914 Gets Subaru WRX Drivetrain

[Paul Illick]

I think most people here have seen 55superbeetle's work, his own 55 bug with the STI engine and Superbeetle front end, cap's k20 engined bug, the 62 with a Subaru EJ22 and carburetors, etc. Great stuff and some of the coolest and most creative conversion projects I've seen. Here are some photos of what he's working on now, my 914 being fitted with a WRX transmission. He had already put the WRX motor into this car, which made it a monster, but that Porsche transmission is technology from fifty years ago and just couldn't keep up. The WRX motor was such a huge improvement over the VW that it only seemed logical to make the transmission just as modern. And "while we're in there" the air-to-air intercooler is being replaced by a water to air. You just don't get the air flow in the back of the car you'd want to make big power, and the next step with this car will be an STI motor. Power is addictive. Yes, I know better and you've been warned.

Anyway, the pictures. The WRX five speed with Quaife gets introduced to engine.



The forest of jackstands as positioning is worked out. Most 914's that go onto jackstands stay there. Not this one.



The WRX transmission axle outlets are a little closer to the flywheel than the 901, which meant the engine had to be moved back to keep the axles aligned with the stubs.



Flipped manifold. Enough space in there now for a Subaru EZ30 six, easy. Still needs detailing of course, but first things first.



But moving the engine back meant he had to box a small part of the rear trunk. That's OK, this car isn't for hauling luggage anyway. Or lawn tools. Or groceries.



Cable shifter at the transmission. Beautiful work.



And inside the car, the modified MR2 shifter. Feels notchy, accurate, and good, which is what this is all about. That and more strength, especially in first where the Porsche 901/914 transmission can't stand much torque.



A video of the shifter, still in the prototype stage, showing the action in the front and the rear:



Ask Abby what she thinks of Grandpa's car. She likes to show off those pretty new teeth.



The water-air intercooler. It will go just ahead of the engine on the driver's side.



In the car you can see part of the new cradle, just tacked for the moment.



Axles are aligned.



Business end, seen from the rear. It looks so good we'll probably go without a valence, this stuff has gotta be seen. I can't wait until in the rearview mirror I see another 914 guy who's pulled up behind and is trying to figure out what all happened back there.



It was a monster before, but you had to be real gentlemanly with the shifter. To hell with that. I can't wait. The other part of the project is the water-air intercooler. This is where we started, with the WRX engine conversion already done (which was also 55superbeetle's work):



The intercooler didn't have enough airflow there. One thought was to put a scoop on the bottom of the firewall, forcing air up, and if we found out we needed to we could compliment that with a ducktail spoiler at the back of the roof to create some low pressure over the engine lid, plus fans, of course. But wait a minute, take a step back and think how silly that is, to do all that just so you can put your radiator in that particular location, where it will still probably only work half-assed anyway. So Jeff's solution was to just put the intercooler radiator in the front in its more natural location. Done and dusted. Better aesthetically and more functional as well, so win-win.

This is where it will be, cute little thing, hidden in front of the engine radiator in the front of the car. An engine radiator where we originally had the air-air intercooler would be even more problematic.



The new intercooler layout:



Seen from car level:



Quality of Jeff's work is unmatched. If you're curious there are a lot more pictures of this transmission project, the engine cradle, what the car looked like with just the WRX motor before these changes (and more pictures of that beautiful granddaughter) in an album at: http://photobucket.com/Corinthiano

This is a work in progress, more later.

.

[59Bisquik]

I would love to see more details of the water to air intercooler. Are you running a seperate radiator for it or are you using the engine cooling water?

[petew]

29gh3.4ulq.dfgwrth5boooooooooooooo8678934051691273564$%^&%^^%&gnng






Sorry about that, all that drooling made the keyboard short in a few places

once again, kudos 55SB.

[Gerrelt]

Very very very nice!!

It must be excellent to drive a mid-engined, subaru-powered, Porsche 914.

[letterman7]

Were custom axles made to go from the Suby to the Porsche hubs? Or was something adapted to make one or the other work?

[Paul Illick]

Sorry, I’ve been traveling so haven’t posted, but some serious progress has been made. I think questions answered too. We’re now officially past the jack stand stage. Those boxed in areas in the trunk are now painted.



And the intercooler powder coated:



It will look good with all the stainless steel inlet tubing. The manifold was re-painted after the bosses were removed:



How the flipped manifold will look on the engine, pretty clean:



The inlet pipe so we’ll recirculate instead of dumping it out:



Nice welds. I grew up in vineyards so when I was younger and thinking what I wanted to do with my life one of the ideas was to be a cooper. Honest work with good people around good wine. I still think about that sometimes, but if I’d known about welding stainless steel I would have had other ideas. This is extremely cool and I wish I could do as well myself:



The Tilton fitting for the clutch slave:



One of the custom adapter flanges to use the Porsche CV's. A little concern here because it fit a bit loosely on the splines compared with the stock Subaru. We’ll see. Hopefully we won’t break them (my son is a specialist in destructive testing) but if we do we may have to try the Subaru flanges with custom axles:



A broad view of the cradle:



Genuine OEM Subaru motor mounts ought to keep things in place:



The rear of the cradle on the transmission end, the cable shifter brackets:



And the rear mounts, looking really good with the black powder coating:



What’s nice about using a cradle is how easy it is to remove the whole assembly. Not that we intend to do that a lot, but when necessary it’s nice to have thought ahead. Quick waterproof connectors on the wiring looms:



And the water connections to the little intercooler radiator in the front of the car:



Then the axles, throttle cable, clutch hydraulic, gas lines, and the whole thing drops as a unit. Almost as easy as it sounds. I know Jeff ought to be pretty good at it by now, he’s aready had the thing in and out so many times.



