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The DUNGBTL Build
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DUNGBTL Premium Member
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2025 1:40 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
bruceo98 wrote:
I wish it was just a break. I’m thinking of writing a country song about my life lately. Radiation treatments, then finished that and got a kidney stone I still haven’t passed, my dog had a stroke, my painter had to get a gallbladder removal, so no help at the shop and my helpers daughter was pregnant and lost the baby the other day . All I need is to some way get a truck and train in there and I have the making of a hit country song. lol

So I been a lil bust needless to say .

Shocked
Don’t write that country song just yet…we’re wishing you a speedy recovery!

J.
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DUNGBTL Premium Member
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2025 4:41 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
Drillium zurück in der Garage!

Continuing the drillium theme…
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…bonnet hinges…
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…strut tower truss brackets…
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…roll cage rear diagonal attachments…
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…bumper brackets…
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…and my custom seat brackets…
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Embracing the spartan mechanical aesthetic…HOLY HANDBRAKE BATMAN!
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Shocked

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I was hoping for a quarter pound reduction but will settle for an eighth…
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I’m purposely not using the OEM rubber boot but rather letting all the mechanism and cabling hang out for all to see…so I tidied up the bracket w/some paint as it will be exposed, with carpet going around. Put some rubber caps on the heater levers studs because no heat.

Painted it the same color as the roll cage (Steel It grey)…should look great with the charcoal Perlon carpet on the tunnel. The release button’s color was inspired by the ignition switch…
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and Porsche spare…
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This was a fun little project while I waited for the rest of my gauges to arrive…they came today. I’ll have a post on the Speedhut gauge install soon!

Cheers,
J.
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H2OSB
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2025 8:35 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
Adding lightness? Your car is going to float away. Laughing

H2OSB
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EVfun Premium Member
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2025 2:14 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
Drillium is one of my favorite elements! Dancing
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bruceo98
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2025 4:19 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
With all the paint work, you’re doing on the i interior you should paint the outside also. Do you think if you pull that emergency break odd enough it will bend with all the holes in it? Looks great btw
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DUNGBTL Premium Member
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2025 7:03 am    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
H2OSB wrote:
Adding lightness? Your car is going to float away. Laughing

H2OSB

Very Happy “Float like a butterfly…sting like a bee!”

bruceo98 wrote:
With all the paint work, you’re doing on the i interior you should paint the outside also. Do you think if you pull that emergency break odd enough it will bend with all the holes in it? Looks great btw

Very Happy What and ruin all that cool patina! Wink

Back in black! The release button started looking weird to me in red after the fact…we’re back in black…
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…mo better.

No, I don’t think the ebrake handle will bend in normal use.

Thanks Bruce!
J.
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DUNGBTL Premium Member
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2025 10:26 am    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
Finished the dash.

Originally I wanted to use vintage Porsche 911/914 ‘silver-dot’ gauges in my custom dash…
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However I decided that as cool as the old VDO clocks were, I didn’t want to restore AND modify them to function with the Subaru engine’s ECM and fart around trying to make a 50+ year old fuel gauge function properly. The speedo probably wouldn’t be much of an issue as I’m running ‘80’s 911 sized Carrera tires (16’s) which are very close to the rolling diameter of the stock SB tires.

All these adjustments can be made to the vintage VDO Porsche gauge from what I’ve read on the interwebs…I just didn’t want another hobby!

So I went with Speedhut gauges. Solid state, digital, LED gauges in the vintage Porsche 911/914 style. Lifetime warranty too. They weigh around half the weight (adding lightness) and about half the depth of the OEM Porsche units (leaves more space for wiring). Every gauge comes with simple clip in harnesses which makes install relatively easy.

I used a 914 gauge binnacle behind my custom dash…
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Speedhut makes adapters to fit their gauges in 911/914 style dashes…
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The speedometer is a GPS unit with many functions besides vehicle speed display…
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I’m looking fwd to doing some 0-60/quarter-mile runs with that function Very Happy

I mounted the GPS antenna on the cowl and made a custom grommet for the wire to the gauge and used the windshield squirter hole. “We don’t need no stink’n windshield squirter!”
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The tachometer has the turn signal and high beam indicators…
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I tapped into the front left and right signal wires for those signals, and used the OEM VW high beam signal for its gauge indicator.

