Dan's 818C (Lightweight818)

[Dave 53]

I picked up a new lightweight battery and placed it in the car. But I couldn't bare to install it with the battery tray area looking like it did after some acid spilled from the old battery. I didn't want to uninstall everything and tape it all off because that would delay the build quite a bit and I did not feel that was worth it. So I just sprayed it quick as it was with minor taping/masking. Turned out okay and that's fine. Moving on!
Attachment 192291 Attachment 192295 Attachment 192292

The coolant pipes were sticking out quite a bit per the FFR instructions and the front wheels would hit them. I saw a couple of builders using these reducing 45 elbows up front so I did the same. I also used reducing 90s in the back to clean up the bend. The corrugated pipe bends were super wide and would cause the flow to be quite turbulent. I am thinking that this will work better (as long as it doesn't leak under pressure). So far no leaks with the system filled.
Attachment 192293 Attachment 192294

Trans fluid filled using the quantity identified by Subaru. I marked the new FULL mark on my dipstick which ended up being just under 1.5" above the OEM marker. That's a little better than usual since my motor is lifted a bit. I am sure I could have gotten it better yet by lowing the transmission, but I did not want to mess with that at this stage. The build is really dragging out and I want to drive this dang thing!
Attachment 192296

Fuel filler pipe cut to fit the Boyd tank arrangement. I bead rolled the piping to prevent leaks. Pretty handy little tool!
Attachment 192297 Attachment 192298

Looks like you might be using common worm gear hose clamps on silicon hose. I'd suggest doing a little bit of research on silicon hose specific hose clamps.

I'd also consider double clamping in areas that will be hard to access after all the panels and body are on.

There is a section of cooling pipe that transitions through the cockpit near the dead peddle with a hose clamp that is in the foot box and later covered. I orientated the hose clamp and tightened it from outside the car before the body was on. And of course, it was the only clamp that leaked (interestingly, only in cold weather when I was going to a track). I couldn't easily tighten it from inside the car. I had to take the body panel (and door, etc.) off to fix it, but I reorientated the clamp so next time, I can tighten it from inside the car. And because I could, I put 3 clamps on it! Takeaway... consider the tool orientation of any clamps when it's easy without any panels vs. when there will be panels.

[J R Jones]

Looks like you might be using common worm gear hose clamps on silicon hose. I'd suggest doing a little bit of research on silicon hose specific hose clamps. I'd also consider double clamping in areas that will be hard to access after all the panels and body are on.

In a recent Roadster post, the water pump (inlet) hose blew off at idle in a commute duty cycle. That too was a silicon hose. Silicon hose material is thicker and softer and the material creeps under clamp load. Wider higher torque clamps like "T" clamps can help but retightning periodically is a good practice.
jim

[Dave 53]

In a recent Roadster post, the water pump (inlet) hose blew off at idle in a commute duty cycle. That too was a silicon hose. Silicon hose material is thicker and softer and the material creeps under clamp load. Wider higher torque clamps like "T" clamps can help but retightning periodically is a good practice.
jim

I had a silicon turbo hose blow off and when I checked all the other T clamps, they were all loose. I absolutely concur - periodically check the T clamps.

A common worm gear clamp can also cut silicon hose. That's what happened to my friend's boat. A proper silicon hose clamp will have smoother edges.

My brand new The Driveshaft Shop axle silicon (I think it's silicon) CV boot got cut. Even though they used a proper clamp, to me, it looks like they tightened the clamp too much.
CV cut.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

Thanks for the heads up on the worm gear hose clamps. I just ordered (4) 1.5" and (4) 1.75" t-bolt hose clamps with tapered edges to replace the worm gear clamps. I will keep in mind the accessibility when I am installing them to the best of my ability. Maybe it would be smart to make that one fender liner panel removable? Then I could access the 45 degree elbows if I had to later.

Also, would it hurt to double up on the clamps? I could just use both the t-bolt and the worm gear clamps. I wont snug the worm gear one down super tight. It would be more to just increase the contact area between the silicone hose and the corrugated piping.

[Dave 53]

If you're going to double up, I'd suggest a constant tension clamp as the second clamp. constant tension clamp.jpg

At least with "regular" cooling system hoses. Might want to check if they are okay on silicon.

