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The exhaust leak on the downpipe that started this whole process off was welded up - leak now you bastid!
Can't remember if I've posted a shot of the turbo actually mounted, so here is one. It fits really nicely in there. The only thing I wish I'd done is make sure the clocking of the turbo housing was correct - at the moment it's about 5 degrees out, which makes getting the intercooler hose on a pain.
The car is now running again. I've done approximately 200 miles in total since November last year. It has still got the same fuel in the tank as what I filled it up with pre-remap last year
It was mapped again with the new turbo a couple of weeks back (by neil/slowboy), and it drives great now.
Compared to driving it on the old setup (td04HL-15t), it is a little bit later to spool, but it more than makes up for it at the top end. It still dies off after 6000 RPM, but nowhere near as badly as a standard UK WRX turbo does. It also spools much faster than my old td05-16g setup I had for a bit, and it has less lag. I haven't had it on a dyno yet, especially now that SRR is so far away (it's actually in hampshire now...), and I don't know of any other reasonable dynos around the Bromley/Kent area.
So far I am very happy with the turbo choice. It's real easy to drive now, and there's so little lag you can basically modulate the power in corners without having to anticipate what will happen 2 seconds in advance. I'm off to brands next week, so will report back on how it goes there.
Oh, and also the checked and rebuilt gearbox, touch wood, has survived this far at least! I can't get enough of the whining, and I keep driving around in second gear just to listen to the box Definitely the best bit on the whole car
As mentioned, took the car for a spin at Brands Indy on the 29th (evening).
00:20 in the morning on the 29th, I finally closed the garage door after some panic-wrenching to fix the last bits (why does this always happen??). I re-fitted the inner wing snorkel to make sure the filter wasn't being fed hot air. In addition the lambda sensor needed changing, as it was throwing a P0130 CEL randomly (so is now running a brand new Denso from ICP), and the inner wheel arches had to be fitted so that the bumper wouldn't flex quite as badly.
After having not been driven in anger for 8 years, it was definitely Bambi on ice to begin with! The car felt so sad for itself, suspension not feeling like it was working its best, the tyres felt like blocks of ice etc, and also it was very, very busy with some seriously fast cars out and about.
Took it easy for a couple of laps and pitted, and reset tyre pressures.
About halfway through the second outing, the tyres finally started working reasonably, and the suspension started feeling better too. I can only attribute this to the tyres having to have a layer of rock solid rubber shaved off before the tyres were "fresh" again... I had almost new RSR-595 tyres on, and I'm not about to bin them just because they're old
I went faster and faster throughout the evening, but it's clear that I am super rusty. Also as it was so busy it was hard to find a nice rhytm - watching back the videos, there was only about 3 laps that had no traffic and/or someone overtaking. I don't remember it being this bad previously, but maybe it's because it's the height of summer, and people are booking things to do after Covid? Or maybe it's just the new normal.
For the last 15 minutes of the day I borrowed my friends GPS receiver, and looking back at the logs, I did manage two clean laps in the last session, at 59.4 and 59.8. Top speed of 117.3mph on the straight, which is pretty good. I think the old setup mustered about 121-122mph (indicated), so not really giving up much in terms of top speed. I do however need to work on my breaking again - I brake far too early at e.g. Paddock Hill, and tbh could do with later braking around the whole circuit... Need to grow a bigger pair
Once the initial settling in had happened, the car behaved really nicely. At no point did I feel like I lacked power, and e.g. druids works far, far, better with the smaller turbo than the old td05-20g. Now I can stick the car in third on entry, and it has enough low end grunt to be on song immediately on exit, where-as the 20g would be below spool for 3 seconds at least, unless druids was taken in second, in which case it ran out of revs immediately and needed a gear change.
I think the car is massively improved for a track work with the td04, personally. I like that the engine is not running masses of power (so doesn't feel like it's about to blow up all the time), and the much wider powerband is much nicer to drive. I still shift at 6200 or thereabouts, because it does tail off, but the go from just below 3000 makes up for it.
On the way home from the track, the heater hose started weeping, so need to fix that, but overall it was a fantastic day!
I'll see if I can edit some of the video footage, but there's not really a lot to see.. Oh, the one thing that was amazing was the gearbox whine again - God I love that PPG noise It is just the best thing ever!
