John's EZ36R H6 818R Build

[Hobby Racer]

I'm really curious to see the jacking pockets in use. Do they penetrate the fiberglass side sails in some fashion?

They will once I get the body back on the car. Here is a picture of the pockets in use from Sgt. Gator's thread.

Jacking pockets in use

[Hobby Racer]

Getting closer to closing up the motor. Got the upper and lower oil pans and heads on. I needed to fasten the engine stand to the heavy bench with a long clamp to keep it from moving while torquing the heads. I had issues putting the first head on. Unlike the factory head bolts, the ARP head studs require that you put the washers on the head BEFORE you lower the head onto the studs. If you put the head on first, you can not get the washers in place. Of course this crucial bit of info was not mentioned in the installation instructions.

[q4stix]

As always, looking great. I'm really enjoying seeing the build up

[Hobby Racer]

I could have finished closing up the motor today if I did not have to do everything twice

Started off lubing and installing the cams. That went pretty smoothly so I buttoned up the heads, put the covers on and all the sensors in before moving on to the front timing chain, which I knew was going to be challenging.





It was at this point that I noticed 4 of these little guys sitting on the bench. filters.jpg I thought, hmm.. aren't those supposed to be inside the cam covers? Yes, in fact those are small oil filters that go here Filter2.jpg in the underside of each cam cover to keep participles from clogging up the VVT system. So now I had to disassemble everything back down to the camshafts, clean all the RTV off everything and start again.

I think its a good time to stop for lunch...

After lunch I built everything back up and then needed to take a short break to make a custom tool needed to hold the idler sprocket stationary while applying 90 ft/lbs. of torque to the bolt that secures it. An appropriately sized piece of scrap metal and a few 7/16 bolts and voila, a Subaru custom tool for hundreds less.



After that I spend quite a while figuring out which bolts went where in the timing chain assembly. In my hurry to disasseble everything I just put all the bolts for the timing chain assembly in one zip-lock bag. There were different sizes, head types and grip lengths. The factory service manual makes no mention of what bolts go where so it took some time to sort it all out.



Tomorrow it should be complete and I can get it back in the car.

[Hobby Racer]

Engine is all buttoned up. Tomorrow it goes back in the car and then the fabricating begins!

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[Rob T]

A thing of beauty. I can't wait to see it in person at the end of June at VIR!

[Hobby Racer]

Nature has a sick sense of humor. This is what it was like when I went out to work on the car this morning

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Anyway, the drive-train is back in the car and the fabricating has begun. First on the list is mounting the inter-cooler. Instead of throwing out my old wing support, I decided to try and make it work with the inter-cooler and new triangular engine cross brace. I have a bunch of time in that support and I did not want to start from scratch. I ended up cutting out the bars pointed to by the red arrows and added the bars pointed to by the yellow arrows. As luck would have it, the height of the new bars was almost a perfect fit when fastened to the top of my triangular engine brace. I simply used longer bolts and welded the new bars in.


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Here it is after removing the all the unneeded bars. A much cleaner look I think, especially without the large and heavy FFR cross brace.



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I'm thinking of mounting the inter-cooler in this sort of position.

[Hobby Racer]

The FFR engine cross brace also has tabs to support the rear fender arches. Since I eliminated that brace completely I needed to add supports for the rear fender arches and the inner fender liners. Mine are much lighter than the FFR unit and are permanently mounted to the chassis.




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[Mitch Wright]

LS Block out panel.JPG
I made block off panels and eliminated the FFR wheel arches which made the rear of the car easier to service and saved a little weight.

[Hobby Racer]

I like the block off panels for their simplicity but I like how clean the inner liners keep the engine bay. All that rubber and debris flying off the tires is contained

[Bob_n_Cincy]

LS Block out panel.JPG
I made block off panels and eliminated the FFR wheel arches wish made the rear of the car easier to service and saved a little weight.

Here is a picture of my block off panels. I was trying to keep engine bay heat from coming forward in the side sails.

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[Mitch Wright]

Honestly the engine bay stayed nice and clean, the only time it got mildly dirty was driving the car in the wet but a quick pressure wash took car of that.

