Mechie3's 818S

[da King]

I've used socks in the past, my racing days in open wheel, the sock in the pic is pure bling - yes it will soak up fluid but its kind of an after thought, your fluid will be coming out of the cap not the reservoir, we would put socks on our caps not the reservoir. Fast air moving over an exposed master cyl will wick fluid out of the vent hole in the top of the cap and it will be everywhere, a cloth cap cover stopped all that mess. I doubt that the MC's on the 818 would be exposed enough to the fast air to cause the wicking thing to happen.

Finn

[Mechie3]

If I had a place to put a CNC I'd have one by now. Until then...

[Bob_n_Cincy]

If I had a place to put a CNC I'd have one by now. Until then...

Hey Craig, Problem solved. You could keep it at my shop.
only about 1 1/2 hr commute.
That's normal for west coast folks.
Bob

[Mechie3]

There's a reason I don't live on the west coast.

My home computer is being troublesome so no videos yet.

Did this Saturday/Sunday:
Pulled motor/trans
Modified engine mounting plates
Installed gas tank firewall
Installed rear brakes
Reinstalled motor/trans
Assembled and installed CV axles
Removed trans nut and installed locking collar
Put trans cover plate on
Installed E brake Handle
Test fit 2 wheels.

I also put the car up on the cart I made for the trans. It's under the gas tank and balances the car perfectly front/back. Makes it super easy to roll everything around as needed.

Engine Mount as it came:


Cut the corner off on both sides. Plenty of header clearance now.


The Cart:


Hoisting motor/trans back in:


Stuck 2x2's in the studs to stop wheels from turning to remove trans nut:


225/40/r18 on an 18x8 et 48 wheel. Random wheel/tire I had lying around to make a table out of. Maybe 1/8" of clearance at the firewall. Plenty of clearance at the strut and upper ball joint. Math says diameter is 25.09". Tire was a Bridgestone RE 760 sport.

[Mechie3]

225/45/r17 on a 17x7 et 42 wheel. These are my WRX winter wheels. It only cleared the firewall because a groove in the tread lined up perfectly. A slick at this size would rub slightly at full lock. Math says diameter is 24.97. Tires were Blizzak WS-60

[JeromeS13]

Were those tire pictures taken with the wheel straight or at full lock?

[Mechie3]

Full lock

[Erik W. Treves]

That's not where mine rub. Mine rub on the inner fender aluminum well before you rub there

[Mechie3]

I haven't done an alignment yet either. Those also aren't the tires I plan to use, just ones I had that I thought I'd fit to see how close they came.

For better or for worse....I took apart my shifter. We'll see what happens. :lol:

[RM1SepEx]

I want to shorten mine and I've considered making a new mounting system, meaning replacing the plastic section

[Mechie3]

To take it apart:

Undo steel clip (2)
Place socket around large diameter of shaft that the traingle pivots about
Insert setup in press, press on small diameter of shaft to pop off the push clip (or cut it off and get a new one later)
Hold plastic upside down in one hand, wack underside of shift handle with a mallet to pop off top plastic collar (it has plastic snaps that are hidden).

Much easier to cut it down and rethread it with it not still in the plastic.

[Wayne Presley]

To take it apart:

Undo steel clip (2)
Place socket around large diameter of shaft that the traingle pivots about
Insert setup in press, press on small diameter of shaft to pop off the push clip (or cut it off and get a new one later)
Hold plastic upside down in one hand, wack underside of shift handle with a mallet to pop off top plastic collar (it has plastic snaps that are hidden).

Much easier to cut it down and rethread it with it not still in the plastic.

Much easier to do this

[Mechie3]

Much easier to do this

Certainly, though I'm not (yet) independtly wealthy enough to add all the doodads if I can't make them myself. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, make something, buy something, or put it back together and forget I tried. At the very least I satisfied some of my curiousity seeing all the assembly come apart. :lol:

[Aloha818]

Can you measure the distance from the center of the driveshaft output of the side of the trans to the top of the frame just below it for me? I'm sticking in an auto and I think the pan is tipping the engine too far forward. I need a point of reference to see if I need to modify the frame of not, thanks in advance!

Mine is currently at 5"
image.jpg

[Mechie3]

About 2.5 hours of work and all I have to show for it is a box of tape/wrapping, sticky red fingers, and a pile of wires on the garage floor.

[RM1SepEx]

looks familiar
just take your time, it isn't as bad as we thought

[Mechie3]

It's much less intimidating with the tape/wrap off as you can see what really goes where. My plan is to identify everything I think I can cut off and mark it with red tape, then plug everything in and get the car running then start cutting things out. So many systems are tied together that it isn't always easy to see what can be cut and what can't.

