The subframes I made and quickly tack welded together at home are now scheduled for Saturday morning to be blasted together properly by a pro I discovered works in the building next to my work. Will post up pics soon as they are done. Will be bolting them in very shortly afterwards and pressing on with the rest of re-assembly so I can get her driving. Actually maybe not that quickly as I'm flying overseas for a week for work then not long after that again for 2 weeks on holiday. It will happen one day soon!
More crazy ideas...
Despite not even getting her driving yet, I'm already planning the next phase of the "Monster" conversion which will likely involve some more fairly significant "off the road" time spent in the garage....but I'll drive her in the current format for a fair bit first I think, I miss her!
The next phase will involve converting to a "propper" 4x4 driveline. Ie, she will no longer run a Subaru gearbox. Here is basically what it's going to involve in point form;
- The Subaru gearbox and tailshaft will be binned
- The engine crossmember will be bolted back up into the stock standard position
- The engine will sit on the above engine crossember in the stock standard position
- A second engine crossmember (yes) will be installed directly underneath the upper engine crossmember, spaced down 6 inches. This crossmember will have the control arms and steering rack connected to them.
- A "propper" 4x4 gearbox will be bolted to the EJ20turbo motor. The model/donor gearbox is yet to be decided on but at this stage I am looking at Suzuki Vitara V6 ones. This will obviously require an adaptor plate, likely highly customised. This gearbox does not have two front stub axels for any front driveshafts like a Subaru one does. These gearboxes have significantly better low range gearing than any Subaru.
- This 4x4 gearbox will also have a matching transfer case. The transfer case bolts onto the back of the 4x4 gearbox and has two outputs to bolt two tailshafts onto - one tailshaft goes to the front of the car, one to the rear. The transfer case has two gears - a second low range gear which makes it even lower when engaged.
- The rear tailshaft will bolt onto the standard Subaru R160 rear diff (which will be a clutch pack LSD - well, it is already).
- The front tailshaft will bolt onto a second Subaru R160 diff which is facing the other way. This diff will be mounted between the two front engine crossmembers, the Subaru front driveshafts will plug straight into it. I've already measured and this will work without any modification to the front driveshafts (the stubs are the same distance apart as the front ones on an L series gearbox). Nothing to stop me also using a clutch pack LSD for the front end now
This configuration should give me a few pretty good advantages;
- Easy choice of final drive ratio - just change the R160 diffs for 3.7, 3.9, 4.111, 4.444 as a pair
- Front LSD (or even front welded diff if I ever go insane)
- Proper low range gearing in the gearbox, plus even lower when the transfer case low is engaged.
- Strong gearbox, apparently they can withstand quite alot of abuse offroad, even the Suzuki ones.
- Engine no longer dropped 6 inches - should have excellent approach angle and clearance at the front end without a big sump and turbo exhaust manifold in the way.
It's been done quite a few times in the US but from what I can find, everyone just uses EA82 gearboxes and runs them in RWD into a divorced transfer case. I want to go one more step and change the actual gearbox too.
The transfer case should sit perfectly fine up in the transmission tunnel. Some people have made some modifications to the tunnel (cutting, welding) to make room but this is usually for people using massive landcruiser transfer cases etc, I shouldn't have this issue.
So quite a few things still need to be worked out...
- How to adapt the new gearbox to an EJ subrau motor
- How to mount the gearbox and transfer case (custom crossmember no doubt)
- Need to organise custom length tailshafts with the correct couplings at either end
- How to mount second engine crossmember
- How to mount front diff (I'm thinking along the lines of making something out of a Liberty 4x4 rear diff cradle, they look pretty strong compaired to the L series "moustache bar")
This is just an idea at the moment, but seems fairly do-able to me (specially as it has been done lots in the US). I just want to do it better. But as you can see it's now becoming less likely I will be driving the wagon many places other than two/from offroading locations in the future!
PS no I'm not going to "get it engineered" etc etc, that's just silly