I'm in the process of moving house at the moment, so not sure how much time I'll have to fix the leak etc, but the fact that it still worked as well as it did bodes well for the future. There's improvements to be made to the driver, for sure, but for now I think I'll leave bigger modifications be until I've done some more track days to try to figure out what I actually want from the handling etc.
The only real issue is, I had a look at the MX5s again... There was a really, really quick Mazda MX5 NC (the mk3) there, and it made me think again. Not sure if I'll get rid of the scooby and get one of them in the next year or so.
So I used this for a couple of weeks, and I wasn't sure I was in love with the race car heater anymore... I go scuba diving, and I took the car to a pool night one night, and then I loaded a bunch of wet scuba equipment in to go home, and all the windows steamed up, and I could not get them to clear with the little heater. Ended up having to stop every few minutes to clear the windows by hand. The final straw came when I saw that one of the hoses had started leaking slightly again, so I pulled it all apart.
Dash, heater and steering wheel out again:
First bar out was the dash bar:
The method I used with the first couple of cuts was slitting disc with air angle grinder (because it's nice and small), electric 115mm angle grinder, and also a tiger saw (sawzall) with metal blade. The blades get blunt real quick, but other than that it is definitely the best for access.
The saw lets you do neat things like this cut to the gussetting. The lower half of the cut was done with the air grinder (in about 15 minutes...), and the upper section with the saw in less than a minute, and even the cut is nicer
However, it was all taking ages, so I fixed up the plasma cutter that i haven't used for many many years, and it made short(ish) work of the cage:
I had to cut access holes in the tubes to be able to get to the back.
Eventually, after much cutting and jiggling and pulling and swearing, the front section was loose and sitting on the floor:
cage-less:
tubing:
I still need to clean up the feet sections:
Also some cleanup to do on the hoop, where I didn't dare cut close enough because things were in the way.
Next steps:
- sort the feet out
- give it a good clean inside. It's incredibly dirty from the plasma cutter and grinding
- add heater back in (it's even got an aircon core )
- OEM steering wheel bar
- carpet
The fun thing will be to get the airbags etc working again... I think I have all the required bits, but we'll see how much faff it is to get the airbag light to go out
Last edited by Henrik; 22 January 2021 at 02:43 PM.
Cut the first foot out... Looks like I'll need to fix that too, and I expect the other side to be the same.
If anyone wonders why the cage builders cut these holes, then it's because the cage gets dropped into the hole, to give enough clearance at the main hoop to weld around the whole tube. It's either cut the roof panel, or the sills (or take the whole roof skin off).
the cage went in in er... 2010(?) when i didn't have kids, had oodles of time to go on track days or just drive about randomly, didn't need to do school runs etc etc, MOT was easier (for example lack of airbags wasn't a fail). The cage was great fun to begin with.
Fast forward to 2021, and the cage isn't appropriate for my use anymore, because I don't have time to go on track days hardly ever, I don't have time to go for "sunday drives" etc. I only do the odd drive in it, and I would like to use it more, but at the moment it's not possible due to the fact that I can't even use it on a school run, let alone take it to the shops.
The options are, make the car more road friendly, or don't drive it at all, so I'm opting for the road friendly option
Been reading right through this thread, Id describe it as a fascinating evolution.
You know that I have been chasing a better boost threshold / spool on my SC36 2.038cc.
So I'm curious , about your thoughts on you 2.1 motor in combination with the turbos ( TD04 + variants td04HL-15t ,19t versus TD05 16G , SC36 )
And just to fizz this up , I found another post from you which really had me wondering
"I had the sc36 on a 2.1. It was boring, as there was no shove in the back, as it came on boost so early. Even a td05-16g on a 2.0 is much more amusing to drive IMO, even though it makes less power, due to the power delivery."
I just can't quite relate to this , my SC36 is so far away from "coming on boost so early" & I'm suspecting for Cornish lanes that a TD04HL19t could be the better option ?
Been reading right through this thread, Id describe it as a fascinating evolution.
You know that I have been chasing a better boost threshold / spool on my SC36 2.038cc.
