500_19B's Bugeye resurrection

[500_19B]

Got all the bits and pieces lined up to complete the brakes (pads, lines, shims etc.)



Everything went together without any notable issue and I think it is just the bleeding left to go. Before I re-installed the master cylinder after rebuilding it, I did a bench bleed, so I hope the rest of the bleeding goes well.

The part I have some doubts on is the ABS unit. I had everything apart for quite some time, so I do not know if I will be running into issues with air entrapped in that part of the system

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[500_19B]

My son and I did the initial brake bleeding this week, which took a good while as the system was very empty. It seems to have worked well, the pedal is now extremely firm, but of course until the engine is running, and the brake booster has vacuum, it is a little hard to know for sure. Also, having the master cylinder brace on surely is adding to the pedal firmness. At any rate, it is either totally bled, or close. We have another unopened container of fluid still, so we will push a lot of that through the system before the first drive as an extra step.

Aside from that, during the week started to get things ready to put the front-end bodywork together. First up is the bumper cover. All the previously refinished bracketry for the bumper cover has been coated in Cosmoline and installed.



There are plastic brackets at the top corners that were a little damaged, so new ones were put in.



Fixing them in was a matter of some rivets and a plastic clip.



In 2002, the Subaru grill emblem had a black background, shortly thereafter, it was changed to the blue-gradient background that is still used today. I left it to my son to pick what to use for a new emblem. The choices were:

• Original 2002 black
• Newer blue gradient
• Blue stylized “I” (Impreza)
• Pink stylized “I”
• Pink six-star logo

Interestingly, my son decided to stay with the understated original.

The old emblem was very tired looking:



The new emblem and cleaned up grill certainly look better:

[500_19B]

Another weekend spent working on projects in the garden and for the in-laws. Upside is I am in the good books, downside is progress was frustratingly slow.

The new boost controller came in so that is now in the car. I did not plug in the front O2 sensor, as I have decided to renew it after all...





The other noteworthy item is the front bumper & beam are on. You may be wondering... that is an old battery I am just using temporarily, as it does not hold charge very well, but it is OK for testing things, I just have to keep charging it.





The shopping list for big items is getting shorter. The main items (aside from trim bits) are a new downpipe, both O2 sensors, new MAF (yeah, decided to change that too) and new coil packs (another item that at first I thought I would reuse, but now I am just wanting to bring these items all up to date at the same time).

From what I read, the coil packs and MAF do gradually lose effectiveness over time.

Not too much more, but they are all pricey items. Oh well!

The end of this project is starting to look not so far away. The current goal is to finish the mechanical items by October and have the car running. The remainder of the cosmetics (door seals, trim etc.) will be done by the spring, at which point we will do the alignment and then see what we have.

[PeterFromCanada]

Almost there, she looks amazing

[500_19B]

Actually did a fair amount of work this weekend, but not a lot of pics to show for it.

Amongst small odds & ends was a tweak to the removable tailpipe silencer for the Blitz exhaust. Those familiar with the Blitz Nur-Spec know that it is definitely on the loud side, which I never minded. However, there has been a lot of chatter in these parts over the past year that police are clamping down. There have been stories of cars being impounded over exhausts (but I think the cars in question are usually pretty extreme in all ways). All that said, I think it will be safer to use the silencer piece, which does take the volume down quite a bit. And, given that it is the classic low-pitch boxer rumble, we should be OK. Well, at least for now.

The small issue was that the piece slides into the tailpipe and is fixed with a single bolt from the bottom. As such, the entire piece can vibrate relative to the tailpipe and adds an annoying rattle like sound to the exhaust. Not loud, but it is there. So an extra hole was added to the top of the tailpipe for a second bolt to steady the unit. Rather than weld in a nut, a rivet nut was added.



Way back in post #84 I talked about what I did about the rear sway bar mounting, where I had put in weld-in nuts that had thin flanges on the outside. My concern at the time was that the original weld-in nuts (two of which I broke) were mounted behind two layers of sheet metal, one of which was pretty stout. As the time, I had first thought to weld in reinforcement plates, but then decided to just partially drill through the flanges, adjacent and inboard of the existing weld, and then plug weld it up. Basically, just increasing the effective weld area.

