Massachusetts 818C build

[STiPWRD]

This leads to a question for me to ask the forum readers….I was given a little ‘u-shaped’ hose to connect the heater tubes on the engine. But I believe my tubes are really far apart. Am I right to believe these are the two tubes I need to connect together with a hose?

Attachment 101579

Right, you have to buy a longer hose from any auto parts store. The small u-hose only works for certain model imprezas with a slightly different upper coolant cross-over pipe.

[sgarrett]

Right, you have to buy a longer hose from any auto parts store. The small u-hose only works for certain model imprezas with a slightly different upper coolant cross-over pipe.

Thanks....that's what I figured.

[sgarrett]

Thanks.. that would be very helpful... Luckily the 818 is short and my C3 is too.. but still don't think it will clear both

With a more careful measurement it looks like my ceiling is 131" (10'11"). I have the top surface of the deck set currently at 61" above the ground. My C3 fits comfortably under that and I have room for the Pantera easily. It is 43" tall. The towers themselves are 88" tall. Realistically I would say the lowest I could set the top of the deck and still clear the convertible top on my C3 would be 57".

If your garage is 102" (8'6") and if the height of your 818 matches the 52.5" on the FFR website then your minimal total height seems like it would be 57"+52.5"=109.5".

Sorry, doesn't look like it will fit.

[sgarrett]

After making sure that all of the cockpit aluminum was lined up the way I wanted it, I painted it and coated the outside surface with more of the herculiner. It is amazing how solid all of those pieces of aluminum can feel once they are coated, riveted, and siliconed in place.

Cockpit aluminum 5.jpgCockpit aluminum 6.jpgCockpit aluminum 7.jpg

[sgarrett]

Tackled the brake and clutch lines next. These were much trickier than I thought they would be.

I had to get a new clutch line because I apparently didn’t get one with my donor (the transmission and engine were already out of the car). It seems shorter than it should be, but I got it to work.

Clutch line.jpg

It took a lot of tries to get it to bleed properly. I ended up following the advice I found in some of the posts here as well as in a Subaru forum. After getting all the fittings to stop leaking, I removed the slave cylinder, clamped down the piston and raised it with the nipple pointed up during the bleeding. Attached it to the transmission again and bled it again. Did that a couple of times and eventually got everything working right. I was a bit worried because the pedal seems to be able to travel all the way to the firewall (just barely) when I push it in. It looks like it isn’t quite hitting the rubber bumper that is intended to stop its travel. That is an easy tweak that I think I need to do.

[sgarrett]

Now that the clutch was functional I started to mess around with engaging it and moving the transmission through its gears (tricky to do since I don’t have any shift linkages yet. But that is why I have my helper! He pushed in the clutch and I stood by the transmission and changed the gears by hand.

At this point I noticed that I could always spin an axle by hand even when the transmission is in gear. So that led to another of my ‘gosh darn it’ moments. I figured I had screwed something up with the clutch and that it wasn’t allowing the transmission to engage the engine. So that meant I had to backtrack and take the transmission back out of the car.

I really didn’t want to do that.

I took the starter motor back off to try to see in there and planned out just what I would have to disconnect (minimally) to do the job. Hours spent thinking about it….

As usual, I then slept on it and woke up thinking ‘I wonder if BOTH axles can still spin by hand when it is in gear?” No they can’t. Only when I put it in neutral. Everything is working fine. Good grief. I am an idiot.

[sgarrett]

So then I moved on to the brakes. I had never gotten to bend tubing before and thought this would be really fun. I imagined perfectly bent tubes all parallel with each other and neatly fitting into where they are supposed to be. Oops….I’m going to need to cut and reflare these tubes that were included in the kit if I want to do that. My dad said he had a flaring tool I could use (I don't think he got it last year....) so I went at it.

Flaring tool.jpg

It actually worked really well! But I didn’t achieve anywhere near the level of symmetrical perfection that I was hoping for.