So I'm curious , about your thoughts on you 2.1 motor in combination with the turbos ( TD04 + variants td04HL-15t ,19t versus TD05 16G , SC36 )
And just to fizz this up , I found another post from you which really had me wondering
"I had the sc36 on a 2.1. It was boring, as there was no shove in the back, as it came on boost so early. Even a td05-16g on a 2.0 is much more amusing to drive IMO, even though it makes less power, due to the power delivery."
I just can't quite relate to this , my SC36 is so far away from "coming on boost so early" & I'm suspecting for Cornish lanes that a TD04HL19t could be the better option ?
So first of all, I must point out that I bought the car when I was 23, and I am at the time of writing 41. I only point that out because during the 18 years I've (we've) had the car, my tastes and opinions have changed quite dramatically :-)
Quick recap of evolution:
2003, 2.0, td04, standard map: Car felt really fast indeed, probably because I came from a 1.0 clio
2008(?), 2.0 with td05-20g (andy forrest), with bob rawle map: I was blown away by the power. Quite disappointed with spool to begin with, but "you learn to drive around it", which in hindsight means "you learn to tolerate". I spent quite a bit of time umming and arring over what turbo to choose, and I settled on either 18g or 20g. In the end I went for 20g, as I wanted the most power I could get for sensible-ish money.
2009(?) - 2011(?): Played with e85 etc with JGM. The car definitely drove better with this setup (tried both STI TMIC and FMICs). Best setup during this time was IMO the td05-20g with decat downpipe and STI tmic and of course E85. The car felt really nice to drive on motorways/A-roads and even backroads, assuming you managed to keep it on the boil.
2011'ish: bought the 2.1 bugeye wagon with the sc36. This one felt super flat in comparison to the td05-20g. It just didn't have the "tuned" feeling of the 20g on the other car. At the time, I definitely mistook this for being boring and "worse" (and in a sense it was, if the goal was to have massive shove of torque at 3500 RPM)
2012'ish: td05-16g on the (now) 2.0 wagon. Later spool for sure than the sc36 on the 2.1, and not as much power either.
2013'ish: had the Evo VII RS, with a twin scroll lightweight wheel turbo, with tonnes of grunt low down. Probably in the region of 330HP (compared to other cars with similar boost with known numbers)
fast forward to ca 2018, and I tried a td06-20g billet in the 2.1. This was absolutely terrible for daily driving or anything else apart from straight line speed... The car didn't really wake up until quite late, and although it had power up the top, it was just not nice to drive anymore.
2019(?) ditched the large turbo, and got the TD04HL-15t from a friend and rebuilt it. I think the turbo came from a blob JDM WRX or similar. Lots of grunt on low down on the 2.1 (but according to slowboy didn't feel as eager as a normal td04L-13t on a 2.0)
2020: td04hl-19t billet.
Bearing in mind again that I'm much older now, I don't want nothing low down and then lots of power up top. It feels super fast once on song, but before that it's just rubbish (IMO).
So, circling back to your question
For you which of them made the best
1. Daily driver 2. Weekend B roader 3. Track Turbo @ Brands
Best daily driver:
In all honesty, I think it would be hard to beat a mapped td04 of some sort for driving in traffic. The torque they produce low down I find really useful. It's probably not the most fun if you drive on motorways and bigger roads, but for town etc I think subaru probably got it just about right in terms of power vs usability.
Weekend B roader:
I've personally come to the conclusion that torque is king on the back roads. There just isn't the space to utilize a big turbo (at least not the back roads here). Not that you can't have fun with a big turbo as well, but it definitely would not be quicker point to point than a smaller turbo. I really quite enjoy the low down torque of the hybrid I have now, and I think there's probably a reason why the rally cars try to develop so much torque low down.
Track turbo:
So this is super subjective. The 20g was an animal coming out of clearways through to paddock hill bend compared to the hybrid, and probably quite a bit faster up to druids too. However, out of Druids, down to Graham Hill and up to MacLaren, I really think the smaller turbo would eat the bigger one. If nothing else, it is more enjoyable to drive.
I should stress, however, that I'm just an enthusiast, not an actual racing driver. It's quite possible that someone better than me would find the exact opposite.