[Bicyclops]

I used a bunch of T-bolt clamps which leaked until I really cranked them down. If you take a look at the tubing afterwards, they crush the tubing out of round. Not ideal. They gave me trouble on my turbo to AWIC charge piping too.

I've gone to the European style worm drive clamps. These ones have the threads embossed instead of cut slots and are kinder to the hose. They tend to be fairly narrow, so doubling them wouldn't be that bad an idea. I haven't and they seem to be working well.

Ed

[Ajzride]

They are expensive as hell, and not reusable, but the gates power grip clamps are incredible. Never had one leak. Perhaps think about using them in the really hard to reach places you never want to have to worry about (like inside the side pods). I have them basically everywhere except on the inlet and outlet of the radiator, hopefully I never have to crack the cooling system anywhere else.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Hobby Racer]

I second the Gates Powergrip clamps. They are the best.

[BigDanSubaru]

Thanks for all the info and suggestions. For now, I am going to double up with the clamps that I have. If I am encountering leaks, I will drain the whole system and install those Gates Powergrip clamps. I already have the system filled and the clamps I ordered already shipped, so these will have to do for now.

[BigDanSubaru]

I got distracted and started messing around with the gauge faces. I taped them in some different locations to see what I liked. After posting this on the FB page, I had someone say that maybe 3 in the dash and 3 in a pod above would look good. I kind of like that idea. The gauges are oil temp, oil pressure, coolant temp, boost, wideband AFR, and battery voltage. I know you can get this data other ways, but I have always been a fan of the gauge look. I want them easily visible so I don't need to take my eyes away to check on things. Mainly the critical stuff like oil pressure/temp and coolant temp.

AEM gauge.jpg gauge option 5.jpg gauge option 4.jpg gauge option 3.jpg gauge option 2.jpg gauge option 1.jpg

[Ajzride]

I like the last one, 3 on each side. My second choice would be the next to last, where they are staggered.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

My camera in this video is about about eye level. I find the the steering wheel and my hands are often blocking the standard gauge pod. A lot depends on where How high you sit, Where you like the steering wheel, and how big of a wheel you use.

[Rob T]

My Cobb (with a data screen) and Traqmate (gps track system - shows RPM, lap time, etc.) is front and center taking the place of the big dash gauges. So all the other gauges are to the right, like a few of your options. Mine is track duty only, so a speedo is not necessary. I can and do glance at the other gauges on the straights.

[BigDanSubaru]

As shown in the previous post, I temporarily installed the dashboard. I did this so I could plan where to route/mount electrical components. I wanted to test fit the part of the center console that goes up front (normally around the shifter), but I realized that my shifter is much further back. So I will have to do what most builders have done and make a custom panel for that part. Cup holders can go there or something. I also cant test fit what I have right now because so many of the pedal connector wires are too short. So, I started extending them one by one so I have plenty of room to tuck the harness away.

Dashboard test fit 1.jpg Gas pedal connector extended.jpg Gas pedal connector extended 2.jpg pedal connectors extended.jpg relay and fuse boxes on passenger floor.jpg

I got a lot of the electronic relays and such mounted to the rear firewall along with the ECU. The wiring is starting to clean up a bit and fit down the center tunnel. Still a lot of work to do there. Extending more wires, bundling wires to make it clean, extending grounds to a common point. I think it would be nicer to have just a handful of ground connections instead of like 12 or whatever come with the donor. There is a little plastic ground group housing that is on the car with a few open slots from the wire diet process. Maybe I can plug some of them into there. That might help eliminate the risk of a bad ground in a hard to reach position.

electronics mounted on rear firewall.jpg wiring harness down tunnel.jpg

I started getting the grounding done. The battery is grounded using the OEM battery ground strap. I ground the engine from the location on the back of the transmission bellhousing. There were two small ground wires that came off the top of the motor on the Subie. I think they went from the intake manifold to the adjacent strut tower. Did you guys use those? Are they needed if we have the motor grounded to the chassis using the FFR strap as shown?

battery ground strap.jpg Ground Strap.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

The OEM boost control solenoid (BCS), is a 2 port with a tee fitting upstream of it. This limits the adjustability when tuning, so most tuners prefer to have a 3 port BCS to dial in boost more accurately. I tried my best to do a clean install of this one by Grimmspeed. I think it turned out pretty nice.

