| Retto216 |
Sat Sep 14, 2013 8:18 pm |
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About a month ago one of my friends convinced me to buy a sand rail after taking his for a test drive. After looking around a bit, I found a 4 seat sand rail rolling chassis with a transmission in it already for a good price and it even had a street legal title!!! The plan was to spend some cash on a VW motor and toss it in that week and run with it...
As always things don't go as planned. Before I knew it, I was looking online and contemplating
-fitting a Subaru engine in it
-changing the transmission to a 5 rib Bus that we found at the scrap yard
-completely modifying the frame because it had too little ground clearance and the drivers area was not meant for a 6' 1" driver!
As of now... It looks like I had no idea how much work and what I have gotten myself into by starting all from scratch, but I'm happy I did it and am shooting for a 3 month build to get this thing done and back on the road!.. (yea, I have a lot of Ambition!)
So Far:
My Friends Buggy!
Start of the project!
5 Rib bus Transmission all cleaned up! Not bad for $150!!!
Time to cut the frame apart and start to re-work it!
Moved the floor pan to the top of the floor and started to cut and redesign the front end with a lift
WOW! Raised the frame over 8 inches in the front and 9" in the rear and raised the tube below the window up 3 inches as well as new Paint!
Fabricated a custom Motor Mount that would help hold up the new EJ22 Subaru engine! (It should even work with the factory rubber motor mounts!
Found A 1996 Subaru legacy donor car! The rear strut mounts rusted out and broke through the passenger compartment, so this car was headed to the scrap yard with a perfectly good engine!!! What a deal! (I even found over $20 in change under the seats!!!)
The wiring nightmare begins!!!... Apparently a 1996 Subaru has different wiring than the other years making it much more difficult to rewire it for a transplant. The ECU doesn't have the yellow or gray plug(s) everyone else has! After contemplating getting a custom harness made, or doing it our selves, we opted to do it ourselves because we would be running parts of the harness through some of the tubes and frame of the sand rail, making the harness built in and one of a kind. (I would say we have over 50 Hrs in on wiring so far! yikes!
Got the engine out! Thanks to the plasma cutter it only took 3 minutes! lol :) Now it's time to pull it apart and make sure its in good shape.. New seals / gaskets / Water pump / Timing belt... Etc...
Powder Coated the Intake Manifold, Valve covers, and custom mounts for the Alternator removing the Power Steering and A/C. Also installed the new timing belt!
Got the Kennedy Adapter Plate, Flywheel and Clutch all installed onto the Subaru Engine!
Looking Good!
I decided to install cutting brakes so as they can be HELL on a Differential, I found a nice guy on the Samba willing to sell a complete 091 Super Diff with the 4 spider gears that is MUCH stronger and should take some moderate abuse!
Old Diff pulled out!
091 Super Diff with brand new Bearings all pressed on!
Home Made tool for adjusting the play in the differential! It worked great!
Motor and Transmission Mounted!
Car CV axles put back together and trailing arms boxed in and strengthened!
New Jamar Pedals installed and brake lines ran
Found some seats at the scrap yard that fit perfect in the rail! They are out of a 95 Honda Prelude!
Custom made factory fuel pump mount in the fuel tank and Powder coated the new tank a Dormant Blue color!
Mounted the Ignition control panel to the roof.
Ran some wires to the control panel
Fuel tank, Battery, "Pelican" ECU box and radiator mounted above the engine!
My little helper testing the drivers seat
1 Month so far... Hopefully less than 2 months to go! Hopefully 1 more day of wiring and we can test fire the engine with the ecu all hooked up if all goes well. |
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| Wangchicken |
Sat Sep 14, 2013 11:11 pm |
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| HOLY SMOKES, ONE month youve done great lookin good keep it up!! |
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| JabaDubRider |
Sun Sep 15, 2013 3:16 pm |
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| Awesome another subaru build, I'm way more excited than I should be. lol |
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| JeffRobenolt |
Mon Sep 16, 2013 7:14 am |
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I want a ride at Howard's party next year!!!!
That's if he lets are subaru powered VW's in :lol:
The 1996 OBD2 harness is 10 times easier than the 1990-94 harness.
Whoever said it was harder must of never done one.
Looking real good, you guys are doing some quality work.
Post vid when it is running!!
Jeff |
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| Nick1390 |
Wed Sep 18, 2013 11:58 am |
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awesome ride!
keep it up |
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| Retto216 |
Sun Sep 29, 2013 10:04 am |
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This last week I had a few set backs but we got it out on the road this weekend for a test drive. It has phenomenal power and even does good off road too! :D
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| JeffRobenolt |
Sun Sep 29, 2013 4:40 pm |
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| =D> Nice job!!! |
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| USBoerboel |
Sun Sep 29, 2013 6:22 pm |
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| That's one fun looking rail, Hoping my subi swap goes that easy |
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| DBUG Nist |
Tue May 26, 2015 6:05 pm |
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| hey i know this is an old thread and im new so not to fimailar with the site, currently adapting but any who this conversions amazing, everything about it. Im in the mists of doing a conversion and researching the topic and it seems that obd1 is the way to go, im just interested to see how the wiring job was for the obd2 rather than obd1? :) |
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| JeffRobenolt |
Tue May 26, 2015 6:28 pm |
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I personally prefer obd2 and think it is easier.
There is more conversion info on obd1 vs obd2.
Subaru kept making little changes between models and years which makes it hard to do a write up that would cover all.
Jeff |
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| DBUG Nist |
Fri May 29, 2015 2:35 pm |
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| Excellent thanks a ton Jeff! :) |
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| JeffRobenolt |
Fri May 29, 2015 2:37 pm |
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| You can look on the link in my signature line to see pics and videos. |
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