Unfortunately that whole idea and execution kept troubling me, as I ultimately was not so sure of it.

After finally giving in to my gut instinct, I decided to go back to plan A, which was to make it bombproof. So this week reinforcement plates were made from 4.8 mm plate (3/16").



All of the nearby stuff (fuel filler, EVAP etc.) has been removed and the plates have been welded in. Next is seam sealer, chip guard, epoxy primer and top coats. THEN the sway bar and fuel stuff can go back in. Finally can stop wondering about this.



On the front end, the headlights and grill are now in.





The back-ordered AC tensioner pulley came in, so that little detail is now done. Speaking of little details, a new AC label was also added in!

[DrTrae]

Absolutely beautiful work. This Bugeye is going to be a showstopper.

[500_19B]

Have not had much time over the past week. The welded-in sway bar reinforcements have been seam-sealed and coated with epoxy primer. This weekend will hopefully be the topcoats, then will let that cure for a week and then apply the Cosmoline and reassemble.

Ordered the new downpipe this week. It should arrive in a couple of weeks, and then the exhaust can all go back in. Decided on a Turbo XS downpipe as I wanted a pipe with the cat at the back of the pipe, under the car instead of up high between the turbo and the firewall.

In between, clean-up of the intercooler was finished, and it was reassembled with new gaskets and a new OEM charge pipe:







Also cleaned up and reinstalled the under-hood mat. The underside of the hood looks better without it, but I prefer to have it there.

[koffey]

Beauty.

[500_19B]

Only had a few hours on Saturday to work on the car. It was consumed by painting, as the sway bar bracket reinforcements needed to be top-coated. I didn’t want the batch of 2K clear to go to waste, so I looked around for anything else that still needed painting.

What I found was that there were a few spots on the seat rails (at the bolting locations) which had some rust.



So, both seats were masked off and the rust bits removed and primed and painted.



While that paintwork was going on outside, the welded in reinforcements were also done.





It will all be left to cure for a week, and then the Cosmoline will go on and everything will be reassembled back there.
Also picked up gear oil. MotylGear 75W90 for the transaxle and Motul 300 for the rear differential. Filled the transaxle, but still need to fill the differential.

[500_19B]

Looking forward to getting a bit more done this coming weekend. In the meantime, I found a little time last night to progress with some of the interior trim. Specifically, putting the "luggage shelf" back in. The wrinkle on this job was that there were a number of stiff foam blocks on the underside which helped stabilize the panel. All but one had come unstuck, and stupidly, I lost them.

Found a similar stiff foam material to make new blocks from, but I had to go through some trial and error to get the sizing right. Eventually got there and the panel and sail trims are now tightly in place.

[500_19B]

Made some better progress this weekend. Aside from a bunch of small odds and ends (e.g., adding a lower clamp to the turbo oil drain line etc.), the main item was finishing off the sway bar reinforcement diversion by putting everything back together, like the fuel filler and EVAP stuff with the 50 million hose connections. Still have to find some end links, but everything else is back in place.





Chipped away a bit on the interior. The A & B pillar trims and moles are back in as well as the front seats.





It is still looking possible to do a first start-up in October. Really hope to make that, as it would mean only trim and cosmetics would be remaining for the winter.

[500_19B]

The downpipe arrived this week (Turbo XS):



I like the concept of two pieces. It also is much easier to ship!

The quality looks quite good. The internal finishing at the ends and sensor bungs is nice and the flanges are super-thick.



Transferred the thermal blanket over to the new pipe. The top casting "sweeps" over towards the center of the car, which just means that the blanket does not fit as neatly, but still OK.



Also mounted the mirror housings. I had to do a lot of mix-n-match with connectors etc., but happily, both mirrors adjust correct. Only thing still needed are new mirror glasses (with the defrost heating elements). These are slightly pricey compared to the unheated version, so I will wait until the spring to buy them.