Because I was using the factory ECM, per the Speedhut instructions, the tach requires a resistor to amplify the ECM signal…
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Per instructions, it was spliced into the signal wire to the tach and the key-hot 12V…
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The tach has a small push button to program it to work with the engine’s ECM. I located it in one of the left over holes for the padded dash…
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The fuel gauge can be programmed for the resistance range of the sending unit (~10-80 Ohms according to the Bentley manual)…
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…and has a small push button to do that. I mounted it and the button to set time for the clock under the dash in two new holes I had to drill…
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For the water temp I added the Speedhut sending unit to the EJ25 water cross over manifold adjacent to the OEM temperature sensor for the ECM…
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The oil pressure gauge comes w/the sending unit and Speedhut sells an adapter that allows the gauge sending unit to be installed in the EJ25’s oil pressure sensor location…
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I incorporated the water temp and oil pressure gauge wire harnesses into the engine’s wiring harness…
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The rest of the wiring was relatively easy and straight forward. The instructions provided are excellent…
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Got to tell you, seeing the dash with gauges and wired is damn motivating! Very Happy

J.
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H2OSB
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2025 5:57 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
I probably would not have considered those gauges until now. I've been thinking about 914 gauges, which is a dilemma with my dash space restrictions. Those, however, are very nice from a retrofit perspective, and look sweet.

H2OSB
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bruceo98
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 17, 2025 3:13 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
bruceo98 wrote:
With all the paint work you’re doing on the interior you should paint the outside also. Looks great btw

Very Happy What and ruin all that cool patina! WinkJ.[/quote]

Patina= rust waiting to happen. Could never understand that fad, it's just rust most of the time and rust doesn't get any better. I hear people say, It's original paint. no it's not. that paint is long gone.original paint was one color and had gloss.I just think it's a shame to put all that work into a car and not finish it off.but to each his own.
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DUNGBTL Premium Member
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2025 7:14 am    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
Made the passenger side floor mat. Used the Thermozite as base and covered with Perlon carpet…
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EVfun wrote:
Drillium is one of my favorite elements! Dancing

EVfun…this one’s for you! Very Happy

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Quarter pounder (w/o cheese) lost…
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Painted (SteelIt…same as roll cage)…
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J.
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bruceo98
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2025 12:44 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
Your going to have me drilling a bunch of holes now,, lol Nice work. what weight are you expecting with all this lightening?
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2025 1:56 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
bruceo98 wrote:
Your going to have me drilling a bunch of holes now,, lol Nice work. what weight are you expecting with all this lightening?

Very Happy
I’d be happy to see under 1800 lbs wet…but that may be overly optimistic. The EJ25 is ~40-60 lbs heavier, radiator and 20’ of coolant lines, 6 point roll cage, bigger torsion bars, adjustable spring plates, larger front and rear sway bars, front strut tower truss…all those things are not standard and are weight additive…so realistically probably 1800-1900+ lbs. We’ll see as I plan on corner balancing the car w/scales.

J.
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bruceo98
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2025 6:08 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
Where did you get the larger torsion bar and adjustable arms from?
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PostPosted: Yesterday 1:54 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
bruceo98 wrote:
Where did you get the larger torsion bar and adjustable arms from?

Sway-A-Way (SAW). Haven’t actually purchased them yet…when the time comes, there are many distributors of SAW products, including SAW themselves…I’ve noticed that some distributors have lower prices than SAW.
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H2OSB
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PostPosted: Yesterday 7:02 pm    Post subject: Re: The DUNGBTL Build Reply with quote
If you come upon other spring plates of a different brand, be sure to ask the vendor if they are made of spring steel. SPRING plates are supposed to be made of SPRING steel. SAW adjustable spring plates are, indeed, made of spring steel.

Regarding torsion bars. Factory size torsion bars for our cars are 26 9/16 long and 22mm in diameter. In my most previous Super, I had 23.5mm torsion bars from a Porsche 944 (they are the same size in the 924, 944, and VW Squareback). I paired them with 125 lbs/in front springs. Along with Topline 7/8th inch front and 3/4th inch rear swaybars (for the record, I like to say 22.225mm and 19mm respectively), the handling was superb. Sporty, but never punishing. The one caveat being autocrossing. Hard launches or hard turns would cause the car to slam down onto the bump stops. But ONLY under those circumstances. I had KYBs on that car and suspect better quality shocks/strut inserts...or even just the rear shocks, would have done a better job controlling that.

Since my current car will be MORE of an autocross car, I'm going substantially stiffer on springs, with 160 lbs/inch front springs and 26mm torsion bars, along with Bilstein shocks and strut inserts (exact same size swaybars, however).

That all said, SAW is an excellent source for high quality torsion bars and spring plates. They don't have half sizes, like the 23.5s, but they offer whole sizes from 22mm up to stupid big (like, in the 30s). It's difficult to translate torsion bars "spring" into an easy to understand spring rate, like lbs/inch, because you have to calculate in the length of spring plate and come up with the wheel rate (I would wager J has calculated this), but you can Google "torsion bar spring rates" to get a chart with the spring values of the various diameters, then compare percentage differences to get a ballpark value for a matching increase of the front spring rate.

It's important to not make radical changes to either the front or rear without addressing to other end, or the car's f/r bias can be completely thrown off to the point of being dangerous.

H2OSB
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