Ok everyone I am starting my thread as I have made some progress on my swap project. Why a swap? Well I don't know really. When I was 17 a friend of mine snuck out his dad's 77 930. I got to take a ride in it and ever since I have loved the 930 wide body look and in particular the slantnose. Since these cars have appreciated to never never land and buying a "rough" example is financial suicide I put it out of my mind. Anyway one boring day I find myself cruising ebay 911s and I find a 1977 slantnose conversion for sale locally. I watched the car for a few days and eventually went to see it. It had a bad paint job but recently rebuilt 2.7 with Weber's and ssi exhaust. I bought it a few days later. The car did not run particularly well with a roughish idle that smoothed out when warm. Anyway I fooled with the carbs and distributer but could never get the car dialed in quite right. Around that time I saw KPAZ's Subaru conversion that I thought was really cool. I posted the engine, exhaust, and carbs on Pelican, recovered 50% of the price I payed for the car and was off to the races. I have been fooling with the car for just over a year but am getting quite close to starting it. One goal of this conversion was to do everything on very limited budget so that I finish the car for $6k not including paint. I think I will be able to make it under budget but we'll see when I tally everything at the end. Anyway here is the swap to date.
As I wrote earlier this is a very budget conscious swap so everything used is from Ebay, Craigslist, or the u pull it junk yard. I got very lucky with the motor. It is a JDM EZ30R that I won on an EBAY Auction from Small CAr PErformance in Portland Oregon. They seem to be good guys and look very involved in swapping Subaru motors into Volkswagon Camper Vans. Apparently they picked up a bunch of these motors from an importer who went broke. They decided to sell them rather than fool around with the drive by wire, CAN BUS, etc. I am going to run a standalone ECU so none of that matters to me. The cost of the motor shipped to a freight terminal was $700. Score!
I am using a Kennedy Engineering adapter plate and flywheel to mate the motor and transmission. The KEP product seems exceptionally well made. While the transmission was out I replaced the ring gear and clutch disc since I broke a tooth on the gear and the disc was near the rivits. Cost $300
As I mentioned I am running a standalone ECU so I had to replace the Subaru trigger wheel with wheel with a common trigger pattern. Outfront performance makes a very cool trigger wheel that fits in the factory location behind the flywheel. They also made the primaries for the exhaust.
I mated the motor and transmission and lifted them into place with a Harbor Freight ATV lift. That lift should be purchased by every 911 owner. It makes lowering the engine and trans out of the car an easy one man operation. Once in place I measured and leveled and measured and leveled some more. When I was happy with the fitment I tightened the trans mounts up. I wasn't opposed to welding to the original structure but being a novice welder I was scared of burning through the sheet metal so I decided against modifying the original structure at all. I have to give credit again to KPAZ because my cradle design was inspired by his.
As you can see the engine is much smaller then the 2.7. I am hoping to fit a radiator behind the motor but will probably end up putting it up front like everyone else. I was able to retain the Porsche rubber mounts and some Impreza mounts between the cradle and motor. I am a little worried about stability but won't know until I start the car
Here is the cradle. I modified the design to tie in to the chassis where the valance mounts pass through the frame rail. Does anyone know how strong this part of frame is? It seems very well reinforced but I am not an engineer.
I am going to reinforce the cradle where the legs meet the crossbar. Once that is welded in I will grind he welds (they're ugly) and paint it rustoleum gloss white. I am going to fabricate a wiring harness by pulling an existing harness from a batch injector fired junkyard car and removing what I don't need. I will try to get both sides of the harness so that the connector looks factory and is waterproof. My ECU is an Emerald K6 that I picked up off Craigslist for $150. Seems very well supported in England and has some net features like cutting spak so you can shift at full throttle, VVT support etc.