[Black90tsiawd]

Bugeye's aren't typically my cup of tea. But your is the cleanest I've seen in maybe 20 years. Kudos to you sir.

[D-Rodman]

Originally Posted by Black90tsiawd

Bugeye's aren't typically my cup of tea. But your is the cleanest I've seen in maybe 20 years. Kudos to you sir.

Well, he has been cleaning everything really well, of course it’s the cleanest, lol.


Sent from my iPhone using NASIOC

[500_19B]

Have had a lot of fits and starts with the exhaust.

It all began this weekend with everything laid out, ready to be just bolted in:



Included with the bits and bobs were a new downstream O2 sensor, 90-degree "mechanical" fix and fresh exhaust hangers (the Kartboy long versions, what I had before***8230; I like running the exhaust a little lower to keep the tip well away from the bumper).



Started by first bolting the new down pipe loosely in and then suspending the tailpipe from its hangers and then trying to put the mid pipe in.

When I bolted the pipe to the flange of the down pipe, the back end of the mid pipe would be waaayyy too high. So much that it contacted the differential carrier before the flanges were closed together. My first thought was "there must be something wrong with the down pipe". The TurboXS was advertised as a new design with increased clearance for lowered cars. So, I thought maybe there was something about the new design that did not play nice with the old Blitz exhaust. I called the shop from which I had purchased the pipe, but they flat out said they would not accept a return on anything that had been installed. Even though I had been super careful not to damage anything, it was not to be.

Convinced that the downpipe was the issue, I found another shop that still had one old spec Grimmspeed V1 units left in stock, and at a good price. Actually, this shop is one I had done business with in the past and is a much nicer group to work with. Should have thought to go there first. I purchased the unit figuring that I would sell the TurboXS unit to someone who was comfortable that it would work in their application.

Really like the look of the Grimmspeed unit and prefer it slightly to the TurboXS. Popped it into place and, oops, the problem was still there. So now I am thinking "what the heck??"

Start looking at old pictures and then it dawns on me that the front end of the mid pipe (which necked down to 2.5 inches) actually had the flange at an angle relative to the centerline of the tube. This flange and neck were pretty beat up, and I had cut it down and had the supposedly great idea of using the salvaged 3" flange from the old (wrecked) downpipe in conjunction with a band clamp for a sleeved joint (see back in post 194 for photos).

The trouble is that I did not realize the issue with the angle and now the flange was perpendicular to the centerline of that part of the mid-pipe, which is what caused the fit issue. So, the TurboXS pipe is fine. However, I fell in love with the Grimmspeed unit and have decided to keep that and sell the TurboXS unit. I have a for sale posting in the classifieds if anyone is interested. [EDIT: It is now sold]

OK, I was a real idiot, looking back. I should have thought to question the mid-pipe first, but it never entered my head until later.

After finally getting my head on straight(er), I got back to work. I've cut a section out of the 3" flange piece so that a curve in the tube could be mimicked in such a way that the exhaust run ends up in the correct position. It all bolts together well now, but I now need to weld it all up, which will be next weekend's project (I hope). Will try to get some decent pictures.

With that sorted, I was now able to "permanently" install the downpipe. As said before, I really like the look of this pipe, with the separate wastegate tube. Also dig the "raw" unpolished look.





The Grimmspeed gaskets are noticeable thicker than others I have seen:
Pipe in place:





Used as much of the OEM upper heat shield as I could (had it zinc plated and then painted it with VHT header paint:





Also have a Cusco head shield that will sit above this one, but have not got to that stage yet.

[Smoblikat]

This might be my favorite thread on here

Personally I prefer the exhaust to be a full bellmouth, but if its going to be a divorced wastegate version, that extra pipe on the side is sooooo sexy.

Your bugeye might be cleaner than mine!

[Smoblikat]

Double Double, Single Triple

[CharlesEwing33]

i still want your cat back lol. But jokes aside I enjoy seeing this project progress

[500_19B]

I am getting a bit tired of this project. It has gone on so long.

