Cimbria SS

[islandman]

*humpf*No don't do that. That portion remains uncut. Snake those connectors out of the bundle in the direction shown by the arrow. I found helpful removing pins (one at a time only) from certain connectors whenever wires get tangled. This way I eliminated unnecessary cutting and resoldering. Much easier just to remove and reinstall the pin.

Your harness does look a little different from mine. No I did not shorten or extended any wire bundles only few individual wires. I have 2002 WRX harness. Not sure which setup you have as I didn't see it in your build. But the logic should be the same.

1) Start at the ECU (circled in magenta color) and passenger side engine connectors (circled in orange). Move engine connectors to the left of ECU. This will become your outmost rear point.

2) Now snake all engine connectors for the driver's side and transmission connectors (circled in blue) and bring them toward ECU. You literally only need to cut and extend 2 or 3 wires to do that. Now you will have all engine connections in the same spot.

3) Move black fuse box in the direction shown by the arrow. No cutting should be required. This will become your outmost front point.

4) The rest of connectors (diagnostic, flash memory, etc) I've moved toward beige fuse box to be located under dash.
View attachment 8304

Even though the overall harness is longer then it needs to be, I've decided not to shorten it and just make few service loops where needed to ensure overall harness integrity remains unchanged.

In the end I've end up resoldering less then 10 wires. Most of those had to do with warning light elimination: ABS, Airbag and gauge cluster light (I've eliminated integrated module and had to ground one of the wires to maintain cluster backlight).
Hope this helps.

Yes this is very useful, although I'm still perplexed on a few areas to how it ends up looking like yours without cutting some of the wires. Anyway I'm sure it will become more apparent when I have the loom in front of me and start working through it. Mine was out of a 2001 Subaru Legacy

 

[sector]

Received code eliminator board from smallcars and wired it into the harness. For easy access I've located code eliminator board in the beige colored fuse box. To protect wires agaist damage and weather elements I wrapped them in Techflex F6 woven sleeving. Next step will be to install the harness in the car and confirm that error codes have been eliminated.

 

[islandman]

Cool bit of kit that I didn't know existed, will check it out

 

[sector]

Nothing to show and only small progress to report. Once again I hooked up finished harness and ran the engine. Code eliminator board from smallcars did its job, it eliminated all emmision codes. Nice to see gauge cluster without any falts.

 

[sector]

Adjusted suspension and mounted body on the frame. I was pleasantly surprised at how much room there is in the engine bay even with WRX turbo motor. Unfortunately it was getting dark so I snapped only few photos of the outside as I didn't want to unwrap protective plastic from the engine.


Looking at that photo I am thinking that I need larger wheels and lower profile tires. I am debating if I should bump it 16" or go for 17". I would like to maintain similar look so I am leaning toward these wheels.

 

[islandman]

In my book deep dish wheels always look good, its a sign of our age though when compared with what the younger generation thinks looks good

 

[letterman7]

Put me in the old school look as well. I prefer the higher sidewalls. Personally, I like the current look though the tires will surely rub over bumps. Lower profile tires will always give you a rougher ride.. in these cars that's not a good thing.

 

[sector]

In static position bouncing and rocking the car doesn't cause wheel rubbing. But I also currently have 1/2" spacers which I could reduce or remove to tuck them in slightly if needed. I wouldn't want to raise the car as I like its current stance.

Here is a photo of the WRX engine in the engine bay of a Cimbria. Plenty of room to spare. It looks like even the stock airbox will fit just fine.

 

[Peter]

I prefer the high (60) profile tires, I have 40s on my Merc and they are bloody uncomfortable, high walls look the biz on classic cars too.*thumbs up*

 

[letterman7]

You're lucky - that isn't a stock engine compartment. The rear shelf would have enclosed almost all that area much like a Sterling. You might want to plan some reinforcement of the back fenders to something to keep flex down. I can almost guarantee stress cracks one you're on the road if it isn't supported.

 

[sector]

I've made steel tubular frame that bolts to the chassis and rear panel (not yet mounted). And the same for the front. They serve two purposes, stop ends from sagging and as crash bars in the event of an accident. I will share details once I have them installed.

 

[Peter]

You're lucky - that isn't a stock engine compartment. The rear shelf would have enclosed almost all that area much like a Sterling. You might want to plan some reinforcement of the back fenders to something to keep flex down. I can almost guarantee stress cracks one you're on the road if it isn't supported.

On mine I have an adjustable bar from the chassis to the top of the inner wing where there is a strip of 2" angle across.



You can see the bottom end welded to the chassis.

 

[sector]

Adjusted camber. Now both wheels are at 1.5 deg which is very good.



Started on fitting doors

 

[Peter]

Looking good and a nice stance now. *rock on**thumbs up*

 

[sector]

Did a quick fit check of Subaru WRX dash and it seems this will work even better than my previous attempt with Subaru Legacy dash.





Tomorrow will try to mount dashboard frame and if time permits will play with pedals. I am planning on using Subaru WRX pedals.

 

[Peter]

I would just make a mesh crescent cover and call it a day.

 

[sector]

Did some work on the rear suspension. I've acquired a set of 1986 Porsche 944 aluminum trailing arms and got a chance to install them. Due to the fact that Porsche uses larger lower shock mount bolt I was unable to use VW shocks. A new set of Bilstein shocks that I ordered are unfortunately on backorder.


In a mean time I've decided to fit check the wheels. Mounted wheels and ran into a strange issue. I've set my torsion bars to the same position as I had them with VW trailing arms but when I lowered the the jack, the car went all the way to bump stops. Shocks don't control height of the suspension so having them unconnected should have nothing to do with that. I've confirmed geometry of both VW and Porsche trailing arms by doing one side at a time and comparing them. All Porsche parts lined up nicely. I can try to readjust trailing arms but I just don't understand why this issue occured. Any ideas?

 

[Brett Proctor]

I can try to readjust trailing arms but I just don't understand why this issue occured. Any ideas?

Not sure if you have this figured out yet, but since nobody is posting on it I figured I'd try to shed some light on it.

Only one other person has done this on this sight that I know of and he no longer posts so I had to do some searching to find out why this happened.
I'm sure if you would emailed him he would be happy to help if any is needed. Last time I talked to him his setup was installed and working

Well the most obvious thing that I saw is the 944 turbo arms are larger than the steel ones.
The steel 944 arms look to be about the same size as a type 1 but the aluminum look to be much larger and because of this there is less clearance at the bump stops.

If you raise the back up that will mess up how your car sits to the ground but that would be the easiest solution.

I found this picture on the web. One side has the stock arm and the other has the 944 turbo arm. You can kind of see the difference between the two.
Personally I don't see any advantage using that arm in our application except that it will widen the stance of the car.

 

[sector]

Thanks for the input but yesterday I was able to figure out what was happening. I was using wrong datum point as reference. Once that was corrected and I readjusted spring plate's position, all came together correctly.

As far as advantages I believe there are multiple:
1) Ability to adjust toe alignment with a escentric tool instead of tapping with a hammer.
2) Ability to adjust camber via build in escentric bolt.
3) Ability to quickly adjust height (upto 3/4") via build in escentric bolt.
4) Porsche disc brakes.
5) If desired these arms provide ability to switch to full coilover suspension which is the option I am entertaining.

I've seen few Manx buggies this summer running that setup with coilovers and I was really impressed how nicely all came together.

 

[sector]

Can't decide between wheel choses, old school 15" or modern 18". Disregard height differences as suspension will need to be dialed in once I chose wheel style.