Fugue for Engine Carrier and Wiring Harness

As I get dragged kicking and screaming away from my tools for two weeks to go on vacation, I have a couple of pleasing events to report:


My wiring harness is off to Jeff Robenolt in Wisconsin to be worked over and turned into a harness adapted for use in a Bus. Jeff is a good egg: a real thinker about ways to improve the art, not just crank out monkey copies of what has gone before. In my case, I'm specifying certain modifications that would have gotten me turned down (or laughed off) by some of the other folks who do the conversions.

The most significant modification is for the circuit and their fans. This isn't actually to make it more exotic or specialized, it is to more effectively use the programmatic intelligence of the Subaru ECU to manage cooling a relatively exotic and specialized cooling environment:

The Scirocco fans are dual power, that way cooling could be increased without adding an additional fan. There are two circuits to drive the same fan: a 250W and a 150W. Put on the AC, and the 150W comes on constant because the AC condenser is sandwiched in with the radiator. AC needs a lot more air volume passing over it (and a guarantee of air volume, when slowed or stopped) to ensure that the AC system will work correctly.

The 250W circuit is to pull air through faster if the coolant got to hot. It pulls a steep 20 Amps at 12 volts. This is not a circuit you want closed all of the time: this is for when you're in the bad spot of Dallas asphalt in August at 110°F in the shade, and you're stuck crawling along, stop and go at 5mph in first gear. The pitch of the blades is so steep, its clear that this fan is designed to come on, waste no time pulling your coolant temperature down out of the danger zone and then shut off again. It shouldn't ever be running all of the time.

The Subaru also has two circuits for fan control, but it is for two different fans. In this case, I'm getting Jeff's help to rework the circuit so that the FAN1 signal from the ECU closes the relay for the 250W pair (40A total draw!) and the FAN2 signal closes the relay for the 150W pair (20A total draw.) The fans themselves will be tapped directly off the battery, for the shortest power path.

Here's the interesting question that Jeff is going to be working on: Does Fan2 only come on in a Subaru application when there is air conditioning? Does the ECU ever trigger BOTH fans even without the AC circuit being closed? I don't know. HE doesn't know. So we're going to find out, and what we learn will help guide the continuing evolution of the VolksarU design.

Those of you who pay attention to power draw may note that, if it were even possible for both fan circuits to be engaged at the same time it would constitute a load of 60A just to run the fans. (Are these fans designed to run at an additive wattage? I dunno. That's what we're testing.) The Alternator on the EJ22 is only designed to put out 75A, which is more than enough to push a 5 passenger car with power-everything down the road. I'm actually hoping that the 150W circuit is AC only. But we won't know until the test is complete.


The second piece of happy news may be documented in a somewhat blurry picture, but it is a beautiful sight to me:

This is the EJ22e engine rotated 180° (upside down) and the beautiful Rocky Mountain Westy engine carrier bar bolted on to the engine with new vibration dampners. On the left you can see that I've mocked up the extension arm that reaches to the rear and bolts to the factory carrier bar chassis holes for the 1972-1973 Type4 based bodies. This is the only design I've seen that does this, and it's brilliant: It locks the carrier into place in three degrees of rotation, and does so without requiring any cutting or welding on the body, re-using as many stock mounting points as possible. In it's own way, it is the perfect demonstration of the VolksarU ideal: Installation is DIY friendly, no body mods needed and is compatible with two decades worth of Subaru EJ series engines. If you decide to trade up to an EJ33 or a Subaru H6 engine...they just fit. A lot of smart engineering, jig and fab work went into this carrier.

To my knowledge, only two other companies offer carrier bars "cash and carry" rather than a custom fabrication each time, but they're both in the UK. (RJES & Fellows Speed Shop.) Both are good products and have the merit of being weld-in compatible with many different models, but require someone to do the welding, so they aren't as DIY friendly (unless you already weld.)

With that, I'm closing up shop and going on vacation. See you in mid-July!

Divine Intervention?

So I'm officially broke. This project hasn't beggared me.  Everything else has. It isn't 'the expense you weren't expecting' that wrecks you, its when 5 or 6 expenses you weren't expecting all kick in the front door in the same week.

Blown controller board in the refrigerator, AC drops dead in your commuter car (At the start of summer, dammit!), wife needs new lenses for her glasses she has put off buying for a year, your son needs a replacement tablet you've put off buying for four months....etc, etc, etc. It all landed at the same time.