Grimmspeed BCS.jpg

After doing some back and forth on the wiring for the alternator power, here is what I ended up with. Thanks to the guys who provided feedback on my thread in the wiring section. I used 4 gauge stranded wire to a 125A slow-blow fuse which is mounted in a fuse holder on a frame rail. I then continued that 4 gauge wire to the starter where it can path through the FFR provided starter wire up to the battery. I wrapped the wire in flame-retardant sheathing and secured it in place. I was even able to reuse the OEM alternator terminal cover which cleaned up pretty nicely.

alt fuse to starter wire 1.jpg alt fuse to starter wire 2.jpg alt wire routing.jpg alt fuse wiring.jpg alt fuse no cover.jpg alt fuse with cover.jpg

[blomb11]

Nice work! I connected ground from the engine harness to two sides of the intake manifold. I believe these are required for some of the engine sensors. Wire routing and dress up takes patience and is a skill. I definitely could have spent more time doing that. I told myself I will go back and put sheathing on at least the exposed wires. We will see if that happens .

[RPGs818SNA]

Great job on the big wires! The little ones can be tedious, but rewarding. I tied all the existing ground wires to the frame to provide a rich network of paths back to the battery, including the FFR engine strap. There's no harm in doing that, although they may not all be necessary.

[lpmagruder]

FYI on the throttle cable wires, one of those is a shielded wire. FFRWRX had a lot of trouble not too long ago because of a bad splice, if you're not careful it's easy to accidentally short that one to the shield which ends up being a short to ground.

I was scared enough on that one that I did way too much work to make the original length work, but a whole lot of stuff ended up not ideally placed because of it, so lengthening it was probably the right call, just be careful of that shielded one.

[RPGs818SNA]

Really good point on using care to extend the shielded throttle wires. The pedal wire’s shield is only grounded at the ECM, while the throttle control shields are grounded to the ECM on one end and to the engine on the other with a break in the middle.

I’ve used the braided copper shield in TV coax cable wire for extensions. Here are some photos to explain the process.

Shielded wire extension photo 1.jpg

Shielded wire extension photo 2.jpg

The shields don’t have to completely cover the signal wire to be effective, but they do have to be connected to the other shields. Cover the exposed braid with small split conduit for a cleaner look.

The process can be tedious, but will be effective.

[BigDanSubaru]

When I extended the throttle pedal connector, I did so right at the connector. I did not touch any wires at the throttle body or any that run from that throttle body to/from the ECU. I didn't notice anything different as far as appearance when I cut and spliced into the wires for the throttle pedal. Is there a way to know if it is shielded or not?

I am gonna be honest RPG, your comment is a little outside of my wheelhouse. If I read it a few more times, I can probably figure it out, but pictures or diagrams might make it a little clearer for me. I understand that the shield protects the signal from interference. Is the wire shield just a bare wire or something wrapped around the signal wire? And that shield is grounded at the ECU to a reference node. I read that you should not ground that shield to the chassis, or you could have issues.

[RPGs818SNA]

Your pedal extension should be fine, Dan, as it’s pretty far from the spark plug wires which might interfere with the pedal signal. If you ever have a problem with a flaky pedal in the future, shielding the wire from Pin 6 may fix it.

I really should have added some photos to go with the words, but I didn’t take any. I’ll try to add some to the post to make it more useful.

A shielded wire has an insulated center conductor carrying the signal and a shield conductor surrounding the insulated center conductor. The shield intercepts interfering signals and conducts them to ground. It’s best to ground the shield to the device receiving the signal, in our case, the ECM.

Here’s hoping you never have to worry about shielding.

RPG

[BigDanSubaru]

Thanks for explaining that, RPG. I am hoping to have some updates on a first start here really soon.

[BigDanSubaru]

After a little troubleshooting for a no spark condition, the 818 is alive! Turns out that I had lost the immobilizer antenna plug in the sea of wiring. I plugged that into the female receptacle on the steering column and it fired right up! What an absolutely unreal moment.

I tried to insert the video, but I can't seem to figure that out. Hopefully this will get you to the first start video. Can't wait to progress with the build!

https://www.instagram.com/lightweigh...l/C09dxQaAMj7/

[driveslikejehu]

Congrats! It's a huge moment!

[Raven225]

Congrats! it is a wonderful feeling! All that hard work paying off in one moment.