What I actually prefer:
At the moment I think the hybrid has a brilliant combo of low down torque and power. I keep thinking of building myself a billet td05-16g, but I'm also worried that it might not be as nice to drive around in (though would probably be faster in a straight line), so for the time being I am very happy with the hybrid. I'm also happy I didn't go for the 20t
For even more low down grunt, there is something else I would want to try, but probably wont. Basically, the td04hl came with a 15t comp wheel + cover. I think this would be the ultimate td04L turbo. It should give a genuine 280-290hp yet retain almost all of the spool of the small OEM UK turbo. The HL turbine is quite a bit bigger than the L (and only just smaller than the td05 turbine), so spool is definitely affected by this.
Not sure if these ramblings are useful or not, but those are my opinions at this precise moment in time
Thanks for reminiscing, doing the history. I guess I expected you to say what you did about the 20G , and the WRX TD04 for the daily driver around town.
Most of my spirited driving is single lane stuff with poor visibility, on the 5spd Id like for more torque at 25-45mph,
So for the hedgerows a TD04 Hybrid you describe may be ideal , and equally applicable to a town driver.
On twisty A/B roads where I do have some visibility I am happy with the SC36 in the mid range
here it suits my requirements especially with the 5spd long 3rd gear.
After many hours of researching, its always going to be a compromise,
I reckon a 7cm housing is fine for my requirement 350bhp, but to get over the boost threshold issue, a billet version makes a lot of sense.
I am kicking myself for not having spent more time on the research earlier. Whilst accepting that the Sports Cat never helps the boost threshold it has to stay.
I should : not have taken a SC36 journal but instead Blouch XTR garret ball race version of that turbo.
: have built the engine to include a longer stroke crank 2.1, but at least i have the 93mm bore.
: have used a higher CR probably 8.6-8.7 ( with this turbo only ever using 1.45 bar )
Its too late for the first two , but I will do the CR when the clutch needs a refresh.
This little finger sander was useful with the cage removal, however it is also annoyingly underpowered if you are planning on getting one. It's the SilverLine model, so perhaps to be expected. I half wish I hadn't cheaped out and bought a Makita instead, but I usually buy a cheapo version of a tool first to see if I will actually use the tool much. If it breaks, and I care enough, I get something better.
Heater core back in:
And beginnings of a dash:
with some carpet:
All the wires, everywhere.
I found a pair of STI seats from japperformanceparts.co.uk - a snip at 175 + 75 delivery
1. I accidentally nicked the fuel feed line on the passenger side when cutting tubes out. Not completely, so it is still tight, but definitely a small indentation on the tube. I tried getting the part from the Subaru dealer, but sadly they seem to be closed / hard to get on the phone (guess due to Covid). I tried ASP as well, but shipping would be difficult with such a long and fragile part, however @stockcar made a fantastic suggestion - line the pipe with a piece of tubing slid on from the end.
2. The interior fan/blower control module (or something) is slightly busted. About 8 times out of 10, the blower would not come on at all, and the other 2/10 times it worked normally (as in, could adjust speed of the fan etc etc. At first I suspected the transistor unit that manages the PWM control of the fan, but I swapped that out for another unit and had exactly the same symptoms, so not quite sure what to try next. The relay works perfectly, but sometimes it's like the PWM module doesn't switch to ground like it should (so the blower motor circuit never completes). It may be the lower dash unit, I guess, as that should be the only other thing involved, and mine has been kicked around in the garage for many years... If not that, then busted wiring or bad earth.
For now, I have wired it up with a fixed earth (bypassing the transistor module), so as soon as the relay comes on (basically any fan setting other than 'off'), I get fans at full speed. Not ideal, but better than no fans.
3. Airbag/SRS light is on... I've tried clearing the codes using the under-dash plug, but tbh it doesn't seem to be making any difference, even though I know for sure that some of the airbags are 100% in the car (steering wheel + passenger dash), and the seat ones have a 3.3ohm resistor. The SRS module hasn't been in an accident, as it's my original one, but it has been connected etc for a long time, yet it seems I get the same codes no matter what I do with the plugs.
My main worry at the moment is the airbag light, as I can't get an MOT without it (nor would I want to drive it around without working airbags and seatbelt tensioners etc). Luckily MOT doesn't expire until November, so I still have a bit of time.
MOT is almost upon me again, so thought I’d better sort out the airbag lights, especially as it’s now without the front cage.