Front brake lines 1.jpgFront brake lines 2.jpgRear Brake lines.jpg

Got the lines run, filled the reservoir, started the bleeding process, and watched brake fluid pour/shoot/spurt/exude/etc. out of every single fitting….. Wow….what a mess. As it turns out I really didn’t tighten most of them down enough, but I also had a few bad flares. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but I did eventually create a leak free system, and created a large bottle of wasted brake fluid in the process.

[sgarrett]

Before tackling the electrical harness, I wanted to make sure that my seats and seat belts were going to fit in the way I was imagining. When I did the teardown I saved the driver seat track so that I could move the seat forward/back and up/down. I am 6’1, but my 16 year old daughter is 5’1. She is helping with the build and fully expects to be driving it. So I wanted a range of adjustment for the two of us.

I spent A LOT of time on various designs and approaches. Nothing really excited me and I worried that I just wouldn’t be able to mount it to the frame without welding up some mounting spots (I’m not a welder!)…but I thought that maybe I could get inspiration as I start really fitting them in to the car.

I positioned the seat belts per the manual (donor was a wagon). Wait….these things are going to take up the couple of inches of travel I had planned for the seat. OK…I’ll mount them in the engine bay. I disassembled them to remove the child safety lock. My curiosity about the mechanism got the best of me and I ended up releasing the entire rewind spring and it sprang to life in all of its glory across my basement floor. You have got to be kidding me! That took a while to get back into position and re-tensioned. Then I had to turn the belts around in the mechanism so that the upper mount point was oriented properly, which is why I accidentally released the spring in the first place.

Then I started thinking I really don’t want the belt back in the engine bay so I switched things around again (didn’t release the spring this time though!). In the end, I went with the manual’s approach and just mounted the belts as they intended. I could have saved so much time if I had just done this in the first place.

I see where some people mount the buckle part to the frame, but I attached it to the seat frame. That seemed easier and is where Subaru mounted it too. I just had to bend the mounting bracket flat. Worked perfectly for me.

Seat belt braket 1.jpgSeat belt braket 2.jpgSeat belt attached to seat frame.jpg

The manual doesn’t tell you where to attach the lower anchor. But I saw what dougkirkbride did so I copied it (thanks!). As you can see, it fits right between my brake lines just like I planned it (and like dougkirkbride claimed also!). If anyone wants to reference this in the future I drilled the hole 15.5” from the end of that piece of the frame and used 3/8” hardware.

Seat belt lower anchor point.jpgBrake lines side.jpg

[sgarrett]

I also realize now it was a complete waste of time for me to be thinking at all about the seat adjustment. Now that I have been living with the car and muscling the seat in and out about 100 times, I realize it is so small there is no way I could ever get the seat back far enough for me to have it where I would really want it. But ironically, it is still more legroom than my other car. So I am mounting the seat in a fixed position and living with it. It is in the perfect compromise spot for both my daughter and me. And since I can't push it back any further anyway I've got nothing to complain about. I guess I can always upgrade to other seats in the future if I really need to.

I just drilled through the frame on all four corners and mounted the seats.

pass front left seat mount.jpgpass rear left seat mount.jpgpass front right seat mount.jpgPass seat belt anchor position.jpg

I did do one modification to the outside bracket for the driver’s seat. It turned out the bracket was a little too short for me to be able to reach a mounting location on the frame easily. I took a couple of the pieces that I cut off of the fronts of the brackets, shaped them, and had the guy at my local service station weld them onto the bracket for me (they have been awesome helping me with misc tasks that I dont have the tools to do.).

Seat bracket.jpg

It works great!

Done! Seats and seat belts are ready once the harness and cooling are done.

seats and seat belts mounted.jpg

Took them out of the car for the 200th time and put them back into the basement for later.

[sgarrett]

After reading MANY posts about the harness and talking with one of the guys at FFR I felt confident that I could make short work of the it. I do not plan on doing any excessive dieting of the harness. But I do want to make sure I don’t have a rat’s nest hiding in the center console, under the dash, or behind the firewall.