[Hobby Racer]

I spent the entire day just making this one coolant tube. I did take the morning to dust off my TIG welding skills on thin wall aluminum tubing, so that was a large chunk of time. And then I did end up making the part 3 times

With the addition of the supercharger my old cross over coolant tube would not work. It interfered with the pulley and my removable engine brace. I kept the same basic design and just moved it down and changed some angles to get everything to fit in the space provided.



The coolant tube on the left needed to be laid down at a 45 degree angle to avoid hitting the supercharger pulley and or belt.



Things are pretty tight in the end, but should be fine.

[Hobby Racer]

The entire drive-line is back in, hopefully for the entire season. I spent the day mocking up the inter-cooler location and charge piping. Hanging the inter-cooler from the wing support seems to be the easiest solution. I made a simple hanging bracket using threaded rods and scrap wood so I could easily adjust the height and pitch of the inter-cooler.

Once I get it were I like it, I'll weld in some support brackets.

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[Mitch Wright]

Looking forward to seeing how you will be suppling air to the IC.

[lance corsi]

Bob-n-Cincy found that area to be a low pressure zone during normal driving. He tried a radiator there with no luck.

[J R Jones]

I developed an oil cooler for a road racing motorcycle to replace the OEM forward facing cooler attached to a front frame tube. I built a forward facing snorkel with the inlet in undisturbed air to the side of the forks. In the back of the snorkel I mounted the cooler ahead of the riders knee facing outward. Exhaust would discharge just outside of the riders leg. The faring covered the core and had a reverse NACA duct as an extractor port. Turning the ram-air 90 degrees through the core was so effective it worked without the extractor or the faring.Ciccotto1.JPG

The ram airflow was sufficient to cool the rear cylinder as well, it id not all exit at the cooler.
jim

[Hobby Racer]

Looking forward to seeing how you will be suppling air to the IC.

Bob-n-Cincy found that area to be a low pressure zone during normal driving. He tried a radiator there with no luck.

Fear not folks I have an idea that should work fantastic. It will be fully ducted so it does not matter that the area is a low pressure zone.

Hope to have it done by early next week. Finished up the inter-cooler and intake duct work.

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[J R Jones]

On the topic of jacking pockets:
My floor jack is not the latest low profile configuration and will not position under the frame. As I mentioned in a message, I picked a higher location at the intersection of frame tubes for jacking pockets. Surface mounting is not an option in my case.
My body installs tight to the side of the frame like a shoe box cover and is wider than the 818. My struts are a bit long now and will be trimmed to fit with the body on. The pockets are 2.0 inches deep and get good structural support.
jim

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jacking strut.jpg

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[Santiago]

I'd hang stuff off that sexy wing-mount too... =)

I'm sure Hobby has a plan.
Then I'm sure I'm going to look into copying it...

[Hobby Racer]

The good news: The car started and didn't catch fire so I must have assembled everything correctly

The bad news: The stock Mass Air Flow system is not going to work for the supercharged installation. I get terrible blower surge and the AFR's are all over the place. So I need to change the tune and intake system to use a Speed Density type tune. It does simplify the intake plumbing a lot, so there is that.

My big concern is finishing in time for my first track event on 5/17! The clock is ticking...

[Rob T]

When my engine was rebuilt, the tune was changed to speed density. I had another third party tuner look at it when I was in NM and "afraid" of the altitude at the track. The SD tune has been awesome. Good luck....

[Hobby Racer]

I tried using pink XPS foam board to construct a male mold for my intercooler ducting. I thought everything was going alright. I laid up the first part and got it to pop out of the mold after applying some high pressure air between the part and the mold.

I needed to modify the mold slightly before I laid up the second duct and that's where it got interesting. I cut into the mold and found that the auto body filler had hardened creating the outer shell but it also eat into and dissolved the underlying foam. Now the mold is pretty much useless.

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I think I'm going to change my design and make the ducts out of aluminum sheet.

[Santiago]

I tried using pink XPS foam board to construct a male mold for my intercooler ducting. ... I cut into the mold and found that the auto body filler had hardened creating the outer shell but it also eat into and dissolved the underlying foam. Now the mold is pretty much useless.

