Crapwagon!!!! 1975 245 wagoon project!

[msweeney]

not a bad way to go, honestly

Yeah, it was always in the back of my mind. I've had a 16v head sitting on my shelf forever, then this just was too good a deal to pass up so here I am. I probably should have just gone this way from the start, but originally I was just going to put a big turbo on this thing and drive around for a few years. Lol, right? On the bright side, I've learned a lot building all the stuff I never used, haha.

 

[msweeney]

Glad to see that 16v motor finally found an engine bay to live in.

Me too, but I'm especially tickled to have that harness in there, it's really nice.

 

[msweeney]

It's been slow-going, since summer is the busy part of the year in my line of work, but a lot progress has been made, albeit in fits and starts.

I made a little harness and firewall connector for the dash sensors and a couple things not in the engine harness, plus I drilled a little hole for a bulkhead port for my boost reference:

I ordered up a Coleman driveshaft and built it with a new joint:

The engine bay is nearly done (for now, haha) in terms of getting the swap done and running. Waiting on parts for the wastegate setup today:

 

[Harlard]

 

[msweeney]

The best fit of all the stuff I had on hand was actually my old 8v header, so I ordered an adapter from Yoshifab and got to porting.

I touched it up a bit after this, but I was pretty happy with the results. Having a huge flange on the header helped a lot.

I needed the turbo up a little higher, and could use the room for a wastegate port, so I made a spacer:

I'm off to go finish weld all this stuff today, then I need to try and figure out how to unexplode the center console...

 

[Wilford Brimley]

Do you guys feel those t3-t4 adapters work well?

 

[msweeney]

Do you guys feel those t3-t4 adapters work well?

No adapter for the turbo, this is all T3 flange. I just needed a little room for a wastegate port and turbo clearance, so I fabbed this spacer.

And coincidentally, it didn't quite fit, so I broke the tacks and beat the **** out of it like it owed me money again:

And now this is finally where everything lives. Downpipe is finish welded, I have to plug the old wastegate port and make the new one this week and then the rest of the exhaust is really straightforward.

 

[R32RennSport]

Sweeeeeeeet!

 

[dl242gt]

Looks great! Getting close to fun time.

 

[msweeney]

So, definitely going to trim this airdam above that blue line, but I wanted a photo of my car looking really low and don't want to go find a puddle to park in, so here it is.

I believe this is the end of my cosmetic modifications, as well.

 

[msweeney]

I've been working on the car and decided I would like a little more room than I have with the shortened B234 manifold, and will need it when I put the big manifold I have on it. I screwed around with skinny booster stuff for a second, but quickly realized it was more of a pain than doing dual masters like a race car, so guess what?

We are unboosting the wagon.

I took a picture of the pedal while it was cooling on the floor, I'm not a great journalist.

The twin Girlings really tie the room together, and there's so much more room for fun stuff. With this spacing there is just a tiny bit of interference in the pedal box: I need to flip the clutch pivot bolt, and I'm going to trim the bias adjuster rod about 1/4". I'm also really excited to have a good pedal in a street car for once. Anyone want a recently repainted skinny booster?

 

[nibroc]

GOOD POST-----thanks

 

[msweeney]

I am getting ever closer to swirling down the drain of success over here, and have most of my fab work taken care of for now. First was to take care of my wastegate situation.

Mocked up:

Welded:

Installed:

I also needed to get my accessory belts figured out. For now, I just ordered short belts and will run without AC, and I got those in and installed the other day as well.

I need to make front hard lines, install my G80, and weld in the passenger seat mounts, then I start the long list of bullshit trying to start this thing.