My wife, who has great sympathy for my trying to move this along tells me, sorry, you must pause until the end of the month. We go into low consumption mode on everything we can until the next check clears and we can breathe again. Don't even buy beer. Yikes!!!!

So imagine my frustration when I see that I need to spend a lousy $120 to execute a series of steps which must be done in dependent order to take the the project miles down the road toward a running engine:

Start with:
'firewall permanently installed' which leads to
     'chassis electrical installed' which permits
          'cooling system permanently installed' which then allows
               'engine off of the stand' to
                    'install flywheel and transmission adapter' so I can
                         'replace engine support mounts' then
                              'add engine support bar' so I am able to
                                   'crane engine into compartment' to permit
                                        'bolt engine, adapter, and support bar to transmission & body' and then
       'Drink a beer!'

Unfortunately, I'm stuck at 'chassis electrical' without the ability to buy a couple-of-few parts. Which is just ridiculous. Once I pass 'cooling system permanently installed' everything else is downhill requiring barely any additional purchases or even much work: It's just bolt-in, then. It is a classic: "For want of a horse shoe nail."

Then I had my divine intervention moment last night.

Exposition: I was gifted with some cash for my recent birthday, and at church on Sunday I felt the prompting to pitch 1/3 of it into the offering plate. *I don't ever put anything in the plate.* All of my family's contributions are transferred right to the church's account.

Now why would I do this? I'm already broke, and this money was *mine* for my birthday. But I felt the nudge, and though I'm slow and stupid in spiritual matters, I took the hint and put in.

That night, I had my epiphany, and I know who sent it.

The dilemma with getting hung up on 'chassis electrical' is that I have to wire up the tail lamp housings again after having moved it all out of the way while the engine compartment was under heavy rework. Once it is back in...but that's where I have to stop: The tail lamp housings have been completely ruined by UV; literally crumbling away, so they have to be completely replaced.

The lamp housings are held in place by nuts INSIDE the body that thread on to bolts embedded in the plastic of the housing. Once the 'cooling system permanently installed' is done, I can't get to those nuts. To gain access there, I have to take the whole cooling system apart, which is a seriously pain, and also the Achilles' Heel of my design. But how often do you REALLY need to get in to those battery box compartments once the battery is moved to under the rear seat? Almost never. Still... It would really ease the mind and make maintenance a lot easier if you could get in there. But the lamps are held on by nuts on the INSIDE. Again, the bolt heads are locked into place by having the plastic cast around it.

Bolt holes for tail lamp assemblies which are nutted on the inside. What if it could be nutted on the outside?

This seemed ridiculous to me. Why COULDN'T I find some way to make the parts switch ends? Flip the bolt head and nut ends....No. That still won't work. Either end is still locked by the plastic cast around it, whether it is the bolt head, or the nut. Either way, you'd still have to get to the INSIDE to remove the fastener that is still free to turn.

I took the UV damaged units I have (if they get banged up with experimentation it doesn't matter since they're being wholly replaced...when I can afford it again) and brought one over to the bench. I used a sharp utility knife to trim away the plastic flashing that keeps the bolt in place in the molded hex socket in the lamp housing. Then I flipped it over and with a nailset and hammer, drove out the hex head bolt. If I rounded out the hex socket in the plastic housing, the bolt could turn. But the nut would still turn inside, so that's no good...



That's when the Spirit whopped me with the epiphany bat: I have ALREADY BOUGHT the solution to this problem: Nutserts aka Fastenalls, e.g. aluminum rivets that have a threaded inside diameter. Install the rivets in the lamp housing mounting holes in the vehicle body and now you have a nut that WON'T TURN on the side that you can't get to when the cooling system is installed, but you can drive a bolt from OUTSIDE into the nutsert. Remove 4 bolts from the outside, the whole lamp housing comes out. Free access to areas previously inaccessible.

At first, I thought, "Well, that let's me move ahead to the next step! Hot Dog!" Then I got whopped again coming back the other way: This doesn't just let me make the next step, it fundamentally changes the maintenance character of the entire design.This single $4 retrofit changes everything, both during the initial installation, and during the all subsequent installation steps, as well as any maintenance that needs to be done in the far future.

After having re-laid the tail lamp wiring harness back into its original clamps, I've discovered that there is enough slack on the cable that when you pull the machine screws, you can pull the assembly out of the hole and reach in and not even strain the cable or bulb fittings.

This was a trivially inexpensive change that produces an enormous butterfly effect. Talk about a 'Still, small voice...!"