That said, progress continues. I ended up modifying the front of the mid-pipe to get the angle of the flange correct. I did not have the gas for MIG stainless steel, so I decided to try flux core welding for the first time with a stainless wire. Results are ***** cosmetically, but I think they are OK mechanically. I used Solar Flux to protect the backside and it appears the penetration is good. The problem is it is hard to control the puddle, and I used too fine of a wire (0.030) for the surprisingly high arc voltage that was needed.



On the good side, the fit came out perfect.





One strange thing about the Grimmspeed V1 downpipe is that the bung for the downstream O2 sensor is AHEAD of the cat, which is strange, as that seems to increase the change of getting a cat efficiency code. Since I had already mauled the midpipe, I decided to add a bung there, so that the downstream sensor can sample the exhaust post-cat. To help matters further, I used an angled extender. I still have to put a blanking plug in the other bung.



Both O2 sensors were renewed with new Denso items. Here is the upstream one (which is a lot more expensive than the downstream):



At the same time, all four coil packs were replace with new OEM.



Up on top, the intercooler has gone back in, and the last hoses etc., have been hooked up and now it is just a new battery missing from the engine bay.









Will be time to try starting it very soon.

[500_19B]

Win some, lose some...

I was pretty happy with the exhaust until I realized that although the downpipe-to-midpipe joint was good, the midpipe-to-tailpipe was not so good. Despite having tightened the joint before welding at the other end, it turned out the flanges were not sitting flush. I was able to slide a 0.5 mm feeler gauge through the gap on the one side. Probably exhaust epoxy applied to the gasket at that joint would seal it up, but I really was not going to be happy with that. So, I cut through 90% of the midpipe tube to be able to shift the angle of the flange.



I cut some pieces of leftover stainless tube to "patch" over:



And then welded, again using the flux-core stainless wires. Cosmetics were still pretty ugh, but the welds seem solid.



NOW I really think the exhaust is fit up perfect.



In between a little progress was made on the lower inner trims. All the original pieces cleaned up nicely, but I replaced all the clips etc. to keep things as tight as could be.





Picked up the new battery and filled some of the fluids I had not already done (engine oil, coolant, rear diff oil etc.).



Disconnected the fuel pump module in the trunk and cranked the engine in several 5 second bursts just to make sure nothing obvious was out of place. All looks OK, so I will get some gas and see if it runs, probably this weekend.

[RawTimeRazo]

Damn bro this is nuts. Car looks fantastic. Eager to hear results of startup

[tomacGTi]

I've MIG welded stainless before with stainless wire in the torch using straight argon as the shielding gas. I can't remember the diameter, but I stuck with a finer guage and obviously nozzle to match.

No pinholes, good coverage/bead and no leaks. I went in with the thought that it was a car exhaust and I wasn't backpurging or putting it out for show. As long as there were no holes in the weld for leakage, all was good. This was for 409 as well as 306.

Project is coming along great! Hope you can get it out before the snow flies.


-Randy

[500_19B]

Originally Posted by tomacGTi

I've MIG welded stainless before with stainless wire in the torch using straight argon as the shielding gas. I can't remember the diameter, but I stuck with a finer guage and obviously nozzle to match.

No pinholes, good coverage/bead and no leaks. I went in with the thought that it was a car exhaust and I wasn't backpurging or putting it out for show. As long as there were no holes in the weld for leakage, all was good. This was for 409 as well as 306.

Definitely would have preferred MIG. My problem is that right now I only have a 75/25 argon/CO2 mix, and it seems the CO2 is not good with the SS wire and one can end up with intergranular corrosion. I am sure your use of full argon was the perfect way to go.

Originally Posted by RawTimeRazo

Damn bro this is nuts. Car looks fantastic. Eager to hear results of startup

Well, about that: :-)

Got the thing running after all, but there was a fair amount of troubleshooting required to get it running right.

When I rebuilt the motor on the 911 (which was a complete, case-split 100% rebuild) it fired right up and ran perfectly, which was some sort of miracle. So, with the bugeye, which was not a rebuild, but "just" a comprehensive refresh of all the peripheral systems (fuel, intake etc.), I was quietly confident that it would be easy-peasy.

As usual, I was a little too high on my own supply!