My goal is to cut out as much as possible including shortening sections that are too long and removing connectors where the only purpose was to allow assembly of the harness in stages on the WRX. We'll see how far I really go.

[longislandwrx]

Good luck sir. You are right, doesn't look Too bad with the loom off and the SRS stuff pulled aside.

It would be cool to reuse some of the modular connectors so you could build separate removable front and rear harnesses and of course use the existing engine harness plugs.

When I am ready, I plan on taking 3 days off work, locking myself in the garage with a multi meter, soldering iron, and a heat gun and emerging with a beautiful harness.

[Mechie3]

I'm also going to try and document what I do. We'll see how successful that is. That way the next person coming with an 06 donor has an easier time of it. Only difficulty will be I didn't document my engine harness (lots of stuff cutout) and a few minor pieces were cut out years ago as well.

[longislandwrx]

I think considering the length of the engine harness, those cuts will be the easiest, unless you plan on pulling those all out back to the ecu or otherwise.

Par for the course will probably be pulling:

EGT, TGV, PCV status, AC compressor, EVAP, and air pump for 06+ I probably missed one.

[Mechie3]

Yeah. Anything I cut off the motor harness I plan to strip back all the way to the ecu. No sense having extra wires (15?) going all over. 15 here, 15 there, suddenly you've got a huge mess of wires.

[da King]

Good luck sir. You are right, doesn't look Too bad with the loom off and the SRS stuff pulled aside.

It would be cool to reuse some of the modular connectors so you could build separate removable front and rear harnesses and of course use the existing engine harness plugs.

When I am ready, I plan on taking 3 days off work, locking myself in the garage with a multi meter, soldering iron, and a heat gun and emerging with a beautiful harness.

I see the pic's of that harness and it gives me nightmares, this would be the worst part of the whole build for me, I will get one of Wayne's setup's.
I'm jealous of you guys with the first cars and I'm so looking forward to taking my time and really enjoying my build but I know that stock harness will frustrate the hello outta me. When I first started looking into the 818 and found out there was a plug & play option to the stock harness I just built it into the budget.
I don't have the patience/willingness to do this but will follow the process with interest.
Finn

[fateo66]

and air pump for 06+

Be careful with this, the left side pump houses the barometric pressure sensor. I have heard that the 06 wrx does not use it but that may or may not be true. All I do know is that when I built the motor for my 08 STI I deleted the entire system; afterwards the car would only boost to 12PSI. Once I found out about the baro sensor I ran a datalog and confirmed that my car thought it was at 28HG. Long story short I bolted on just the left side and plugged it in and now the car runs at the 18PSI it's tuned for.

[Mechie3]

I ditched the air pump and both valves on my 06 back in early 08. It ran fine at 21psi until my wreck in 2012.

[longislandwrx]

Be careful with this, the left side pump houses the barometric pressure sensor. I have heard that the 06 wrx does not use it but that may or may not be true. All I do know is that when I built the motor for my 08 STI I deleted the entire system; afterwards the car would only boost to 12PSI. Once I found out about the baro sensor I ran a datalog and confirmed that my car thought it was at 28HG. Long story short I bolted on just the left side and plugged it in and now the car runs at the 18PSI it's tuned for.

Yeah you can also just cut the sensor off the airpump, and even pull the wires back closer to the ecu if you really want to clean up the harness

[freds]

Be careful with this, the left side pump houses the barometric pressure sensor. I have heard that the 06 wrx does not use it but that may or may not be true. All I do know is that when I built the motor for my 08 STI I deleted the entire system; afterwards the car would only boost to 12PSI. Once I found out about the baro sensor I ran a datalog and confirmed that my car thought it was at 28HG. Long story short I bolted on just the left side and plugged it in and now the car runs at the 18PSI it's tuned for.

I have an 06 and can positively tell you mine does have the barometric sensor in the driver side valve. So some do and some don't. There was a lot of info on this in a post on cleaning up the engine compartment. I haven't search for it now, but anyone interested can...and will find it easily.

fred

fred

[Mechie3]

The wiring diagram shows that it's there, but no one that I know of with an 06 has had issues with removing it. The ECU doesn't seem to use the signal from it.

BTW, I'm compiling a list of pictures, colors, etc for every connector on the 06 harness from a sedan with auto HVAC along with a "cut this wire, short this, don't cut this" to help out others with the same setup.