It looks a little weird, but the exhaust should outlet in the “normal” place in the valance, if we use the valance. I don’t think we will. When the turbo gets through chopping up the exhaust sound it’s actually pretty quiet before it gets to the little Magnaflow. I describe the sound as the healthy half of a V8, pretty quiet to 5000 rpm’s but then it begins a seriously nasty howl.

Like I said before, Jeff does some really beautiful work. This is going to be fun.

[ambrynmc]

Are the CV flanges something that you had completely custom made? Or are they a stock piece that was modified (re-splined)? By the way, this build has a lot of very cool pieces of engineering!

[capsoval]

The CV flanges are non-one-off custom pieces. I dont know who made them, but I do know that it was one of the few parts that didn't have to be made on this project.

[ttriebler]

Those flanges were done by a forum member of 914world.com. He did a couple of runs for members. Details can be found on their forum site.

We are starting to manufacture a version of these called "Subaflanges".
They will allow VW CV's of type 1&3 (94mm) type 4 (100mm) and Porsche 930 (108mm) to bolt onto Subaru gearboxes used in forward or reverse rotation/installation.
The installed width from flange face through the differential to other flange face is the same as an 091 6 rib box with vw drive flanges, allowing most people to retain the cvs and axles already in their chassis or use a combination of VW parts to make everything fit.

Look out for updates on http://www.subarugears.com for when they become available. I'll also update the forums.

[volkdent]

Beautiful work, can't wait to see this thing on the road! What is going on for the front suspension?

Any reason why you guys decided to powder coat the A/W intercooler? I would think the coating will trap heat as opposed to the raw aluminum?

Jason

[ambrynmc]

Awesome! The last "missing link" to using the Subaru trans in a Bug....

[Paul Illick]

Beautiful work, can't wait to see this thing on the road! What is going on for the front suspension?

Any reason why you guys decided to powder coat the A/W intercooler? I would think the coating will trap heat as opposed to the raw aluminum?

Jason

Front suspension is already a 911 Carrera, so we should be fine there. The intercooler doesn't really shed much heat through the housing, it just contains the heat exchanger inside with the heated water going back up to the front of the car to be cooled. Part of the idea is to keep that the heat out of the engine compartment, so while we aren't gaining anything by powdercoating it we aren't losing anything either.

[Paul Illick]

More progress, and it runs again! Doesn’t roll quite yet, still waiting for the axles, pedal assembly, and some last details, but we’re getting pretty close. Here’s a video:



Sounds good at idle, doesn’t it? It got dark at the end so it's difficult to see the shifter work, but it’s precise and notchy, exactly what we wanted. This is the view of the engine compartment after powercoating, polishing and assembly:



Still needs to have the rest of the engine compartment detailed so it looks as good as the engine/transmission. You can see the little Mazda battery, hidden down under the air cleaner. And now the ECU is in the passenger compartment inside the car where it'll stay cool and dry:



We'll build an armrest/storage compartment to cover it. But now with everything out of the trunk there's a big open space for the obligatory ‘pretty girl draped on the car’ shot:




Oops. Some spilt milk...

Engine bay seen from the other side, with the de-bossed and now re-painted manifold. We'll leave the stock overflow tank on the aircleaner side of the manifold, so those bosses are still there.:



This next shot shows the shine on the powdercoated intercooler and polished tubing, but also gives you an idea of the clearance from the engine to the rear firewall:



The engine had to be moved back from where it was with the 901 transmission, to get the axle outputs from the transmission more or less in line with the stubs in the trailing arms, so that clearance is important to anyone thinking about this conversion. The starter and clutch slave also needed clearancing, as seen from below:



If you look at those pretty girl in the trunk photos you can see those new bump outs from the top. You can also see them in the background here, with the new fitting on top of the slave cylinder that gives some help with clearance. Here, this fitting:



The shift cables under the car, plenty of room and as long as they aren’t lying on top of the axles the routing isn’t critical:



And how the muffler fits under the rear, with the new exhaust exit:



It’s all looking really good. 55Superbeetle was going to have to make some major changes to the stock pedal cluster to fit in a clutch master cylinder, so we decided just to go with a Tilton pedal set. Very sexy, proven function, no lack of options or spare parts, and lots easier in the long run.

If you want to see more detail, especially more of that pretty girl, there are lots more photos HERE: http://photobucket.com/Corinthiano

[55superbeetle]

Done and done! It drives great and was worth all the work.

[SportyBug]

Awesome! You need to sell that sub frame for the Suby trans! Or at least the CAD of it