VWRX....getting close

Just thought I'd share with you all that I 'unofficially' drove the bug today. Only around the block to check the clutch and brakes etc but still it's the first time....

The fuel injection needs fine tuning as it's running a little lean but my mate Ian Swinkels is flying back from Cairns this weekend to finish this off. Am hoping to have some video footage for you and also some dyno results next weekend....and all going well some 1/4 mile slips as well.... :thumb

Did I mention how much I'm smiling.....:thumb

what's the porsche tranny like to shift? gear candy or what? 👍

🙂🙂🙂

Big Smile...BIg Smile!

Good stuff

Well done Reubs:bounce:beer:P:thumbcant wait any longer...results please:PJVLRacing

wikid...... how stoked must you be right now Reub...... I'm so jealous !

Just noticed the people replying to this thread..... all three before me Suby powered (or about to be).... and then me, just a suby wannbe. 🙂

Good on you Reub.

On the home stretch now...

Doug Sweetman wrote:wikid...... how stoked must you be right now Reub...... I'm so jealous !

Just noticed the people replying to this thread..... all three before me Suby powered (or about to be).... and then me, just a suby wannbe. 🙂

Come to the darkside Mr Sweetman:vader:PJVLRacing

I would, if only someone would swap an EJ20T (and radiator and pipes and clutch and adaptor plate etc) for my 1835 with Kadrons........



what, no takers ?

All in good time, like when I win lotto 🙂

Nice one reub, can't wait to see video and pics!

Rich

Well my hopes of driving the car and making the local street meet Friday died today.
:cry

Ian has done an awesome job with finishing the wiring (actually redoing half of it cause he wasn't happy with it!).

Two dead ignitors kept us from the dyno yesterday. After looking around a local wreking yard this morning we found some toyota ignitors and finally got the car running again this afternoon. Then, getting ready for a street drive tonight a tooth broke off the ring gear and wedged its self between the flywheel and bellhousing.

When I find out who manufatured the flywheel/adapter plate they'll hear about it! (as will the forum).

Man, how long will it take before I finally get to have some fun. This is turning into a marathon.....

Hi

Bad luck, when I read ring gear I nearly had heart failure, I thought your G50 had died.

Steve

Na the G50's fine but the tooth is completely snapped off the ring gear. The adapter plate and flywheel was pretty badly designed, and the flywheel to starter pinion never really meshed all that well. It was just a matter of time till this happened. Ideally the plate and flywheel will need to be replaced.

Maybe tomorrow we'll pull the engine out, remove the broken tooth, put it back together and do push starts for the remainder of my stay in Darwin.

I've got the Haltech ecu fully sussed out now. Idles good, revs cleanly etc. Tuning this time has been aided with a wideband exhaust has sensor instead of just by ear. The injection is reconfigured to multipoint 4 bank (the limit of the e6a's capability on this engine), with a combined injector flow rate of about 580cc it should be able to sustain 18lb boost max. The intercooler system proved itself today too. No fans and the air temps rose to 68 degrees. Turn on the thermo fans and they drop to 33 degrees, which was about ambient at the time.

We came so close to being able to do some street tuning tonight and to have it all turn to shit now just plain sucks!

Hi

Can’t wait to see how it goes. I’m not sure what flywheel and adaptor is being used but I bought mine from Unicap in Sydney. I was going to use a Type 1 box so I had an adaptor made using a 200mm Beetle flywheel etc. I've since bought a G50 and I spoke to the guy at Unicap again before I did this and all he will need to do make an aluminium ring to support a Porsche starter ring gear.

Steve

Hey Reub
Don't give up yet. You are so close. I can't wait to hear the results of your work. This will be great.

Ernie

I bet you cannot wait....patience will be rewarded.
Mine had so many little problems that I had nearly resignrd myself to the fact that it would never go.....altough with the new clutch that works and a few tweaks on the exhaust.....it screams.

Its nearly time to do some wheelies....let us know how far off the ground you get the front wheels.
Matt

reub-revhead wrote:When I find out who manufatured the flywheel/adapter plate they'll hear about it! (as will the forum).

I think I remember Laurie telling me who made the adaptor plate, and it is someone who I commonly hear complaints about.