[RPGs818SNA]

WooHoo, and congratulations. What an excellent milestone in your build. May you have many more.

[Bicyclops]

Yay!!

Ed

[BigDanSubaru]

Got the gauges inserted and wires routed. Still need to wire up a few more of the sensors for them. I have a fuse block that I am going to wire them to so each one has its own 5A fuse like the directions suggest. The gauge pod sticks down with 3M tape, but I haven't done that yet. Need to be able to get in there and unplug the gauges when I take the dash back out.

I think this layout works well. I can clearly see all of the gauges without the steering wheel getting in the way. And they aren't stretched so far out to the passenger side that they aren't legible. Really, you just need to see the digital readouts which will be really clear once I've powered them up. I could even slightly angle the gauge pod on the dash toward the driver seat, but I think it looks better facing straight back. Although the curved line on the dash in front of it makes it look a little weird. Minor detail. This was fun, and a good break from the wiring cleanup work. I needed a task that felt productive.

gauges1.jpg gauges2.jpg gauges3.jpg gauges4.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

I am getting a little ahead of myself because I'm nowhere near ready to install the lights. But I was dying to see how these would look in person. I'm so happy with them and I can't wait to see them on the car! These are custom lights made by Fred at RapidLotus. These are the "Type 3 LED" taillights that he offers on his site. The white outer ring is reverse, and the red inner light functions as the taillight, turn signal and brake light by changing brightness like some modern cars do. My 2015 WRX has this feature thanks to a plug and play kit that I bought for it.

Brake and reverse light.jpg Taillight.jpg

These were supposed to be .gif files, but the file size exceeded the maximum and the forum photo uploader converted them to .jpg. It trashed the quality, but it still kinda shows some of the other functions. I picked up a CURT 56175 Non-Powered 3-to-2-Wire Splice-in Tail Light Converter from Amazon so I can have the turn signal, brake and taillight operate off of that red ring. Once I hook that up, I will be able to have the brakes applied while using my signal. Without this adapter, the brake signal constantly sends 12V to the light and cancels out the turn signal flash. I will also be adding a 3rd brake light somewhere on the car to further display to drivers behind me that I am braking.

Turn no tail.jpg Turn with tail.jpg Turn with tail and reverse.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

I am still chopping out wire from this harness. I keep finding connectors with more wires coming out than are going in (or the other way around). Dumb stuff like rear wiper control, sunroof control, and rear door wiring. There's also this huge loop of wire that I really don't want to just tape up and leave in the car. I am thinking about chopping a couple feet of wire out of that so it's cleaner. It's going to bother me knowing that there's 6 feet of wiring coiled up hiding behind the firewall. The ground wires are also pretty messy, just balled up in a pile. All of this needs to be tidied up and tucked in before I reinstall the firewall.

wiring loop against firewall.jpg wiring on the floor.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

Looming and tesa taping the wiring harness. I'm officially halfway up the car. Granted, there are more wires up front and that will take longer because I still need to find mounting positions for all those fuse/circuit board boxes. But progress is progress. Closer and closer each night to being done with interior wiring. Then I can start putting the firewall, center console, and seats back in. Oh, and bolt in the 5 point harnesses.

wiring cleaned up halfway up tunnel.jpg wiring cleand up against fuel tank.jpg

The wiring just isn't very rewarding to look at for how much time it takes. The doesn't really get me excited to work on it. But I got more wiring taped up and mounted the fuse box inside the car. I also mounted some other boxes like the keyless entry unit, immobilizer, and body control unit. Back-breaking and tedious work that I am glad is done now. I'm really looking forward to doing anything other than wiring.

electronic boxes mounted under dash.jpg tan fuse box mounted 2.jpg tan fuse box mounted.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

Finally got the gauges hooked up. I wanted to be able to see them all when I test drive the car. Because the dashboard doesn't get secured until later, I made a temporary wooden gauge pod to hold the gauges that I'm mounting in the dash. It will work fine. I like the little fuse block the serves the gauges. It has a plastic cover to protect the fuses. I just removed it for the photo because it's easier to tell what it is. I'll clean up the wiring a little better once the dash can go back in.

temporary gauge pod.jpg gauge fuse block.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

