Harley's 818S

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Great Job Harley!!!
Have fun
Bob

[RM1SepEx]

AZPete worked up a short tutorial on the cancelling lights, you need to adapt the plastic part that cancels the blinkers and adapt it to your NRG wheel and adapter. Not difficult, photos on our threads... sorry I can't give more info right now, about to drive up to Loring AFB to autocross for the weekebnd! Sadly my 818 made it up last year, this year I'm running the shifter karts only

[Harley818]

I must have missed that as an issue.... I'll go back and look.
Thanks for the info.

[Harley818]

OK, I can build a car.... but need my son to show me how to upload to utube...... haha.

Finally..... here is a video.... my first day on the road.... legally.

https://youtu.be/S-mUhQdgFjk

since this video, i have replaced the frozen boost blow off valve with the stock Subaru BO valve. Now less whoosh and psssst from inside the car, but still more than I want.
From the street.... it still sounds awesome.

OK, now with my new utube skill, I'll take some more from inside the car. The burble is very Subaru......

[Frank818]

We learn a lot of new things from building a car, right Harley?

[Harley818]

So today, after 500 km of engine break in this week, trying desperately to keep the revs below 4000, (300 miles for you south of the border), I'm changing the oil and checked all the bolts on the suspension etc.
Oil looked pretty clean, so hopefully all is good there.
I went over the whole vehicle, and for the rest of the bolts and connections, everything was OK, except the shifter mechanism bolts somehow worked loose, and that explains why my fifth gear shift was getting hard to find.
No oil, trans, or coolant leaks anywhere.
No sign of wear on the tubing, hoses or electrical....

Also, for some reason, my windshield bolts were loose.
All suspension and body panel bolts were good.

I would have thought that the body panel screws would have worked loose, but I have absolutely NO squeaking, or vibrating or other annoying noises.
I am very happy with the fit and finish and keeping it together so far.

[Frank818]

I also think the body panels will rattle, get loose or crack, with all the stress put on some areas where it wasn't possible to relieve that stress... Good news the bolts don't loosen.

Those of the windshield that's not very good, were they torqued at 75lbft? I noticed the weight of the windshield is quite in the back so it tends to tilt down, even with 4 bolts.

[AZPete]

The 2013 thread about steering wheel and turn signals that Dan referenced is:

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...heel-installed

I updated it so now it is near the top .

[Harley818]

I also think the body panels will rattle, get loose or crack, with all the stress put on some areas where it wasn't possible to relieve that stress... Good news the bolts don't loosen.

Those of the windshield that's not very good, were they torqued at 75lbft? I noticed the weight of the windshield is quite in the back so it tends to tilt down, even with 4 bolts.

I don't think they loosened.... probably my mistake in not torquing them properly.

[Harley818]

The 2013 thread about steering wheel and turn signals that Dan referenced is:

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...heel-installed

I updated it so now it is near the top .

Thanks Pete, I'll take a look.
I hate it when someone else doesn't signal or leaves it on.... and its even worse when you find out its been on for 5 mins since the last turn.

[Harley818]

OK, ......Dyno session today.

Have you ever heard that phrase...."you learn something new every day"? That was my day.

Took the car to Racing Greed here, a local shop. RetroRacing said they seemed to be pretty good, and there aren't a lot of other options around.
.... and guess who's car was also in the shop...... a nice blue 818R.

Racing Greed is a Cobb tuner, so that was good too.
Tommy, the owner did the work, and this was my first dyno tuning session, so it was interesting to see the process.
getting ready to Dyno.jpg818 at Racing Greed.jpg

Well, for starters, I had the wrong gas. I didn't have the highest octane premium so we ran the engine and looped the return line into a gas tank till it was empty (but before the pump ran out of fuel - didn't want to cavitate the pump). Then I took it to the gas station to fill with 94 octane. Apparently, its not as good as what you Americans have. He said its about the same as your 91 octane, but it does contain additives to prevent detonation....which is what we needed.