Step one in the manual says to connect the two big engine connectors.

Engine connectors.jpg

Then attach some other engine connectors and the alternator wires. Easy so far.

Then I am supposed to: ” Pull the control boxes and fuse panels through the bulkhead and lay them out on the gas tank”.

Wire harness in car.jpg

Uh oh. This is going to suck.

So now the harness is spread out in the basement and I am stripping off all the bits of tape and tubing that make it the perfect geometry for the Subaru but make it not so good for the 818.

Harness on floor.jpg

[sgarrett]

…and that now brings me up to date with the build. My goal was to be ‘done’ with the car in the fall of 2020. At this point I feel like I will be hard pressed to finish by fall 2021. But I’m not giving up hope yet!

I’ll try to keep updates flowing.

[kcarlasc]

With a more careful measurement it looks like my ceiling is 131" (10'11"). I have the top surface of the deck set currently at 61" above the ground. My C3 fits comfortably under that and I have room for the Pantera easily. It is 43" tall. The towers themselves are 88" tall. Realistically I would say the lowest I could set the top of the deck and still clear the convertible top on my C3 would be 57".

If your garage is 102" (8'6") and if the height of your 818 matches the 52.5" on the FFR website then your minimal total height seems like it would be 57"+52.5"=109.5".

Sorry, doesn't look like it will fit.

Thanks!!! I figured I would be short a few inches... my C3 is a hard to so can’t even do it with the roof down. Was hoping the 818 or vette would fit between the rails and could lower it some.. but no luck there either.. thanks again!

[aquillen]

" I imagined perfectly bent tubes all parallel with each other and neatly fitting into where they are supposed to be."...

You've got very nice looking bends and arrangements there. Be proud.

[sgarrett]

Wow....the harness is time consuming and not very satisfying…but making progress.

So I decided to take a break from it and start putting in the Dynamat. Never used the stuff before, but easy to work with and to quote my son: “I hope this is where you want it because it is going to be impossible to get it all back out again”. I learned to be mindful of where the little pieces go when cutting it. That stuff is tenacious. I have multiple little black stains on the knees of my pants now, and our shoes make sticky sounds as we walk across the floor.

Dynamat 1.jpgDynamat 2.jpg

I do have a question for you guys about the locations you used to mount the various modules and fuse boxes on the harness. There just isn't going to be room for all of them between the firewall and the top of the gas tank. I have looked over many of the threads but wonder why I don’t see where anyone mounted the engine fuse box (the black plastic one) up high behind the driver’s seat. It seems like a great spot for it.

Dynamat 3.jpg

In the picture, I am thinking about attaching it along the red line by the circled number 1. I think I am supposed to put the overflow tank where the circled number 2 is. Will I have a future problem if I mount the fuse box where the number 1 is?

[STiPWRD]

There's nothing wrong with placing the fuse box in the locations you've shown but consider that this will put a ton of wiring in your engine bay. You'll also need to extend a bunch of wires to the front of the car for the gauge cluster, steering wheel, pedals, head lights, fans, wipers, etc. All of this will have to fit through the center console, which is already cramped. It's actually relatively straight forward to put both fuse boxes in the front under the dash, this is what I did. Larry detailed the approach here:
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/show...l=1#post152340
Here is a picture of my fuse boxes under the dash area:
20190117_205917.jpg
As you can see, I haven't cleaned up the wiring yet so it still looks like a bit of a rats nest. It's hard to avoid unless you go iWire or completely rewire the harness from scratch.

[sgarrett]

Oh...that is a great picture! Thank you. Very helpful. And Larry's posts are also great!

[sgarrett]

How did you manage the fuel vapor canister? Did you just buy a charcoal canister and mount it down below where I was thinking I would put the fuse box....or did you try to use the original vapor recovery system?

