Leon Promet wrote:

Hi Guys,

Funny you should mention this.  Done quite a few of these conversions
myself over the years. Really wakes them up!  I've also put a lot of
rotaries into VWs as well.  Transforms the car from horizontally opposed
mass folly to something more like a car.  Used to sell adaptor plates for
them,  and I raced a Baja Bug with a 13B mild port many years ago.  Ever
driven a 135 MPH Beetle down a dirt track next to a fence line??
 Interesting to say the least!!

The major problem in doing a  Rotary  "right hook" conversion on a Subaru
is that the steering shaft fouls the exhaust system,  a problem not present
in "left hook" cars you have over there.  So it becomes a MAJOR engineering
exercise.  Possible to do,  but until the WRX craze, only the guys with the
Brumby Ute (that's OZ for Pick Up) seemed to be interested.  Trouble is,
the gearboxes were fragile,  and it wasn't a commercial proposition anyway,
(nobody could afford to pay me properly for my time)  so I stopped 
bothering.

I think I mentioned some time ago that I intend to do a "Plugs Up"
installation in some sort of later model Subaru to see if there really ARE
any dire consequences from running in this attitude before I stick one in
an airframe..  Probably do it in a Forester (the off road wagon style
thingy, ... I don't know what they call them over your way).

The "Plugs Up" config would make the installation a snack as I can run the
exhaust out the left hand side of the engine bay,  without having the major
dramas of clearing the steering shaft on the right hand side.  Reckon I can
make the sucker street legal over here too!.

A nice 300 BHP 13B turbo in one of these would cause a lot of the current
WRX "boy racers" to choke on their Dare (a brand of flavoured milk popular
with the WRX set over here!).  When you start trying to screw a lot of
neddies out of the Subaru,  it gets REAL expensive to buy all the hot bits.
 The only weak link in the whole equation is the tranny shaft,  but one of
the local Subaru Guru's here reckons he has got a fix for that.

Cheers,

Leon Promet

 
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