You'll get there eventually Reub 🙂

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Hey Reubs,I had the same problem.I actually destroyed a brand new Hight torque starter and fly wheel.:cry$$$$...The starter to the ring gear was only meshing half way ,F..K i was:puke ripped every half teeth of the ring gear.....Head up,keep giong,you will get ther:thumbJVLRacing

This forum will soon be called aussieveesubydubbers 🙂

I love it.

Helbus wrote:This forum will soon be called aussieveesubydubbers 🙂

I love it.

Yeh! Yeh!:vader JVLRacing

your water pump and/or clutch pedal hook and/or clutch throwout fork will go next... 😉 That's what happened to me and GTMac

Well...with the engine in and out 3 times in two days we ended up getting a new ring gear and clutch airbagged overnight, receiving it on Friday. After further resolving an ignigtor problem and a minor oil leak from the turbo oil supply by making our own banjo fitting bolt (after trying to find one on a Sunday). Not having a starter motor due to the pinion being stuffed was a minor problem so we had to pull start it. Ian hooked up the notebook and did the street tune, then I got to nail it. We were only running 6lb boost but it was enough to put a huge smile on my face.

Still plenty to do but she's getting there. All in time as they say.

I owe a huge thanks to Ian for coming over from Cairns and persevering with not only the problems with my car but my seemingly defeted attitude. All I can say is a huge thanks dude! (and Yeeha!) :thumb

glad to hear the good news 🙂

keep up the good work, you car is an inspiration for me and no doubt others who are doing the engine swap

reub-revhead wrote:... so we had to pull start it.

with a rope and plastic handle borrowed off your mower?

🙂

glad to hear the beast is alive :thumb

Here is a couple of pics from the first outing.....

HMMMMMMMMMM 😵‍💫 BEAST!

Damn winter in Darwin looks cold.

You go Reub...nearly there!

I freighted a metal work ( boost ) regulator to a guy in Darwin a year ago , was that you ?

and to think I had a second hand auto pinion sitting on my desk at work , an air bag away !


cool ride Mate , nice peice of work

seagull wrote:I freighted a metal work ( boost ) regulator to a guy in Darwin a year ago , was that you ?

and to think I had a second hand auto pinion sitting on my desk at work , an air bag away !

cool ride Mate , nice peice of work

Don't think so 🙂 Cheers

how does she drive then? 🙂

And its great to have my house mate back thanx Reub, Mate the pics look awsome and I cant shut Ian up! 😂

wibble wrote:And its great to have my house mate back thanx Reub, Mate the pics look awsome and I cant shut Ian up! 😂

I bet....man, two vw nut heads in the same house.....

So, special heads on your project?.....hint hint 🙂

God, what did you do to him? He came back posessed! we have 8 vw engines under the roof at the mo so one is going to be donated to the cause for research and development and if that one works the stroker is gonna cop it! Going to be very interesting.........

looks cool

wou'ldn't be twin cam heads would they, say, watercooled twin cam heads? 😉

oooo I hope so, I'd love to see this done in Australia......

Yep thats it! The protoype that will be built will be an 1835cc, wrx heads, 44idf's. Work starts on the engine in 2 weeks. I want to have it running in about 3 months. Longer term if the design works out to be stable we'll be making a 2180cc, 12:1 cr, 9000RPM screamer for Wibble's manx.

I'm still thinking through some of the design concepts, but if this works it opens up all kinds of alternatives for us engine builders. Who know? I might even be able to develop a marketable "conversion" kit.

I mentioned this a year and a half ago and everyone said it was too hard.
How are you figuring out the cooling and the oil galleries? I spose you'll also have to find some way to attach the heads without blowing a head gasket all the time. I know it can be done, but seems like a lot of hard work.

And 9000rpm and 12.1 comp, what sort of bottom end/case is gonna stand up to that long term? Subarus are all redlined at low, Non-turbo 6000rpm, turbo 7500rpm.
Are you using porsche cooling fans or VW?

A part of me says, Why don't you just put a subie in it?
Seems like you're reinventing the wheel with an inferior crank case...
Gonna be exy too.
But then I'd still like to see you do it, it'd be different. 🙂

Time will tell, wait and see. So far parts and designs are still being collected and reinventing the wheel? The wheel is square at the moment :alien

wibble wrote:The wheel is square at the moment :alien

It is cheaper to buy a low km import round wheel than it is to put a round wheel onto a square hub.