Unfortunately I cut the wiring loom many years ago, but finally managed to find a breaker who would sell me the cable tails I needed. Unfortunately they were a tiny bit too short on the drivers side, so had to splice some cable in.
video here showing the airbag light go out for the first time in about 10 years
I have also bought, but not fitted, a WR Sport backbox, which is the factory option backbox I wanted to get with the car when we first bought it all those years ago, but insurance wouldn’t let us. Can’t wait to fit that
I expect you are being ironic, however for the rest of the readers, getting a valid insurance on modified Subaru is a search for the Holy Grail. You either give up and use the “cheapish” quote that applies to the car in its standard form, or you go to a race car insurance specialist. I use a Adrian Flux policy but have listed the modifications and the % increased power. Even then I have been lucky to have the 265bhp Prodrive version of my car written in as the base for the +% calculation. When I asked about a 3 inch exhaust as well , the response was another >10% premium increase. So I use the original prodrive back box / diameter and declared it with the sports cat. Which passes the MOT (if I get it hot on the way to the garage) I back the declared power % with a Engine Tune graph so that its all transparent. Anything else risks that the insurance company will wriggle out if things get nasty after a third party personal injury claim.
Some more interior went in (the bit between the passenger windows covering up the seatbelt adjusters.
Would have been much faster had I realised that the front seats didn’t have to come out, not the seatbelt undone at the floor, in order to fit them. Had them for ages already and been putting this but off because of all that extra work 🙄
next step for interior would realistically be headliner, but I’m not sure I want to chop the rest of the cage out just yet.
might get a headliner to hold on to if I can find one nearby, though..
@Henrik What's your long term plans for the car, are you thinking of using it regularly? It would certainly be a fun car to daily! I've enjoyed reading your thread and look forward to seeing where this goes. I wonder if in a few years time you'll be pulling the interior back out because the kids have grown up and you have more opportunities to get it out on track.
I do understand where you are coming from as a family man myself, I sold my Clio 182 because it had a welded in cage and was pretty much useless except on track. That's why I have no intention of caging the current project.
@Henrik What's your long term plans for the car, are you thinking of using it regularly? It would certainly be a fun car to daily! I've enjoyed reading your thread and look forward to seeing where this goes. I wonder if in a few years time you'll be pulling the interior back out because the kids have grown up and you have more opportunities to get it out on track.
I do understand where you are coming from as a family man myself, I sold my Clio 182 because it had a welded in cage and was pretty much useless except on track. That's why I have no intention of caging the current project.
Long-term plans, I think I want it to go back to being usable on the road, basically. I had a bit of an eye-opener when I went to brands last time, where modern machinery is just *so* much faster now it's just quite ridiculous... I think even highly modded scoobies would find it difficult to hold a candle to a well driven recent M3/M4 etc, and the hot-hatches have _really_ moved on too. I think if I was to go down the track-route again, then I'd get some kind of Seven'esque kit-car I think, mainly because they're so fast for the money (both in terms of purchase, and in running costs).
I'm waiting for a drive to be put in to the house, so that the family-wagon can sit on the drive, and the Subaru in front of the garage (or at least have a clear path out without having to move the S-max), which should allow me to use the Subaru a bit more easily (at the moment I have to move the S-max onto the road, and the parking is a nightmare etc etc...)
I went ahead and fitted the backbox yesterday. It turns out that it fits straight onto the Miltek centre section - I'm hoping that the 0.25" difference in diameter will not make a huge difference (at least not at this modest power level).
The box needs a polish, but apart from that it seems to be in great condition. It's exactly like my old PPP backbox, except the tailpipe is oval and slash-cut
Unfortunately, and massively annoyingly, the exhaust still rattles exactly the same as it did before. It isn't knocking on any body work (and in fact, I can move the backbox up and down several cm without anything knocking anywhere, so I'm not really sure where it's coming from. All I know at the moment is that:
- it sounds the same as before in terms of rattle
- if I put my foot on the exhaust tailpipe, it immediately stops.
I'm hoping that it's the centre section of the exhaust, but I guess it could also be the downpipe and sports cat (although why would that rattle?). I'll see if I can make a video of it at some point.
Still, at least it should be a little bit more sociable now with the reduced sound level.
21 July 2020, 07:11 PM
Definitely the best bit on the whole car
