I've finally had a chance to come up for air and get y'all an update on my Suby motor Vintage Pre-A Coupe project.
On the face of it putting a Suby motor in a coupe shouldn't be any harder than putting one in a speedster: same chassis, same transaxle, similar body. The key word there is similar. There is one difference that seems small, but turns out to be a big deal. Below is a picture of the interior of an unfinished speedster. Note the back of the rear seat area. It's well in front of the engine compartment firewall. You speedster owners now that gives you an area of empty space over the transmission in between those two walls.
Now take look at the picture of the interior of an unfinished coupe below.
The back of the rear seat area is much farther back and it IS the firewall of the engine compartment! More interior space is nice, but it turns out Greg uses that empty area on a speedster to run an air intake hose to the subaru intake manifold. Like this:
When you put the motor in a coupe engine compartment it looks like this:
So now what. Well there's some good news. The intake manifold is symmetrical. It can be unbolted and turned around. But that means the alternator needs to find a new home. The alternator is front and center on all subarus. With much futzing around (and I imagine a certain amount of cursing) the alternator was moved to what is the normal AC location to the viewers right. Then the manifold reversed, and its plumbing redone so that a reasonable air cleaner and intake could be installed. But we're not done yet...
I was planning on having AC in the coupe. But now the alternator is taking up the compressor's spot. So what do we do about that? The compressor can't be moved to the other side, because part of the air intake and the cooling system fill pipe are there. There's no room for it.
That means it's time for another first! Electric AC!
At first that seemed like a bridge to far, but after a little thought it turns out that the plumbing is actually easier. Short hose runs are possible (not 22 feet long) with everything right close together in the frunk. Even the wiring will be slightly shorter. It should even be more efficient at cooling if I understand what Stan was saying about constant compressor speeds. I wouldn't be surpised if at some point that's what winds up in any replica that needs AC. It'll be cost dependent, but mechanically it makes a lot of sense.
In other news Greg tells me they've abandoned using electric window lifts for the side windows. They've gone back to good old crank windows. This actually makes me really happy. Interesting side note; they source old VW bug units and rebuild them. Turns out the new ones are junk. Surprise!
The coupe I posted pics of last week is done and I'm next in line for completion. The headliner is in, all the engine mods are done. I think the interior is done and just waiting on the windows going in. That makes it sound like it's really close, but there's a lot still to do. I've given Greg enough to make him really hate me, but he's been great about taking each challenge as it comes and finding a way to do it. Some of you are really gonna like this thing, some are gonna like parts of it, some are already rolling their eyes! Greg has let me do me and it's pretty exciting to be getting this close to driving it!
This will be the first, and according to Greg the LAST, Subaru Pre-A coupe.