The only reason that guy would've originally done it is to compete in motorsport and there must have been a loop hole restricting him to a crappy VW block but able to use whatever heads he wants.

I spoke to the guys that did that conversion via email, they werent too chatty and didnt even want to send some more photos of the car..... though they were happy enough to tell me they now do 4 cylinder 911 engines (cut 2 cylinders off the front.....)

I did a little research into the suby head conversion and I reckon it would be a real neat one if you could get the details right. You would need some sort of sandwich plate between the head and the VW barrels, the bore is 92mm from memory and the cylinder spacing was only about 1mm different.... Where I got stuck was what to do with bolting the whole arrangement down. I guess you could restud the VW case with the suby stud pattern or run some sort of intermediate plate to change the stud pattern.....

Oil return is easy, you would run it down one of the pushrod holes, block the others up. You could take an oil feed from one of the oile relief positions maybe ? or from an external cooler line, then hose it to the heads. The sandwich plate would seal all the coolant holes, so you would have to add an in and out for that..... Custom crank pulley to drive the cam belt / s. Its definetely doable (the one in the photo was a type 4 base, and made about 450hp with T4 turbo for Autocross / Rallycross duties).

The image below is scaled off of photos... would be interested to see how close I got the dimensions.....

PS Sorry for the thread hijack Reub !!!!

no probs....how's this grab you....the photo of the wrx head being ported is actually one of the ported heads I have in my shed for the 'one day' engine build....the photo is actually from an article on autospeed.

Yah, I pinched it from the Autospeed web site from memory. Fark, small world......

And if I havent said it already, congrats on getting your car to where it is, and I bet you cant wait until you have plates on it !!

Have you had any approaches from magazines yet ? I can see it being a Zoom feature car for sure....... probably Fast Fours would want you too......

Doug Sweetman wrote:Yah, I pinched it from the Autospeed web site from memory. Fark, small world......

And if I havent said it already, congrats on getting your car to where it is, and I bet you cant wait until you have plates on it !!

Have you had any approaches from magazines yet ? I can see it being a Zoom feature car for sure....... probably Fast Fours would want you too......

Zoom mag would love Reubs car without doubt.When they done my car they where fantastic.....they made the hole day fun.Reubs if you want the phone number ill arrange it for you.JVLRacing:thumb

Actually I've seen several potential feature cars on this forum.... like Alan's (Dasdubber) for sure, and Golde60's when thats finished, and I'm sure CheCastro's Black Betty would get a look in...... some quality dubs around nowdays.

I just wanna see someone in Australia do the Frankenstein Vw/Ej heads combo... would be well wicked.

Keep watching then. anyway we should give reub his post back! More pics please Reub :thumb

Reubs,F...ing balistic photos:thumb:rudolf:beer...the darkside deffently looks great!!!!JVLRacing

Hi

Looking good.

I reckon Zoom is best car magazine, I have every issue from day 1, they are not into stereos, led washer nozzles etc.

Steve

Shame I'm not overly interested in making a magazine appearance....guess it would be kinda cool.

Just wanted a car that was a little extreme to drive and have fun in.

Reub that car deserves to be in magizine. It just gets better each time you post. I like the looks of the interior. I have been doing a little design on a console running from fron to rear. Mine will have 4 bucket seats. What do you think?

Ernie

4 bucket seats??

thats quite interesting for a bug..how will you go about fitting 4 in there with the battery .etc normally under the rear bench? and the transmisson tunnel ??


Anthony

Your call Reub, but trust me its WELL worth a position in Zoom or any other car Mag I can think of. I'm surprised that VWMA arent bashing your door down.

Actually, It'd be real interesting to see how well your car did at Summernats, I reckon even the neanderthal V8 people would love it.

oh yeah and I reckon the interior is looking s%*t hot too !

Looking awesome Reub!! :bounce:bounce:bounce

Doug Sweetman wrote:I'm surprised that VWMA arent bashing your door down.

I'm not :o

seems to be that wrx motor + bug = bad for most VW mags.

I used to be into Zoom, but I'm tired of all the Skylines. Has anyone seen Retro Magazine from the UK?