[STiPWRD]

How did you manage the fuel vapor canister? Did you just buy a charcoal canister and mount it down below where I was thinking I would put the fuse box....or did you try to use the original vapor recovery system?

Sort of. I mounted mine a little further away from the cabin, to the left of the transmission (center of photo):
IMAG1396.jpg
It's a charcoal canister from a yamaha scooter I found on ebay. It's hooked up to the top of the fuel tank on one end and vents to atmosphere, works great. The original wrx canister was a bit bulky and unsightly.

[Radical818C]

Thanks for posting this. I will be watching closely. Considering a build with a Radical V8.

[sgarrett]

...It's hooked up to the top of the fuel tank on one end and vents to atmosphere...

So the vent hose from the tank goes into the canister and then you have a hose coming out the exit of the canister that is just open to the atmosphere? Nothing more complicated than that? I saw in the Wyoming 818R Build Thread that shoeish mounted a GM canister just behind the driver door between the frame and the body panel. But I couldn't tell where the exit hose from the canister was going.

[AZPete]

Yes, it's as simple as that. I got a Miata canister from eBay and it's vented straight out to atmosphere and there's no gas smell in the garage, even in the summer heat.

[sgarrett]

Yes, it's as simple as that. I got a Miata canister from eBay and it's vented straight out to atmosphere and there's no gas smell in the garage, even in the summer heat.

Thanks Pete...and I have been admiring your car and bookmarking a lot of your posts. I will probably be pestering you in the near future about the AC.

[STiPWRD]

Yes, it's as simple as that. I got a Miata canister from eBay and it's vented straight out to atmosphere and there's no gas smell in the garage, even in the summer heat.

^ What he said

[idf]

So the vent hose from the tank goes into the canister and then you have a hose coming out the exit of the canister that is just open to the atmosphere? Nothing more complicated than that? I saw in the Wyoming 818R Build Thread that shoeish mounted a GM canister just behind the driver door between the frame and the body panel. But I couldn't tell where the exit hose from the canister was going.

I have a GM canister you can have if you want it. It is on the large side. In Hingham, MA.

[sgarrett]

I have a GM canister you can have if you want it. It is on the large side. In Hingham, MA.

Thanks....but I think I am going to look for something a bit more streamlined so that I can mount it back near the transmission.

I drive by Hingham when I go down to visit my parents on the Cape. Do you have a completed 818? I'd love to see it sometime.

[idf]

Thanks....but I think I am going to look for something a bit more streamlined so that I can mount it back near the transmission.

I drive by Hingham when I go down to visit my parents on the Cape. Do you have a completed 818? I'd love to see it sometime.

I do have a completed 818S. Would be happy to have you stop by anytime.

[sgarrett]

I do have a completed 818S. Would be happy to have you stop by anytime.

Thanks....I sent you a pm.

[sgarrett]

Well I finished up the Dynamat and felt pretty good about myself....I made progress on the car!

Dynamat 4.jpgDynamat 5.jpg

...and that meant it was time to get back to the harness....gulp.

[sgarrett]

It is going better this time around. I took off almost all of the coverings over the wires so that I could separate the stuff that goes to the front from the stuff that goes to the back.

But good grief. My garage is now chaos, I can't make up my mind about where to put all the darn modules, I have started to lengthen some of the wires, and I still feel like it is a giant rat's nest. But at least I am much more familiar with just what is going on in the rat's nest now.

I did get the steering column all plugged back in again so I declare a small victory on that!

Wiring 1.jpgWiring 2.jpg

[AZPete]

I had a worse rat's nest! My only advice is Patience, Patience, Patience.
One wire at a time.
And vodka.

[sgarrett]

Big shout out to Harley. On Octoberknights build thread he noticed that the upper bearing race was still in the transmission after he finished the mods. That got me thinking....so I opened mine back up and look what I found:

Bearing race.jpg

Oops....but thanks to Harley potential disaster avoided. Thank you!

