Engineers

wagonist · Post by **wagonist** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 10:39 pm

Can anyone recommend an engineer they've used in the past?

I'm not after anyone dodgy, just someone who's prepared to listen & accept that some things can be taken a step further.

eg my car
'93 EJ20T
'00 WRX gearbox
'92 Lib RS rear diff
'93 WRX front hubs with '99 4 spots & rotors
Lib RS rear brakes with rear handbrake (this is the biggie)
Front seats altered with extra framework
Rad support modified
Adjustable radius rods
'01 17' rims (though will prob get eng. with 15s)

Ben · Post by **Ben** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 8:17 am

If the engineer doesn't like your front lower control arms, I have a pair of XT6 arms that have the right taper to fit liberty ball joint to L series...

wagonist · Post by **wagonist** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 10:13 am

The front arms have already been done (& I've repainted them since then) so I doubt there'd be a problem.
Though I may wish to "borrow" the XT6 ones in case there's an issue to show that Subaru did exactly the same thing anyway.

Ben · Post by **Ben** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 10:39 am

wagonist wrote:The front arms have already been done (& I've repainted them since then) so I doubt there'd be a problem.
Though I may wish to "borrow" the XT6 ones in case there's an issue to show that Subaru did exactly the same thing anyway.

The ball joint end of the XT6 arm is larger than the L series one. Just boring it out to suit is not how subaru did it.

Why did you have to repaint?

wagonist · Post by **wagonist** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:31 am

The rest of the arm is identical to an L series one though?

I've repainted the entire suspension.
18 years of getting hammered by the elements & wanting a clean surface to work with.

Ben · Post by **Ben** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 5:34 pm

wagonist wrote:The rest of the arm is identical to an L series one though?

Yes, the arm is identical except for the ball joint taper.

wagonist wrote: I've repainted the entire suspension.
18 years of getting hammered by the elements & wanting a clean surface to work with.

Good idea!

subarursliberty · Post by **subarursliberty** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 8:45 pm

There is a guy in Newcastle that will listen and tell you exactly what he wants you to do. He's a good guy but I have heard some funny ones about him.

There is also someone on the central coast I have heard about that alot of Newcastle guys go to. I have never talked to him though and wouldn't know where to start looking for him.

With the arms just tell him there XT6 items. He'll never know.

Suby Wan Kenobi · Post by **Suby Wan Kenobi** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:00 pm

The guy on the Central Coast i used to use was Kevin Humphries, he was located in Toukley but shouldnt be hard to find

subarursliberty · Post by **subarursliberty** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:27 pm

Thats the guy. Funny how a name rings a bell in an empty head.

wagonist · Post by **wagonist** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:31 pm

subarursliberty wrote:There is a guy in Newcastle that will listen and tell you exactly what he wants you to do. He's a good guy but I have heard some funny ones about him.

There is also someone on the central coast I have heard about that alot of Newcastle guys go to. I have never talked to him though and wouldn't know where to start looking for him.

With the arms just tell him there XT6 items. He'll never know.

You're doing an extremely similar conversion to me.
My main concern is getting the 5 stud & rear handbrake engineered.
The rest is fairly straight forward.
Maybe we could organise a group trip to one of these blokes with our loads of parts & ideas to find out what is/isn't do-able?

subarursliberty · Post by **subarursliberty** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 8:04 am

I would love to but i'm in no real position to really help atm. Busted gearbox needs fixing in the RS and the only parts I have are the RS rear brakes atm. Also my garage is sort of packed up atm for a move but not hard to get parts. I have seen the engineer about it but with no parts. By all means let me know if you need some help though. I'm only to happy to.

There's 3 ways around the rear hub. Most important is to keep the ring on the hub for the wheel to slide over. This ring is what the wheel rides on, not the studs.

1. Try and adapt the rear lib hub by making new rear axle pieces with a new splines cut. This is what I will be looking at when I get some more cash. I will prob get the parts and go nope wont work.

2. Start from scratch and make a totally new hub, like our mate we have lost contact with due to the forumns dropping out.

3. Get some XT6 hubs and see if we can fit the RS rear brakes.

Hubs that are welded and pinned are illegal in NSW. No if's or butt's. Its illegal to weld and pin axles and hubs full stop. So you can't cut the spline out of you drum and fit it into the lib hub.

wagonist · Post by **wagonist** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:40 pm

I've got parts, just need to organise something.

1. I prefer the way my car has been done with the L series drum machined down, though there's no locating ring for the rim or the disc (do L series rear drums have that anyway? Maybe I have to get something welded on & then machined back down for that task. (though reading your after thought that won't work)

2. $$$$$$$

3. Won't work. XT6 still has front handbrake so there's no provision for the rear one on the backing plate.

The hub & stub axle aren't welded on my system.
The L series drum is machined down so that it fits inside the Lib rotor.
I need to figure out a way to get the Lib backing plate onto the L series arm. This is where I think I need to weld, & why I need to talk to an engineer.