Awesome, vintage power and engine tranplants.

I agree though, this car needs to be in a Mag, and Zoom is the best of a bad bunch. I'd even buy to see the feature. :thumb

nn[ Edited on 10-8-2005 by pete wood ]

Yeh! you are on the right path with that Pete about the Vw mag.JVLRacing:o

Hi

Zoom lost it for a while with mga $ Skylines etc, the last issue was the best ever.

Steve

1303Steve wrote:Hi

Zoom lost it for a while with mga $ Skylines etc, the last issue was the best ever.

Steve

Thanks Steve ,i thought my car in zoom was the best issue:P:P...........Back to you Reubs:thumbJVLRacing

[/quote]Thanks Steve ,i thought my car in zoom was the best issue:P:P...........Back to you Reubs:thumbJVLRacing [/quote]

🙂 I've actually got two copies of Zoom where your car was featured.... $160,000 was quoted I remember?

Will be a while till the car is really finished enough for a magazine anyway....unless someone wants to sponsor me a nice matching red leather interior with stereo to match. It's tidy and extreme but not quite the calibre I'd expect to see in a magazine.

well done mate, we'll tee up a race with my R1 when you are in town 🙂

reub-revhead wrote:

Thanks Steve ,i thought my car in zoom was the best issue:P:P...........Back to you Reubs:thumbJVLRacing [/quote]

🙂 I've actually got two copies of Zoom where your car was featured.... $160,000 was quoted I remember?

Will be a while till the car is really finished enough for a magazine anyway....unless someone wants to sponsor me a nice matching red leather interior with stereo to match. It's tidy and extreme but not quite the calibre I'd expect to see in a magazine. [/quote]Reubs,Your car no doubt will make any mag.This would be the best road going Subie conversion ive seen.....I quote the Australian VW mag need to snap this car up....or isnt this car worthy of being in the mag because it has a subie in it....This is a JVL dummy spit:cry.nn[ Edited on 10/8/2005 by jvl054 ]

71superbug wrote:4 bucket seats??

thats quite interesting for a bug..how will you go about fitting 4 in there with the battery .etc normally under the rear bench? and the transmisson tunnel ??


Anthony

Seats from a Porsche 914. Nice and small.

Ernie

junkyardoval wrote:Reub that car deserves to be in magizine. It just gets better each time you post. I like the looks of the interior. I have been doing a little design on a console running from fron to rear. Mine will have 4 bucket seats. What do you think?

Ernie

4 Bucket seats could be cool. I've seen it done, but there isn't a whole lot of room in a beetle. Think the moulded in rear seats look great.

Reub I agree those look great. I am low budget. I have buckets from a 914 in the front of mine and have test fitted them in the back. It will work. I want a center console running front to rear. My rear firewall has been moved forward so the console would go between the rear buckets and up the firewall. If I could draw a straight line I would send a drawing.

I still want to see yours in a magizine.


:thumb

Ernie

oooo fulll leather...sexy..haha.....mm...now wheres 50 grand for me to put into my bug.

Anthony🥷

71superbug wrote:oooo fulll leather...sexy..haha.....mm...now wheres 50 grand for me to put into my bug.

Anthony🥷

Don't need 50k....mind you, if I paid for everything to be done on my car from scratch it would probably have cost more than 50k....hmmm

Reub

that beast is looking awesome.

i know the feeling of defeat when you are so close and things get more difficult


keep it up mate

jvl054 wrote:Reubs,Your car no doubt will make any mag.This would be the best road going Subie conversion ive seen...

Regularly driven vw conversion vehicles that are tidy enough to win an occasional show trophy are pretty rare. Off the top of my head there's Steve's, Jak's, Mine....?

Not many anyway. It'll be good to see another one on the road.

Looking good Reub. 🙂

Baja Wes wrote:

jvl054 wrote:Reubs,Your car no doubt will make any mag.This would be the best road going Subie conversion ive seen...

Regularly driven vw conversion vehicles that are tidy enough to win an occasional show trophy are pretty rare. Off the top of my head there's Steve's, Jak's, Mine....?

Not many anyway. It'll be good to see another one on the road.

Looking good Reub. 🙂

JVLRacing:thumb

Dude, SWEET!