Cabrio engine preparation and fitting

This is the stock coolant manifold on the turbo engine. On vanagon swaps it is common practice to reverse the manifold so that the coolant outlet points towards the front of the car. I liked this idea but haven't seen details of it being done for a turbo engine before so decided to have a go!

First step is to remove the intake which comes off quite neatly with all loom and fuel rail major parts.

Here is the manifold reversed and the outlet pipe cut and repositioned so that it clears the crankcase and the intake manifold. The two temperature sensors will need the loom lengthened to reach the new positions, although I may get away with partially unwrapping the engine loom. The heater outlet will be blocked off and the heater will get its feed from the front of the main hot pipe at the front of the car which will save one long pipe. I will also use a larger header tank as the original is not big enough for the increased capacity. I will relocate the header tank and simplify the necessary pipework. Finally, the intake manifold has a coolant feed from the coolant manifold which will either have to be reversed or extended, you can just see it next to the temperature sensors.

This is what it looks like with the manifold fitted.

The engine adapter kit arrived from DS tuning

Steel plate with a flywheel for a 200mm VW clutch.

The bolt pattern fo a VW and Porsche are the same up to the water-cooled generations so the adapter plate works fine.

Just a small amount of clearancing for the turbo bracket required...

I also need to replace the studs with longer bolts as the G50 is thicker than the VW trans, I need M10x130 and M10x150mm.

with the chargecooler...

Rear of the car cut away, now I can measure accurately what needs to be cut from the bulkhead for the Subaru engine to fit. I'll order a new heavy duty rear mount, which will be reversed, and a mid mount.

Berg style mid mount used as the front mount is not.

Heavy duty rear cradle and genuine VW rubbers. The cradle is reversed which results in the gearbox being moved forwards 46mm.

Here's the gearbox ready for installation

The nosecone needed it's webbing clearanced to fit and clear the torsion bar housing.

It's VERY tight in there!

Using the input shaft as a datum, bulkhead marked for where it needs cutting for the chargecooler, pipework and turbo.

Nearly there...

It's in!

Cutting needed in the bulkhead

Quite a lot of space behind the engine, more than enough for the muffler

Surprising amount of ground clearance, I may not even both with shortening the sump...

To give an idea of space under the wings to the cam covers, even moving the trans forwards it is still very close and I still need to do some more clearancing

Lower fixing bolt which holds the adapter plate to the engine needs replacing with a countersunk one as it catches on the rear cradle

You can see how far forwards the nosecone hace moved. Shift rod needs shortening to match.

This is the ride height after fitting the engine, the top of the tyre is 1 1/2" from the wing

with 5" ground clearance to the bottom of the sump, so if I lower it about an inch and shorten the sump 1 1/2" I'll have 5 1/2" ground clearance which is plenty!

I've made up a bracket which comes off existing brackets on the engine that leaves the stainless muffler across the back of the engine. End fittings incorporate exhaust clamps welded on and everything will be easily removable. The tailpipe will exit from one of the standard cut-outs (to be shortened from above pic), at the other side the exhaust pipe loops up to the turbo flange. The muffler is reversible, one way for flow and one way for noise reduction. From the turbo back it is completely stainless.

NOTE: decision on gearbox has changed a few times during this project, I started with a late G50, then went back to an AT bug box, now I'm using an earlier short nose G50

First stab at an adapter kit from DS Tuning, I had to return it as the dowels didn't line up and the flywheel appears to be for a different year 911...

Found this stainless muffler at a kit car show, now I have more space behind the engine I want to make the most of it and quieten down the exhaust a bit.

Start of the new engine mount cradle.

I decided to use some nice big bolts for each side of the engine cradle as it is slightly cantilevered off the end of the framehorns, 2 M16's on each side should be enough! Tubes welded in through the framehorn and also the ends capped off.

Here's the cradle in place, just have to get the engine and trans in the chassis with the body on and then I can finalise the position of the tab that goes on to the subaru engine mount...

engine and trans hoisted into position and cradle offered up

New trans tunnel required!

Clearance to body is fine...

Engine in position on new mounts

a bit more to do, I'll extend the bracket to fully support the subaru bushing and also improve the platform supports

 

Finished engine mount cradle...

I decided on a bellmouth downpipe as general consensus is that this is the best type of design which merges the wastegate with the main turbo outlet. First job was to enlarge the 2 1/2" stainless flange that I had bought...

Here you can see how the entire turbo outlet transitions into a 3" system

Just the tailpipe to weld on, it will exit in one of the stock positions.

About an inch to the axle but this is at full wheel rebound and normal clearance will be much better. I am moving the oxygen sensor from the original position before the turbo to after the turbo to make way for the pipe alongside the engine, once I've bought a stainless fitting I'll weld it in... It will be also wrapped in thermal tape.

Just hangers to make and then weld on the tailpipe...

Oxygen sensor boss also welded in, the original position in the manifold would have been vulnerable to damage and was in the way of where I wanted to run the main pipe by the head...

I am making up a cool air intake as other people have reported excellent results. This is a Subaru sized panel filter which will be built in to the inner wing and the intake will be a hole in the front face of the rear wing.

Idle air control valve return pipe uses cut down standard pipe.

 

 

Header tank is from a Vauxhall Corsa/Tigra as it had the right connections. I didn't like the subaru system as it is based on an external overflow tank. An aftermarket one would have been solid aluminium so levels are not so easy to check. I welded on a couple of brackets to the body to support the standard fitting points on the tank

Fill point is accessable when the decklid is open.

The OBP pedal box had no provision for the throttle cable so this is what I came up with. I also made up the cable from a universal kit using the subaru fittings/adjuster on the engine end. It feeds through the standard tube in the chassis tunnel.