I get my licence back next week. I'll come up to see you & we'll nut out a few possibilities maybe.
PM me some contact details & I'll get in touch.

subarursliberty · Post by **subarursliberty** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:44 pm

Yeah I like the way yours was done. I thought about it for some time then relised the locating ring's not there. There is no rear ring on the drum but there is 4 lugs cast into it to centre the wheel. Because the centre hole of the L is much larger than the lib they were machined off yours. What ever happens though I bet its going to cost dollars to do it properly and with my plans i'll just tear it a new arse if its not done right. $$$$ vs life I choose $$$$. I do hear where your coming from though and I hate it as much as you.

Have you go all the lib rear brakes including hubs etc. It would be good to have alook and see if what I planned was going to work. Its heaps cheaper to cut a spline on a shaft than in a hole.

Can you just use the XT6 hubs them self and make everything else work around the lib rear backing plates and disc and calipers?

wagonist · Post by **wagonist** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:50 pm

I was thinking aobut that too.
What I'm thinking of doing about it is this:

The L series drum is machine down so it fits snugly inside the EJ rear disc. Therefore the disc can't move.
This means that the centre hole of the disc also can't move.
I was thinking about getting machined up a piece that fits inside that hole but sits out further so its a locating point for the wheel. May even make it so its sandwiched between the rotor & the hub.

The biggest problem at the moment is that with the L series drum piece, plus the disc rotor on the outside, the wheel now sits quite a fair way out (level, or even slightly outside the guards).
If the modded L series drum can be modified at the inside end (not the wheel end) so that it slips further onto the spline, then this problem could be overcome & the spacer with locator fitted.

Hey presto, no welding. Lot of machining though

, but less than the one form WA you mentioned.

stamp_licker · Post by **stamp_licker** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 8:29 pm

a little birdie told me that you can get new hubs machined for around $300 to $400 a rear set.the other idea with the spigot welded on etc = welding.is it possible to bolt the spigot on via threads tapped into it.i've had a full set of lib brakes sitting on my bench for a year and am still stracthing my head.

Ben · Post by **Ben** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:19 pm

Don't do the machined L drum method, there isn't enough cast iron in there to be safe.

Best way is to get a hub made with a new backing plate and a KH laser rear caliper, using Lib rear disc.

A spigot bolted onto the hub is weaker than locating the wheels via the studs. Again, the best way is the custom rear hub. If you ever saw a XT6 hub you'll understand just how basic a part this is. Can be made with the right offset to use a XT6 front disc on the rear too, and use an L series front caliper on the back.

wagonist · Post by **wagonist** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:22 pm

I'm curious how you can say there's not enough cast metal when its enough to support an L series wheel & brake?

Ben · Post by **Ben** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 8:09 am

wagonist wrote:I'm curious how you can say there's not enough cast metal when its enough to support an L series wheel & brake?

Measure the inside of the Lib drum where the hub will mate against, then compare that with a 100mm pcd - as you can see there is not much meat outside of the pcd for strength. Seeing as you are machining a significant portion of the L drum off you can no longer say it has the same inherent strength as an L drum.

Cast iron is like concrete, super strong in compression but weak as piss in tension, you are mounting the disc to a piece of cast iron via the studs which apply a tension load to the cast iron. In a drum this is ok due to the bulk involved in the drum.

Braking components in cars (excepting drums and discs) are made from machined cast steel, or machined aluminium billet (for want of a better word, it isn't actually billet - the greatest used misnomer in go fast auto bits) which is completely different to cast iron.

I have machined a drum down to make this work and have dummied it up. I was not happy with the amount of material left in the cast iron portion to support a car (corner weight may be only 300kg at rest, but can go much much higher at corner loading under a power on situation).

I would not want a subaru with a machined drum for the rear hub coming towards me on the highway.

wagonist · Post by **wagonist** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 10:01 am

Your are correct in that you are taking a lot of material off the edge of the drum.
But you are also removing a lot of the weight of the braking part of the drum (which is the thickest part)
The EJ disc also fits snugly around the hub as well, its not just sitting on the outside face.
To apply tension on the wheel studs, you do need the wheel to either part company or slowly move around (something that could happen if there is no centre ring)

Out of curiousity, what do you do for a living? You seem to display a lot of technical knowledge.

subarursliberty · Post by **subarursliberty** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:56 pm

To get away with the handbrake thing does any one know of a caliper that has the handbrake in it like the front l series caliper. It has to go over the RS vented rear caliper. I think its 18mm.