It's a...been a while.

With the Africa Twin entering my garage in early summer most of the last two seasons were spent riding rather than wrenching.  That has recently changed with the advent of the first few big snows of the winter to hit in the last couple weeks.

This past week I dug into the steering rack to find that the Quaife shorter gear kit didn't fit a power steering rack.  So I need a manual rack, no biggie.  Looked into that and realized that I need a manual rear engine subframe to go with the manual rack.  F.

So now Im in the process of tracking down a rear engine subframe.

Until I find that I'll be putting the engine together with the trans next week and getting everything as ready as possible so that once the subframe/rack go in I can get the rest finished quickly!

The great part out.

You want parts?  I'll give you parts.

Stripping out a rusty car is a lot of fun.  You don't have to worry about leaning on the fenders, throwing tools on the roof or generally anything you would normally worry yourself with when working on a car.

Took about 10h total with a friend helping.  Good times.

Photos of parts: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6fP58Ir8r9PSDdsVXBnMDlxeU0

6 on the floor.

I bought a manual transmission which was fortunately able to be shipped in this old beat up civic.

I brought up some RPF1s I got the weekend before and Caitlin and I drove back in whiteout conditions.  The motor is strong and the trans pretty smooth, but the car was rusted badly and the suspension had no life left in any part.  The car drove home...but it was a fight the whole way.  I'll be keeping the trans and manual parts for the swap but parting out the rest (minus the wheels).

Washed, waxed, put up for the winter.

The guys at Metro Hand Car Wash in Milwaukee did an awesome job with the wagon.  She's getting put up for the winter and parts will be added as they come in.

http://metrocarwashanddetailing.com/

B Series dreamin'

There was some hope for a while that a B2D kit still existed for the RT4WD community.  I can say for certain that all hope is lost.

To start...this is what a $100 B16A2 looks like:

With the cost being almost nothing I had planned on tracking down the fabled B2D kit which is an adapter and some brackets that allow a B Series motor to be connected to a D Series transmission.  I followed some threads which lead me to Swap Shop Racing in California.  Their site had H2B, D2B, F2B and a 'discontinued' B2D conversion kit.  I was hopeful in the fact that it was still listed on their site.

I called them up yesterday and they gave me the low down.  The original runs of the B2D were in essence 'prototypes'.  They used the D2B parts and modified them, there were about 5 made.  There are no CAD drawings, there are no spare parts, and the guys who worked at Evolution motorsports (the place where all the conversion kits are made) who did those first kits don't work there anymore.  He said even if I offered them double or triple they wouldn't want to do it simply because they likely wouldn't ever sell another one.

At $1200 for the initial kit I understand why.

Whelp...back to a turbo D series.  :)

The final parts check.

With the last of the parts arriving this weekend I finally have a full list of things to do over the winter.  I might add a couple of other things as the winter progresses, but we will see how that goes.

The last piece to arrive:

Quaife quick ratio rack & pinion.  Took a while to track that one down.  Steering will drop from 4.25 turns lock to lock down to 2.85, about a 30% reduction in steering.  I did take out out for one ride in the snow...had to.  It's a great car to drive when the AWD is engaging.  The rear end is predictable and sliding was easy with small oversteer corrections to get it back in line.  Just needs more power!  

This week I'll be putting him up on jacks, spraying the chassis down and starting on getting some new parts on the car.

Winter project parts V2.

D16Z6 bare block.  Shortly on it's way to Benson's for a sleeve job.