Still chugging along on the wiring. Will post pictures soon (I hope).

[ben1272]

Big shout out to Harley. On Octoberknights build thread he noticed that the upper bearing race was still in the transmission after he finished the mods. That got me thinking....so I opened mine back up and look what I found:

Bearing race.jpg

Oops....but thanks to Harley potential disaster avoided. Thank you!

Still chugging along on the wiring. Will post pictures soon (I hope).

I read that post as well, and was scratching my head trying to remember if I removed the race....now I am going to take mine apart and have a look see.

[sgarrett]

Harness progress continues one wire at a time.

I am not done yet by any stretch, but I feel like there is an end to this very long tunnel!

I am dieting it more than I had anticipated, but once you get started it really isn't that bad. I now have all the stuff that goes to the back and the stuff that goes up front mostly separated. Working now on getting everything to fit into the hidden locations. I think I have settled on putting the tan fuse box in the middle of the dash and the engine fuse box up front above the battery. I still don't know exactly where to mount all the misc little modules. Need to fit them in somewhere along the back behind the firewall I guess. I'm not sure I even need all of them....will be working on figuring that out this week.

Wiring 3.jpgWiring 4.jpgWiring 5.jpgWiring removed 1.jpg

Huge thanks to the people who have posted before me. Your advice has been invaluable. Some things that I will reinforce:

1. The Subaru wiring manual is your friend. Get intimate with it. After a few hours it all starts to make sense. It is my bedtime reading now
2. DO NOT cut a wire without following it to the end first. You will likely encounter a splice. Easier to cut at the splice that fix it later!
3. DO NOT cut a wire with a thick gray insulation around it. It is shielded. Not easy to fix. THANK YOU Arizona Pete for kindly sending me some of your leftover shielded wire. Huge help!
4. One wire at a time. You can't eat an elephant all at once. That is so true here.
5. I don't drink...but this wiring harness is getting me to reconsider.

[sgarrett]

Quick question for you guys....once I am all wired up in the car I assume I will need to take it to a tuner. Can they reprogram the computer so that any fault codes for things I have removed are ignored? Things like the seat belt sensors, rear door switches, etc. Or do I need to short all of the switches closed?

Thanks

[AZPete]

I had my tuner remove all the useless codes, then he copied the new map onto my Cobb Accessport.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Quick question for you guys....once I am all wired up in the car I assume I will need to take it to a tuner. Can they reprogram the computer so that any fault codes for things I have removed are ignored? Things like the seat belt sensors, rear door switches, etc. Or do I need to short all of the switches closed?

Thanks

Codes that are generated by the ECU can be turned off by the tuner. These a code related to emission stuff that you removed.

Dash indicators like seat belt sensors and rear door switches don't go through the ECU. So you have to fix the with wiring. I don't remember shorting any thing out. Just not wiring the switches and the dash indicator doesn't turn on.
Bob

[STiPWRD]

As Bob mentioned, the ECU mainly handles engine related functions so it will only throw a code if it senses an engine or emissions issue. Things like door sensors won't cause a fault code but may show up in the gauge cluster and have to be fixed by troubleshooting the wiring. I didn't have any of these lights pop up when I removed door and seat belt sensors/wiring.

If you don't want to deal with a tuner, you can disable any codes yourself with an accessport or with open source software (rom raider) and a tactrix cable. Both of these can also be used to tune the engine.

[sgarrett]

Thanks guys!

[lawrencecacc]

looking forward to seeing it

[MonzaMan]

This leads to a question for me to ask the forum readers….I was given a little ‘u-shaped’ hose to connect the heater tubes on the engine. But I believe my tubes are really far apart. Am I right to believe these are the two tubes I need to connect together with a hose?

Attachment 101579

I don't suppose you still have the "little 'u-shaped' hose"? for the life of me I can't find mine, but my engine does have the connections very close together (EJ207 V9). Perhaps I can help you find a "good home for your unused one !