. I'll shoot Joe a mail and ask for a picture, but at least I will have the OEM brackets and worst case I can fab up my own FFR-like bracket to replace the missing one (80373).

And finally I need to find a boot and bezel. I think FFR supplied a bezel, I have to check. For the boot, I couldn't find a universal ebrake boot so I might try some from another car (don't know which one) or buy some fabric by the yard (much cheaper) and wrap it up around the handle myself.

What you guys with a 02-04 donor did for the boot?

[Tamra]

In this post, they mentioned that Joe no longer works at FFR, and his emails are not being forwarded to anyone. You might want to try someone else.

[ehansen007]

Yeah, Tony or Dan would be your best bet. I know they have another new guy too but can't remember his name. Best of luck. Looks good Frank!

[Frank818]

I took my mail from Joe and sent it to Dan. I did not read the RHD thread yet (now yes), so I didn't know about Joe, good thing you mentioned, as I would have waited without knowing.

Still, Joe was awesome. If he's reading this, well Joe we all had a lot of fun with you, so keep it up wherever you are now!

[nkw8181]

Frank you use the donor shifter boot on the ebrake and ffr supplies one for the shifter. I think the ebrake mount is a thin piece of metal used with a clip nut to mount the ebrake in the stock config.