Finally finished up enough of the wiring to get the firewall back in place. Shifter and emergency brake are all hooked back up. Bolted in some brackets to mount the 5 point harnesses to. I need to make a cross piece to attach the anti-sub belts to. Just realized now as I reviewed the photos that I switched the anti-sub and inside lap belts around somehow. So I'll be fixing that next. Moving right along.

final wiring cleanup 1.jpg final wiring cleanup 2.jpg final wiring cleanup 3.jpg passenger firewall back in.jpg driver firewall back in.jpg seatbelt mounting.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

The carpet kit from Factory Five is really nice. I did a test fit of the pieces, and most fit perfectly. Some minor trimming is required for parts that I customized. I got the driver's side firewall carpet piece glued in place. I'm wishing I had carpeted the firewall before in reinstalled it. But that's par for the course with this project. The instructions don't exactly go in a logical order, so you end up removing and reinstalling parts a few times.

footwell carpet test fit.jpg driver side firewall carpet.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

Firewall is fully carpeted. I also got a piece done next to the driver's seat. Driver side foot well is fully carpeted (minus the center tunnel which I'm doing last). Installing the carpet is so much more rewarding than wiring. Noticeable progress without much time spent. Getting cozy in there!

full firewall carpet.jpg driver footwell carpeted.jpg

This V-band turbo outlet had some rough looking welds on the inside (ebay special). Dad spent a little bit of time grinding them down a bit for slightly smoother airflow. It's better than it was and I doubt the small power gain from getting it perfect is worth potentially having the weld fail by grinding too much material away.

before turbo flange 1.jpg before turbo flange 2.jpg after turbo flange 1.jpg after turbo flange 2.jpg

[BigDanSubaru]

It took 3 of us most of the night to get the rear window installed in this aluminum panel. Lots of WD-40 and swearing, but we did it! In order to determine the mounting position for this panel, you have to put the weather seal around the top, then push it up against the inside of the hard top.

firewall window 1.jpg firewall window 2.jpg

Soooo, we put the hard top on! Then decided to put the fenders on to make sure the top was at the height it should be (it sits on an overlapping lip on the fender). Then we just had fun staring at how awesome it looks. Quickly turning into realization that the roof is very low and we now need to remove the seat sliders for more head room. Kinda sucks, but you didn't get much adjustment out of them anyway. Definitely going to need more headroom to accommodate a helmet for autocross.

Hard top test fit 1.jpg Hard top test fit 2.jpg Hard top test fit 3.jpg Hard top test fit engine.jpg

[FFRWRX]

Putting that rear window in was one of the toughest jobs of the build!

What I found, that I didn't do, is that it is far easier to adjust the rear hatch hinges without that firewall panel in place. Best to leave it off, or make it easily removable, until the hatch is all lined up.

[lance corsi]

Big Dan, I had the same problem as you and had to leave the seat adjusters out. I also leaned my seat back to give more headroom. I’m using a front mounted gas tank from Boyd’s so this helped gain a few precious inches to move the seat rearward.

[BigDanSubaru]

Big Dan, I had the same problem as you and had to leave the seat adjusters out. I also leaned my seat back to give more headroom. I’m using a front mounted gas tank from Boyd’s so this helped gain a few precious inches to move the seat rearward.

How thick of a spacer did you put under the front seat mounts? I put about 1/2" under the front of the driver seat and it tipped it back some. Too much though, and the bolt wont thread into the seat because the seat is angled too far back. The bolt comes straight up through the frame rail beneath the seat, so if the seat is angled too much I can't get it to bolt up.

Another problem with angling the seats back is that it decreases the distance between the seat-back and the harness bar. That distance is already too close and I need to chop the harness bar standoffs way down so the shoulder strap length adjusters don't contact the seat. Not sure why FFR made these standoffs so long. You would think shorter would also be safer because the belt doesn't have as much of a moment to apply on the bolt holding the bar in place.

[lance corsi]

Big Dan, I bought Tillett racing seats and they have a different type of base. The base is U-shaped with the open side up. My seats fit between the legs of the U-shape and the seat bolts are on the sides of the seat. The bottom of the U-shape is flat and that is what bolts onto the floor. Depending on where my bolts go thru the sides of the U-shape this establishes the tilt of my seat. My seat almost touches the bulkhead window aluminum. Also, I fabricated my own harness bar, so I don’t have your particular problem there.