[Mechie3]

Started my wiring harness guide thread here:
http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...065#post121065

Note it is specific to 06 WRX Sedan with auto HVAC. Others will be similar but with slight differences here and there so double check a FSM.

Finally fixed my home computer too. Transferred all the files to a backup drive and did a complete re-image. At least it works now. That means lots of videos were compiled today!

Day 23: Brake lines and lateral links
https://vimeo.com/76701260

Day 24: Engine, Trans, Axles, Aluminum
https://vimeo.com/76711984

Day 25 & 26: Wiring
https://vimeo.com/76717684

[Mechie3]

I haven't posted to my own thread in 10 days. Still doing wiring harness work. Takes much longer when you write down and take pictures of every thing you do. I did the actual harness work inside in the living room. The only comment my wife had was "have you seen a beautiful mind? You remind me of that guy". Fair enough. :lol:

Here's how I left the living room last night:


I try to remove pins instead of cutting wires, makes it easier to fix mistakes:


What've I've removed so far:

[Frank818]

I hate seeing a mountain of wires. But we need to go through at some point!
How long you think it may take you sorting this out?


Mechie, off topic, you can respond to me in PM if you prefer.
After you nicely took pix of measurements for the VR6 thread, can you tell me which one gives the measurement from the middle of the axle to the firewall?

tnx a lot again

[Mechie3]

I hate seeing a mountain of wires. But we need to go through at some point!
How long you think it may take you sorting this out?

I've been working on it for over a week!



Don't get too depressed. I've been busy this past week/half so that's part of it. I've also been documenting the entire thing (as you've likely seen my thread). I took pictures of every connector, resized pictures, uploaded them, added captions, posted them here. Traced wiring diagrams, documented it all in an excel spreadsheet by connector ID, pin #, wire color, where to cut it off, and what function it has. As I go through the harness itself, I verify I wrote it down correctly. You won't have to do all of that. I did it so I could share it and give others a head start.

Actual time spent removing wires so far is maybe just over a day? I was watching movies at the same time (paying more attention to the harness than the movie) and my knee hurts to sit cross legged (torn tendon) so I have to keep getting up or moving every few minutes.

After you nicely took pix of measurements for the VR6 thread, can you tell me which one gives the measurement from the middle of the axle to the firewall?

tnx a lot again

Not sure if any of them did. I'll look at it tonight if I remember.

[longislandwrx]

Can I call dibs on you doing this for me first when you are done with your 818?

[Mechie3]

If I did do someone elses, I would only do it on an 06 as that's all I have solid documentation for. Other years will be similar, but will require some looking at wiring diagrams and I couldn't guarantee a flaw free diet.

[wleehendrick]

If I did do someone elses, I would only do it on an 06 as that's all I have solid documentation for.

My donor's an 06! Want a 'vacation' in San Diego this winter?

Seriously, thanks for all the effort you're putting in to this!

[metalmaker12]

I might take my harness back out and cut even more out like you have, but right now everything is working correctly except my fans, which i will sort out soon. I think what you have done is very great, I just am going about it differently because I would come across more issues if I did it this way.

[Mechie3]

My one fear is that I put it in and nothing works.

So far I've mostly only eliminated things that are 100% missing (AC, HVAC, Defroster) that just end up in dead ends so there's no harm in removing it from the rest of the harness. I haven't done anything to things that will be there (lights, engine) just in case (airpump is one exception, since I ditched that years ago).

After I get it in the car and working then I'll shorten it. Didn't want to do 2 things at once (diet and shorten) since I'd never know if the problem was bad soldering or removing wires I needed.

[Mechie3]

Did some more wiring last night. Might be done for now, though I need to fix a couple broken wires that were pinched in the accident. Determined I can fully delete this little sub set of the fuse box. It houses the secondary AC relay, a small fuse, and relays for the airpump and valves. If you've seen the 06 box, it has a little dog leg that makes it a little akward looking. Thankfully, that section is a separate sub box once removed from the plastic housing. I'll make a new smaller, square box now.



I was also able to delete a couple of relays from the main box used for the airpump as well. The small row of relays snaps out of the main frame for the fuses to make it easier to extract pins.

[longislandwrx]

very nice. excited to see how much weight you've saved.

[Mechie3]

I think I'll save more weight when I trim the wires. There's 4 feet of wire between the ECU and fuse box and then another 4 to other sensors. Most of that can be trimmed down to 2 I think.

[metros]

Truly impressive work on that harness. That will serve as a great resource to the rest of us. Thanks!