Friday evening, we filled as much coolant as we could get in without the motor running. Then, cranked the motor a bunch with the fuel pump disconnected and continued to squeeze more coolant in, burping the system. Everything looked OK and left it at that.

On Saturday, problem #1 showed up: There was a little coolant on the floor under the car. Not a lot, but I was certain that we had not spilled a single drop while filling and burping, so it had to be a leak. It was a very small amount of coolant, so finding the leak was a chore. Eventually, it was located at the banjo bolt that secured the coolant drainpipe from the turbo to the back of the block. The copper sealing ring on the outside (under the bolt head) had deformed when torqued on. On one hand, I was happy to find the source, on the other hand, it HAD to be there (sort of in front of the up pipe). At the time, little did I realize that there would be much worse access challenges in store! Actually, the worst part was draining the coolant!

FUBARed ring is very obvious! Not sure how I mucked it up so considerably the first time. This was the outboard ring, the inboard was fine.



Anyway, got that ring replaced and refilled the coolant and all was fine there.

Next, we put some gas in the tank, connected the fuel pump and went ahead and attempted to start. After waiting for the fuel pressure to build up, the car fired up, but immediately started surging, sort of up to 3700 RPM and down to 2500 and back up, at a steady fast frequency. At first, I thought my son was revving the motor (he was in the car, I was watching the motor). I told him to just let it idle and he said he was not touching the throttle. At this point the car seemed possessed. Did throw a CEL though, so we started there. This was problem #2.

The codes were P1086 and P1088 which are for tumble generator valve position sensor circuit low inputs for RH and LH side. 25 seconds of research led me to conclude that I did not properly "pre-load" the spring-loaded sensors. Took off the driver side sensor (which is pretty accessible) and immediately could feel that it was my mistake. OK, no biggie. Put it back on the correct way then went on to the passenger side. On the passenger side, the sensor is on the back side, and it is just in front of the turbo, and access is many orders of magnitude worse. I took apart a lot of the intake on that side and was eventually JUST able to get the screws out. The bottom one was ultra-challenging, and I was almost at the point where I thought maybe I would need to remove the turbo (which means draining coolant, removing downpipe and all sorts of other crap I did not want to do). But, with not-insignificant amounts of pain chewing up my large-ish hands, we got there. It felt like a miracle.

Got everything reassembled and felt like problems were solved. Re-started and things were not much better. It was still surging like a madman, but at slightly lower RPM band. Operated it for bit, shutting down and restarting, trying to figure out what may be the issue and we finally got a code. So, this was problem #3. Code was P1507, which is related to the idle air control valve. I had not done much with it, as it seemed to have been in perfect working condition before. I do remember I gave it a once-over with carb cleaner and replaced the gasket. Anyway, I took the valve off and tried using a plastic probe to nudge the aluminum "vane". It did not move, but was not sure if it should, as I did not understand the actuating mechanism (yet) and thought maybe it was "locked" in place by that. I decided to take the actuator off, but the screws that hold it on are two M4s with weird socket heads that look a little like Torx, but are not it seems. Rifled through all the various bits I had to see if I could find something that would work, but no dice. So went ahead and drilled the heads off. At some point prior to this, I read that the actuator has slotted holes, so I marked the orientation of the actuator to the valve body. Once I pulled the actuator off, I was able to see it was a magnetic device, and the vane should spin freely. Well, it was locked solid. My finger grip strength was not able to budge it even slightly. I wrapped the cylindrical magnet body on the shaft end in heavy tape and was able to get the vane to start to move, using good pliers and being careful. Managed to get if free without damage and was able to rotate it by hand, but it was far from smooth. Started REALLY cleaning it with first methyl hydrate and then WD-40 and lots of Q-tips. Eventually got it to the point where it spun very smoothly and free. I was surprised, as I thought the part was likely toast based on how thoroughly locked up it was. I am thinking that the carb cleaner I used before was too little. Enough to partially dissolve carbon/gunk at the interface between the vane and housing, which subsequently dried, but not enough to flow the gunk out.