OK, good to start tuning.....

Got the car all set up, started tuning, and Tommy found that at higher RPM we were getting a misfire.
Pulled the plugs and replaced with new ones. He said that the Subaru engines perform with a hotter spark with the normal plug, not the iridium ones I had installed (could have saved a few bucks there). Still misfire.
Pulled the coil wires one by one and found cylinder #1 wasn't firing. Uh-oh.
Switched the coils. Same problem - still #1.
Spark checked on both.
Switched the injectors. Same problem - still #1.
Traced the wiring for the injector back to the ECU....... hmmmmm..... one wire wasn't connected. Added a jumper from the ECU to the injector.
That was it..... now back in business.
AND...... lots more power. Interesting how 4 cylinders is better than 3!!
during Dyno.jpg
during dyno 2.jpg

During the dyno pulls, he couldn't get the boost controller to work at all. I used the one from my donor. Could be the controller, or the wiring. So rather than waste more time, we agreed to just finish the tune as he had another appointment coming in, and he didn't have a replacement controller in stock. He is going to order me a Cobb 3 port controller, and we will re-tune it in a couple weeks.

In the meantime, I definitely have way more power than coming in, although Tommy says its limited to 9psi boost until we replace the controller. This will give me time to find out if its another wiring problem. Apparently I now have 220 Rwhp, and he says I should be able to get another 40 with the new boost controller working correctly.

Tommy said the engine AWIC worked amazing in his view, and he LOVED the feel of the car during the test run on the street. He tunes a lot of WRX, and says the stock TMIC do not cool enough and he usually has to tune around the engine temperature. With mine, he says its no problem and he can ignore it. With the fan in front of the car, doing multiple pulls, it stayed down around 100 degrees with 85 F ambient.

All in all, in my view it was a great day. Learned a lot, and came out with more power, with the assurance of more to come.
After all that work over 3 years.... and it was only one wire and an old boost controller????
I'm happy with that!

[Frank818]

I was expecting to see a picture of the dyno figures.

RetroR is in Canada??

Wow I'm impressed about 94!! Was it PetroCan? Our PetroCan's 94 feels better than US's 91, tested on my bike.


Oh my god, you were running on 3 that whole time for weeks and months??
Tuning sessions always find issues in an engine (or exhaust, like it was my case 12yo).


So.......... about those numbers? lolll

[Frank818]

Where did you tie down the front and rear straps on the frame?
Going in on Monday, for dyno.

[Harley818]

just responded to your thread......lol

[Harley818]

I was expecting to see a picture of the dyno figures.

RetroR is in Canada??

Wow I'm impressed about 94!! Was it PetroCan? Our PetroCan's 94 feels better than US's 91, tested on my bike.


Oh my god, you were running on 3 that whole time for weeks and months??
Tuning sessions always find issues in an engine (or exhaust, like it was my case 12yo).


So.......... about those numbers? lolll

Yeah, RetroR is local here near Vancouver.
I only have a verbal on the 220 RWHP...... no point asking for a graph and numbers now.
I'm happy to wait till we get the boost controller installed.
And I only got the car on the road on Monday last week, so only 600Km on 3 cylinders.....

[Frank818]

220, about 250bhp, not bad. What boost? 7?

[Harley818]

220, about 250bhp, not bad. What boost? 7?

he said its limited to 9 without a functioning boost controller.

[Frank818]

It'll be interesting to see what you get with a functioning boost ctrler. Any milestone in mind for next run?

[Harley818]

I have to chase a couple wiring gremlins, and some shaking on the front end at 100km/hr (feels like tire imbalance), so probably a couple weeks.... Sept sometime for the next Dyno session.

I get to play with my newfound powerband for a while.

[Frank818]

You mean the newfound cylinder.

[RetroRacing]

Great to hear! Tommy is great, glad you had a positive experience.

Ours, not so good, bearing failure again before it even hit the dyno. Taking it down to the builder to fix. Running out of time.

[Harley818]

Could it be remnants of bearing from the previous failure..... coming from the rest of your oil cooling system?
I would assume you cleaned that out pretty good or replaced the parts/hoses etc.
Once the remnants are in , they are hard to get out...

[RetroRacing]

We cleaned the hell out of everything, but that's what we thought as well.

[Harley818]

The 2013 thread about steering wheel and turn signals that Dan referenced is:

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...heel-installed

I updated it so now it is near the top .

Thanks Pete.

Here is what I have.
Pic of the copper spring that runs on the back of the NRG adapter. Two for redundancy. So far still springy.
IMG_1277.jpg


Here is a pic of the inside of the turn mechanism looking down the steering shaft.
If you look closely, you will see a small white square item protruding from the turn signal side. Compared to the previous picture where there is no white item.
IMG_1276.jpg

When you turn left it pops out and allows turning left, but cancels when the wheel turns right.
When you turn right, the white square protrudes but allows turning right, and cancels when the wheel turns left.

This is the back of the NRG adapter.
IMG_1278.jpg

This is the plastic device that mounted inside the WRX steering column, but connected to the steering wheel.
IMG_1281.jpg
When you turn the steering wheel, it hits the white piece and cancels the signal.
So I need to somehow adapt from this black sleeve to the NRG adapter.

Hmmmmm..... I'll need to think about that, but I'm hoping a thin sleeve will work.

[wirenut]

Not sure if this will work for you, but check out ninjanick's solution. Post #110 in his build thread. http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...l=1#post219384

Also, he posted the file to print his adapter here. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1185548

[Harley818]

Thanks wirenut...... this is exactly what I need.
Now I'm off to google a 3D printer somewhere here......

[wirenut]

Awesome! I'm pretty sure you can have it printed from a vendor on thingverse. Shouldn't be more than $10 or so...

[Harley818]

I got home last night and couldn't source a 3D printer in Vancouver on google.
Who would have thought?
So I made my own part.
PVC pipe pressed on to the hub of the nrg spacer, then pressed on the modified Subaru part that I cut down.
Very solid.
signal cancellation 2.JPGsignal cancellation.JPG

I'll post a picture when I'm back at the computer

Edit: added pictures. And of course after this, I found a guy to print my file, and now may also have a 3D printed part if this mod fails......

[Harley818]

Time for another update on here......

Brakes....
As I mentioned when I first started driving the car, I wasn't impressed with the ceramic stoptech brakes that I had in originally. It took a lot of pedal effort, and I could not lock the brakes up unless I stood full pressure on the pedal, and then it was hard.

So I read up on a few threads, talked to Wayne, and ended up purchasing some EBC yellows. Tamra also recommended these saying they were night and day.
Well, I installed them a couple days ago, and even though I am still breaking them in, I can get full lock up. Apparently it takes about 800 - 1000 miles to fully bed them in.
However, I'm already satisfied, and if they get better, awesome.

I have a little freeplay at the top of the brake pedal, so I need to work out a longer connection between the pedal and the master cylinder. Its adjusted so the rod it extended to the max, and I still have a bit of freeplay. Just need a longer rod.
As I mentioned above, I also fixed the annoying lack of self cancelling signal lights..... now it works great.

Vibration at speed.....
I have a bit of vibration in the car that is not evident until around 95 - 100 Km/hr. so I am thinking its wheel balance. The XXR's with Maaxis tires came pre-balanced from America's wheels, but who knows how good they were balanced. I'll have to get them re-checked as it does shake at that speed. Once you get over 130 Km/hr its not bad.
I'm hoping its not the rack, as I didn't do anything to the stock rack except depower it. There is a small amount of freeplay at center but not noticeable while driving.

AWIC....
The AWIC keeps the air under control and cool despite the high temps here in Vancouver. I am monitoring temps at the AWIC exit to the intake. With ambient temps around 85 - 90 degrees, the IC air as it enters the engine intake manifold tends to get up to 95 - 100+ degrees when I'm in prolonged stop and go rush hour traffic, but quickly gets down to the high 80's low 90's when consistently moving.
Shutting off the engine quickly heat soaks the AWIC, but moving again quickly gets the temps down. I plan to wrap the up pipe and turbo bellmouth/muffler/exhaust to minimize the heat even more.

Storage Space......
There isn't any.... For those of you who have added the trunk or other.... can you chime in how that worked out, or point me to your thread? thx.

Driving it.....
Still loving driving it, and the weather in Vancouver has been sunny since I registered the car.... so I have been driving to work every day..... put on about 2000 km so far (1250 mi for you guys south of the border).

LOTS of looks, and very surprised when I blow by them......
When its burbling around 3000rpm and you hammer it..... feels sooooo good!!
Even better when there are a few twisty corners.

[RetroRacing]

Way to go! You really need to bring it by for a look and ride

We are taking ours to the track for testing tomorrow and racing our EP cars all weekend, hope all goes well. If you want, you can bring your car by some day and we will throw your wheels on the balancer and drink a few.

[Hindsight]

Let me know how you like those brakes on the track. So far I've yet to hear of an 818 owner using the yellows on a road course... Tamra was using them on Autocross. I'd be interested if they work well under road racing conditions. For now I'm switching to Hawk DTC-60.

[Frank818]

Which brakes you got Harley, again? Aside from pads.

My AWIC used to control temps + or - 10C around ambient so you seem to be pretty much on spot.

[Harley818]

Which brakes you got Harley, again? Aside from pads.

My AWIC used to control temps + or - 10C around ambient so you seem to be pretty much on spot.

Frank I have the stock 2002 WRX brakes, 2 pot front, one pot rears.

[Harley818]

Let me know how you like those brakes on the track. So far I've yet to hear of an 818 owner using the yellows on a road course... Tamra was using them on Autocross. I'd be interested if they work well under road racing conditions. For now I'm switching to Hawk DTC-60.

probably won't be taking them on a road course..... too worried about the issues the track guys are having.
I'm happy on the street with a few autocross type events maybe.....

[Harley818]

Way to go! You really need to bring it by for a look and ride

We are taking ours to the track for testing tomorrow and racing our EP cars all weekend, hope all goes well. If you want, you can bring your car by some day and we will throw your wheels on the balancer and drink a few.

Hi Jeff,
We are gone for the weekend, but with beer and cars in the same sentence..... maybe next week. I'll txt you early next week if you are around after work one night.

Good luck on the weekend.

[Harley818]

Which brakes you got Harley, again? Aside from pads.

My AWIC used to control temps + or - 10C around ambient so you seem to be pretty much on spot.

Frank I have the stock 2002 WRX brakes, 2 pot front, one pot rears.

[Harley818]

I got my wheels balanced today.
What a difference.... silky smooth now at 100-120km/hr. Before it was vibrating at about 100 - 120km/hr.

Now it seems to self steer or wander at that speed. I guess the alignment is the next thing to re-check. On a smooth paved road it seems pretty good, but I have to work to keep it tracking straight.
Maybe I'll take Hindsights suggestion and add a bit more caster.

Thanks for the offer to balance Retro.... I still have you on my list to visit....I'll try next week.

I bought the tires at Americaswheels.com mounted and balanced..... I guess they put on the weights without balancing.

[Mitch Wright]

A long with the alignment I recommend checking the front and rear bump steer.

[Frank818]

How did you do your alignment before you went of on the roads? I mean, yourself, using a machine, at a shop, etc..?

[Harley818]

I used the string method.
At low speed, it seems to be dialed in right, but at higher speeds on the highway, I have to work to keep it tracking straight.

I didn't do the spacer in the LCA, so I might add that so I can get a bit more caster.
I did add the bumpsteer like you did up front with spacing of 43mm, so that should be good.
I set up the rear lateral links to be horizontal, but I'm wondering if it changes slightly under hard cornering, so Mitch is probably right, that I need to check rear bump steer.