You should try spray painting XPS - wow, now that's a dramatic loss of form. =)

I love making bucks out of XPS - but you have to protect it before applying many types of finishes. Epoxy and XPS are fast friends; so you can make your own "bondo" like surfacing filler by mixing it with micro balloons or cabo-sil, etc. This makes it easy to sand. Depending on how much you need, this is more expensive than bondo. In economy-mode, I've used epoxy floor paint for larger items (test a small piece first to be sure of compatibility). You just need to seal the foam, not make it tougher. Once sealed, it's more apt to take the bondo.

My favorite method though is to scrim the XPS with light 0.75 oz fiberglass cloth (not mat, cloth). This seals and strengthens the buck. Then you can smooth it out pretty much any way you want.

Best,
-j

[Hobby Racer]

My favorite method though is to scrim the XPS with light 0.75 oz fiberglass cloth (not mat, cloth). This seals and strengthens the buck. Then you can smooth it out pretty much any way you want.

When you scrim the foam, are you using epoxy, vinyl-ester or polyester resin? I would think the hardeners and heat produced by the resins hardening would effect the foam.

[J R Jones]

John, I learned about foam prototypes through the Harley Davidson styling department, and later a prototype tech from American Motors. The common pink foam board will dissolve with polyester, bondo or resin. Blue foam board will not. You may need to source through an art supply store.

BTW I did a styling prototype project to turn a Buell Blast into a Sportster look. The Blast fuel tank was roto-molded plastic and large. I wanted to save the inner structure and mounts, and cut away the outside to look like the "peanut" Sportster tank.
I filled it with "Great Stuff expanding foam (like we make formula car seats out of) and gave it a couple days to cure.
When I started slicing off the outside in a Grobe bandsaw, the inside was still uncured. Once exposed the sticky crap started to set-up and clean-up with lacquer thinner was a nightmare.
jim

[Larry J W]

Yes, polyester resins will eat the foam. When I remodeled the rear deck of the 818 I had to use epoxy to bond the 6 oz cloth to the foam. In hind site I should have used a second layer of cloth in that the surface was not as rigid as I had hoped for. The shape was good. The filler beads (fairing compound) makes for easy sanding. With a little finesse the 1/2 inch foam can be worked into a 4 inch radius. Tighter than that requires epoxied foam laminations ruffed to shape, a messy job.

I believe the spray foams are moisture cure so as the surface cures it can no longer get moisture from the air.

Larry

[Jetfuel]

Hobby, your method with the pink foam will work, make your mold and paint it with two coats of regular home latex paint...resin can't eat it up and will hold the shape...
that's how I make most of my f/glass..carbon or Kevlar pieces...it works

jet

[Santiago]

Hobby, your method with the pink foam will work, make your mold and paint it with two coats of regular home latex paint...resin can't eat it up and will hold the shape...
that's how I make most of my f/glass..carbon or Kevlar pieces...it works

jet

+1 : Cheapest way to seal the foam, you're just trying to prevent direct contact with the resin or bondo.

I only scrim a buck with cloth if I want a better chance to reuse it (adds strength that the latex paint alone will not). I prefer to work with epoxy. More expensive, yes. Worth it, absolutely. The heat from curing isn't so high that the foam melts. On a very thin piece you might get some deformation of form - so you would want to have some support (but we're talking about pieces less than 1/8" thick). In most cases the foam holds up just fine.

BTW, you could scrim a buck with almost anything; it doesn't have to be fiberglass. I've used spandex, which stretches nicely, and I've seen others use simple cotton cloth (think "tee-shirt"). The basic idea is (a) prevent direct contact and (b) improve form. To the later, spandex and cotton won't really make the buck much stronger, but it does give a tick more insurance against sanding through to the foam and in some cases they smooth out the shape (req. less bondo, etc.).

[J R Jones]

I have eliminated polyester from my fabrication for years. The physical properties of epoxy is better, My supplier offers several hardener speeds which can be an asset in the cold.

I have replaced molded parts by fabricating with pre-formed cut & bond sheet and tube. Initially it was SMC like sheets and tubes from MCMaster but I found epoxy sheets in AZ. An asset is both sides are "A" or smooth.
With a variety of material gauges, I often build wood armatures, cut / bend / and screw the bits to the armature and bond the edges. After the armature comes out I bond cloth along the joints. Usually the inside, but if stress is an issue, both sides.
I built a replica of a Mercedes SSK which was an aluminum car, mostly simple bends, and my process worked well, for a one-off.