Luckily, I had some stainless steel M4 studs and nuts, so I was able to reassemble the IAC.

Put the IAC back on, and at the same time took off the throttle position sensor to check if I had made a similar assembly error as I had done with the TGVs (it is the same sensor type). Turns out that one was fine though.

Started it again, and immediately things were much better. It did go through a bit of surging at first, but at much lower RPM range (maybe 1200 to 2000) but it only did that briefly and then started acting normal (I think maybe the ECU was cycling the IAC as it may have needed to relearn?) Anyway, the engine warmed up normally and then the idle settled to the normal 800 RPM or so.

Here is a video snip, sound quality is not good though:

https://youtu.be/cvAfqUhhY9k

https://youtu.be/cvAfqUhhY9k

Let it run for a good 10 minutes to finish burping/adding coolant and everything stayed OK. Left it for a few hours and then tried running it again, and this time everything seemed normal and so far, there is no CEL. Ran it once more before bedtime and again, everything was normal.

So, the evidence now is that the motor is running well. It sounds good in person. We do have some auxiliary issues to work through still though:

1. The power steering pump is making a whine, that becomes more audible at higher RPMs. Confirmed the sound is from the pump both via stethoscope and by removing the belt and running the engine without. All the normal PS bleeding process was done (must have cycled the rack 50 times). The level in the reservoir is staying level and there are no bubbles appearing. So, it is either a suction leak (suction hose is new OEM, and the o-ring for the suction port is new OEM) or a pump issue (I was very careful in the pump rebuild, but as you can see, my ability to screw things up is pretty much unlimited). Need to do more testing/diagnosing. Using Mobil 1 Dexron, so the fluid type at least is correct.
   
2. We have an ABS light on the dash. I will have to look into diagnosing this and see. Hopefully it is not a hard fix.

[monkeyposeur]

Looking good! I love watching the progress.

[500_19B]

Spent a lot of time this weekend trying to sort out the various running issues.

First up was the ABS. I used the diagnostic plug and pins under the dash to get the codes and I had two: 25 (right rear ABS sensor) and 52 (motor unit or motor unit relay issue).

I started with 52 first. I did all the easy stuff in the diagnostic table for that code first (mostly confirming various voltage and resistance measurements). Nothing there was amiss, and I started to fear that there may be a terminal issue with the unit itself. I had been careful to protect the connector terminals on the big connector that attaches to the back of the ABS unit, as the FSM makes a big deal about that. However, now I was beginning to second guess whether I had done it well enough.

I tried clearing the codes just to check at this point, and they came right back. Shortly after this though, I noticed a small amount of brake fluid around where one of the hardlines threaded into the ABS unit. This was one of the lines I had replaced. Put the flare nut wrench on, and was able to further tighten it a bit. Checked all the others and they were fine. I was pretty sure that this had nothing to do with either code. I went about messing around with other stuff (re-cleaning grounds etc.) and finally tried resetting the codes again, fully expecting them to come back. Happily they are now gone. the car has gone through numerous start-ups since, and the codes have not returned. Not really sure exactly why.

Next was the power steering. I disconnected the return line ahead of the reservoir and pumped a boatload of Dexron through the system, cranking the motor with the fuel pump off while simultaneously cycling the steering rack back and forth. Checked the o-ring at the suction hose connection and all looked fine. So bolted it all up and when through a million more cycles back and forth on the steering rack and finally fired up the engine again, and now the whine is gone.

The last remaining issue (well, I think it is an issue) is related to the idle. The engine idles well now, but when I blip the throttle (to 2000 or 2500 RPM for example), it returns to around 1000 RPM quickly, but takes a moment longer to fall that last 1-200 RPM. Sort of like a lazy response. I am pretty sure it was not like that before, but then again, the issue is slight and right now I am hyperactively alert to everything so I am not 100% certain. However, what I feel is most likely is that the IAC is a little off after all that "work" I did on it last weekend to get it un-stuck. Anyway, I think one way or the other I will figure it out, but everything else seems correct now and I have a nice dashboard with no warning lights.

Finally put the snorkel back in place to make the engine bay physically complete: