Update 0

Years ago I started the blog WadeProject as a place to publish about projects and other interests I was pursuing. Sadly enough I haven't posted on it since 2011 because I haven't been doing projects.

I am happy to announce that I and starting to fulfill a lifelong dream to build a kit car. I've thought about restoring a classic and that doesn't really fit my skill set or interests. In my heart I'm a builder and a fabricator.

I choose the Factory Five 818c for a few reasons. #1 is my love affair with Subaru. I have owned many different makes and models over the years but Subaru has always been my secret lover. I love the simplicity of the boxer engines. I love the design and how easy they are to work on (to me at least) So in 2013 when Factory Five announced that they were coming out with a kit that used a Subaru donor vehicle it caught my attention. The first models introduced were a race version the 818r and a street version the 818s. The race version didn't interest me because it wasn't meant to be for the street. It was the original 818s that I fell in love with. It was a topless sports car. Amazing curves and design. A mid engine RWD sports car with a Subaru drive train. At the time I didn't have the resources to start such a project. This turned out to be a good thing because in August 2015 Factory Five released the 818c. A removable hard top coupe. I had found my soul mate. It was always meant to be. I immediately started looking for a donor vehicle. It had to be a manual transmission and fall into a somewhat limited selection of models and model years. Fate had a plan for me. I found a 2007 Subaru Impreza for sale in my price range 4 miles down the road from me. I snatched it up and started the plans to use it as a donor. About 2 days later I got an email notification from eBay about a vehicle I had been watching that was going to end soon. It had 15 minutes left. I opened the email and it was the same year, make, model, trim, and even color of the Subaru that I had just bought. Identical twins.

 This Subaru had been wrecked slightly in the front end. At first I dismissed it and deleted the email thinking that I already had my donor. Then the wheels started turning and I thought about how I didn't need the body panels from my donor and the parts could all be used to resurrect this identical twin. One vehicle could use its organ not just to build one car but to save the life of another! I quickly went back to eBay and put in a bid. I was the highest bidder at a price that I was very happy with. 4 minutes left on the bid and I couldn't watch. I turned my phone off and went to bed. The next morning when I turned my phone on I had a notification that I was the winning bidder. Once again fate had a hand in the events that took place. It took a few weeks but finally here we are. The twins are in the garage and this dream is starting to become a reality.

The build will have 3 phases to it.

Phase 1: Resurrect car A.

Phase 2: Harvest needed parts from car B.

Phase 3: Build the 818c

I'm in no hurry and this is my hobby so I'll take as long as I want doing it but if you want to follow me along while I make this dream come true just stay posted here at WadeProject.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

At work the other day I got a call from Kennedy Engineering saying the engine adapter was shipping out. That meant that it was time to get to work. Thursday and Friday happened to be kinda slow so it was a good time to work on taking the motor out of the Toyota.

These are a few pictures of the motor coming out. It was overall really easy. I took the entire wiring harness out with the motor. I didn't even disconnect anything so that it could just stay hooked up.

Ok so it wasn't really that easy. We did have one hang up, literally the motor wasn't coming out and I couldn't figure out why. It turned out that I had a motor mount still connected after I took that off it came out easy. As you can see I took the whole transmission and engine out together. It was a lot easier that way also.

Empty. No wires or cables or anything.

This is just the motor after taking off the transmission. It still has all the wires.

Just the motor on the engine stand.

Backside of the motor.

After that I had to take all the wiring harness out of the inside of the car. I did this so that I could use the engine control module and the turn signals and everything else.

This didn't end up being too bad of a project either because nothing had to go back to the way it was. So a quick saw to the dashboard made it fast. So everything went from the front seat to the back seat. And yes, that is a drinking fountain. It came with the car. We joke that I bought a drinking fountain for $200 and got the car for free.

I think I made a mistake. The wiring harness was complete when I took it out of the car. But then I got thinking that I didn't need a lot of it. Things like air bags and seat belt warning lights and heater controls. So I opened it up and started to take out what I didn't need. It turned into a big mess quick. Wires everywhere! And to make things worse, it was time to go home on a Friday! I hope I can sort all this out after a weekend away from it. Only time will tell.

 

 

A little bit closer!!!

I finally found the pictures of when we picked up the project. It was a lot of fun.

 As you can see Aubrey loved the idea also!

 We were literally on the shore of lake Erie. The most north in the us that you could get (sorta)

 I have been ordering a lot of the parts for the project online. So whenever I see the UPS man I feel like it's Santa Claus getting out of his sleigh and making me sign for my presents.

 This is a quick picture of the engine in Toyota. It will soon be mounted to the back of the VW.

 Another shop of the power plant.

This was the most recent delivery. This is an aluminum racing radiator with a red cooling fan. Still thinking about the mounting location...

 This is on of the old tires from the VW. I would like to use it but they are not a radial tire. Translated that means the tire is really really old!! I pulled a date from the inside of the tire and it was made in the 17th week of 1967! I can't believe it is in as good of shape as it is. I am shining it up and I'm going to mount all 4 of them on my wall at the shop.

Stay tuned! Things are really picking up now. I'll be taking the motor out soon and installing new pans next.

1964 VW Kit Car

A few months ago..... Starting over, Many months ago Katie and I drove to a little town on the shore of lake Erie. The objective was to buy a 1964 VW kit car. I was going to finish the kit and use it as advertising for my business. That was in last summer and now that it is almost Spring I still haven't done much or hardly anything to the VW.........Until recently.

I set a goal to be in all the parades with my car this summer, so to set a goal I picked April 1st. That's a good date just to set one. The first thing I had to do was to find an engine for the VW. It had an original VW 1.2L engine from 1964. It even runs on a 6 volt system. That is old technology!

After some shopping in the paper for a few weeks with my time ticking away I found the perfect vehicle. A 1994 Toyota Corolla. Perfect for a number of reasons.
1: Kennedy Engineering makes an adapter kit that will install this engine directly to my stock VW transmission. No cutting or welding or anything.
2: The vehicle had hit a deer a few months ago and was no longer road worthy. However the engine still ran fine. This made the price of the vehicle very low. I bought the whole car for $200.
3: In West Virginia you have to travel far to get what you want. Even the closest Walmart is 35 miles away. This was an exception. This car was only a mile away. We picked it up and towed it here with a flat tire even.
So now we are going from a 1.2L carburated 1964 VW engine (45hp)  to a 1.8L fuel injected 1994 Toyota engine (126hp) Good start right?

So I ordered the kit from Kennedy Engineering. They make everything to order and custom for such order. The lady told me that it would be 5 weeks before they would have it done because they were moving locations to a bigger facility. That's ok because the buggy needs a lot of other work done to it. So I got out the credit card and went shopping. First I needed a radiator. The Toyota radiator got smashed in and was to big to fit on the VW. I ordered an aluminum racing radiator. The plan so far is to install the radiator and red cooling fan between the roll bar. The original VW kit never called for a radiator because the old engine was air cooled. No water.
After that I order new floor pans for the body of the VW. The old pans were rusted out. Other items in that list was, a high pressure fuel pump, a new clutch and pressure plate kit and a new 12 volt starter. That should be a good start. Now it's time to hurry up and wait.

Round 1: Deer vs. 2007 Subaru Legacy

A few weeks ago I was taking Aubrey to Grandmas house. I was on one of the back roads and a deer jumped out in front of our Subaru. I was going about 40 when I hit it head on. Instantly it went into the air about 15 feet and fell down in front of the vehicle. It wasn't moving at all. Aubrey started to cry right away. I had to explain to her that we were all playing a fun game of tag and the deer got tired and fell asleep. As for the Subaru... Take a look at the pictures below.