Now for sump-thing completely different

Next on the list for my engine was the oil sump. The standard subaru sump sits way to low for a beetle (especially my very low beetle) so you need a shortened one. Bug @5 speed sells a very nice one but at 340 euros it's kind of to expensive for my tight budget. But if you can afford it, go with the bug @ 5 speed one. You could also shorten a standard one but I don't trust my welding (machine) to be up for the job. So I had to come up with something different. And I found it. 80 euro for a new alu sump from a different car and I just needed to make an adapter plate. Which I did and tada, here it is. Not very difficult and it should work fine. Still need to shorten the pick up and some other misc stuff, but here's the test fit. Now I can make the headers fit....

I made a little mistake on the mill which I had to weld up and filling the holes didn't go perfectly too. So it al looks a little bit ruff but it should work just fine....

Here's the sump on the engine. To bad the cooling fins on the sump are going the wrong way.... Not sure what I'm going to do about that.

And under the engine. Still sticks out a fair bit but it's about 5 cm less than the original. Hey, is that the relocated fuel pressure regulator with it's nifty bracket and my new multi rib belt....

Headers up

Today my package from the US arrived. It's my subaru header manifold. With the low dollar some things are surprisingly cheap to buy from the states. To put it in perspective, new including shipping from the US this thing is cheaper then a secondhand from the Netherlands (and I'm talking about the same quality) and buying stainless bends and making it myself would have been twice as much.... Weird.

Anyway, I'm very busy at the moment with drawing stuff butt I just had to put this thing together and fit it on my engine to see how it looks. At this moment you might think I'm very happy with this thing and I am..... but. The thing is a piece of crap. Sold as stainless steel, the flanges are ordinary steel. The bends are horribly put together and some welds aren't even finished. If I would have bought this thing to put it on my car just like that I would have send it back without a second thought. But I am not going to put it on my car like that. I'm going to cut it up and re-weld it.

Why you ask? Well, as you can see on the last picture the thing sticks way out (or in this case up, because the engine is upside down) and on a subaru that wouldn't be a problem but on my bug it is. The entire manifold has to be as low as the lowest pipe in the up side down pic. Also I want the pipes to be shorter so I'm going to wrap the pipes the other way around. (I'll make a photoshop soon to give you an idea) And headers like that just don't exist...or at least not for little money. :D So I bought this header just for the bends (like I said, this is cheaper then buying stainless bends and weld it myself) I'll buy a flange for the turbo from stainless (it comes with a downpipe flange that I need) so in the end just the head flanges are steel which I'm not happy with. The rest is ok.

So next up is buying/making a shortened oil pan and buying a tig welder (I'm so good in giving myself excuses to buy machinery) so I can rebuild the headers. I already know it's going to be a drama but.... You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs or some wise remark like that.