In place of micro beads which can be a PIA I have used sanding dust for epoxy filler (recycling dirt).

I have also used Ashland body shop panel bonder and Loctite EA 9460 epoxy with glass cloth for spot repair. Not real wet, but they do penetrate.
I have not used JB Weld for years, I have more confidence in Devcon. I have used Devcon and/or epoxy in high impact areas (front of the car and edges) where bondo might be challenged.
jim

[Hobby Racer]

I'm under the gun to get everything buttoned up on the car so I can break in the engine/trans/clutch on track this coming Monday and Tuesday. Making the intercooler ducting out of fiberglass was not going so well so I pivoted and turned to what I'm good at, metal fabrication. In a few hours I was able to knock out a pretty nice inter-cooler duct out of some 22 gauge aluminum sheet I had left over from other projects.



The duct is sealed to the bottom of the inter-cooler and has two 4" diameter inlets to force cool air through the core. The bottom edges that contact the inter-cooler core are hemmed over for strength and provide a smooth wide sealing surface. I have to say, riv-nuts are your friend

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Mounting the inter-cooler and duct in place shows just how crapped things are getting in my engine bay! Cool air will be rammed in from the driver side scoop, which if you remember are significantly larger on my build.

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[Hobby Racer]

The Rotrex supercharger has its own oiling system and its own oil cooler that must be mounted below the level of the supercharger. I was able to mount it in the passenger scoop just below my air intake duct.







As with most mid engine cars, air management is one of the most important things to consider. It can be challenging to get cool air to all the different components and coolers that need it.

But with careful planning you can usually get it to all fit and stay cool

[Rob T]

I'm looking forward to seeing this car at VIR!

[J R Jones]

John, You have eliminated NVA time (non-value added) by switching from plastic to aluminum. No waiting for chemicals to cure.
I have to admit to the joy of getting up in the morning and evaluating my late night chemistry.
Is it hard yet?
Did it drip on the floor?
How much grinding is required to make it look acceptable?
In the case of finish coats, orange peal and/or danglers? The underside that I missed?

IMO those enlarged inlets on the sides are an excellent feature in your air handling package
jim

[Hobby Racer]

The last part of my intercooler setup is to create a duct that attaches to the driver side air vent and routes air to the intercooler duct from my previous post. And since the intercooler duct worked so nice in aluminum I just went for it. This duct was way more intricate then the last. By the time I was done it looked like some origami creation!

It should work great though. I bonded it to the fiberglass side pod. Tomorrow I'll mount it up to the car and run the twin 4" air ducts.

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[Hobby Racer]

Finished everything today for my break-in track sessions on Monday and Tuesday. Hopefully all goes well. Here is the side pod I fabricated in my last post.





Here is a shot looking down on everything.

[Rob T]

Can't wait to hear how it goes.....

[Sgt.Gator]

I hope you have an IAT logger so you can do some testing with one of them closed vs both open.

[Hobby Racer]

I hope you have an IAT logger so you can do some testing with one of them closed vs both open.

Yes, I have sensors on and log everything! The next two days are just about breaking-in the motor. Seating the rings, clutch, syncro's etc... So much new stuff, need to get it all working together.

[Sgt.Gator]

Yes, I have sensors on and log everything! The next two days are just about breaking-in the motor. Seating the rings, clutch, syncro's etc... So much new stuff, need to get it all working together.

I just remember our tranny cooler attempt using the side ducts: We built a collector into the passenger side scoop that's just in front of the rear tire. We ran brake duct hose back to shroud around the tranny cooler. We thought that the scoop would send flow thru the duct, thru the cooler and out the back. I assumed that the side scoop pressure would be stronger than the rear of the car pressure. I quickly learned on the track that was a bad assumption.
So breaking out my IR thermometer was very educational. It appears the air in the duct was either completely stagnant of was actually running in reverse.
The shroud around the cooler, 237 degrees.
The brake duct between the scoop and the cooler shroud, 155 degrees.
The scoop inlet, 84 degrees.
I hope your exit out the top works better than our exit out the back!
Taping wool tufts at the entrance and exit and recording them with a GoPro may be very interesting.